HADOPI: an absurd measure?

Nearly half of daily internet surfers admit they download films and music illegally, a poll has revealed before the starting of a debate to change the law on internet piracy. Music remains the most popular (27% admitted illegally downloading albums and tracks), followed by films (19%), TV series (8%) and games (6%) – according to the TNS Sofres poll for the newspaper Metro.

The National Assembly is set to debate a law which would allow companies to suspend the connections of internet users accused of illegal downloads. The law, which has already been passed by the Senate, is being put forward by the minister for culture, Christine Albanel. "Internet piracy is a plague which will kill French creativity," said the head of the UMP in the National Assembly, Jean-François Copé.
It involves establishing a body, the Haute Autorité, pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet (Hadopi) which will have the power to disconnect customers.

Opposition Socialist Party MPs have said they will vote against the proposal on the grounds of civil liberties and the establishment of internet surveillance to monitor potential suspects. Some MPs of the governing UMP party and the centrist Modem party have also said they will vote against it.

The law to combat internet piracy, including disconnecting users caught downloading films and music illegally, has returned to the National Assembly. The Loi Hadopi was thrown out in a surprise vote by a near-empty assembly on April 9. Many of the MPs had already left for the Easter holidays. The government is pushing for a quick return for the law as it wants to put it into practice ahead of an EU measure that would make an internet connection an automatic right.

Threatening to temporarily disconnect users after two warning letters is part of a graduated response to internet piracy that the French government wants to demonstrate can be effective against illegal downloading. The Socialist Party has said it will vote against the “politically dead” text which a spokesman described as “the Maginot line, already breached and inefficient”.

Several problems have been outlined with the law:

1. The possibility that the body set up to monitor illegal downloads, the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet (Hadopi), will be overwhelmed.
2. Whether users should be charged for their internet connection if cut off.
3. That many internet providers’ deals are wrapped up with telephone and TV supplies and there is no way of separating them.
4. That the current law which threatens internet piracy with a three-year prison term and €300,000 has still yet to be abolished.
5. That it can be impossible to determine the culprit over shared connections.
6. That internet connections can be hijacked and used by others without the user knowing.