New french internet laws

[Iron Zombius]

Some of the world's toughest laws to fight internet piracy have come in to effect in France.

The laws were passed after a close vote in the French parliament and faced strong opposition from groups against internet restrictions.

A new agency has been created that will send warning letters to copyright violators.

Those who ignore two warnings risk being fined and or disconnected from their internet service.

Supporters of the law, including President Nicolas Sarkozy, say it is a model for other countries around the world that want to protect their creative industries and make clear to ordinary web users that not everything is free.

It is expected that 95 per cent of people who receive a second written warning will stop engaging in illegal internet downloads.

 

[Mark]

Or they'll simply find ways around it after getting their first letter

 

[Iron Zombius]

or buy an IP blocker....

 

[Goreripper]

Good luck. I'm behind seven proxies.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Being a hater of piracy, I like this news. Sure there will be ways around such things, but anything that can help should be welcomed by fans of and consumers of the creative industries.

 

[Southy]

I think for the general public, it is probably a little overboard, but we all know that 1 in a 100 ruin it for everybody by over doing it

 

[phlogiston]

That's pretty much nothing compared to the "Clean feed" that Australia's now implementing.

 

[Iron Zombius]

Not familiar with "clean feed" What is it and what does it involve?

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Anything that helps combat piracy but doesn't censor the sites I want to look at is welcomed from my end of the stick.

 

[Spiff]

Yep, I'm very much anti piracy and anti downloading of movies and all that, so I'm all for this.

 

[phlogiston]

The "clean feed" is where *all* australian Internet traffic is going to be filtered. It's meant to combat kiddie porn and ultra violence, but it's blocking all sorts of legitimate sites and it won't be long until it's extended to other stuff the government doesn't want you to see.

 

[phlogiston]

www.nocleanfeed.com

 

[Iron Zombius]

For anyone that is interested, the 4corners program on the ABC is doing a feature on the governments proposed internet filter tomorrow night, Monday 10/5/2010

Might be worth a look