Tech policy & human rights
Big tech accountability? Read how we got here in The Closing of the Net
France
I wrote this in 2008 when this website was first set up and I was in my early days of researching this policy. In 2022, it seems little has changed. Policy is still trying to use mass surveillance to enforce against users. The arguments are similar. The difference is the scale.
Way back in 2008, the French government brought in a law for measures to enforce copyright, which was officially called the Creation and Internet law, but colloquially referred to as the Hadopi law ( loi Hadopi), and which was dubbed "3 strikes and you're out!" The idea was that warnings would be sent to thousands of users accused of copyright infringement (delivered by ISPs to their customers on behalf of the copyright owners) and penalties would include termination of Internet access. The proposals were first put forward by the 'Mission Olivennes', and commission headed by Denis Olivennes, former head of the French retail chain called the Fnac. The law passed through the French Parliament in 2009.
The Hadop was actually a government body charged with supervising the law. It was mandating changes to computer security software which effectively entail mass surveillance of Internet users. Those behind the measures were entertainment and music companies who own large libraries of copyright material. They sought to use online surveillance to look for users alleged to be downloading files without payment or permission.
My paper The French law on Creation and Internet – using contract law to squash file-sharing is available here.
If you like the articles in this section and you are interested in copyright enforcement policy and what happened to the Hadopi law, you may like my books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma - Internet Politics and the ‘Telecoms Package’
You may also like my book The Closing of the Net which positions the story of the Hadopi law in the wider policy context.
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More Articles...
- Lex Google: a private law for the French Internet?
- Will Lex Google guillotine the publishers?
- Hadopi budget to be slashed as French review 3-strikes
- Will President Hollande strike out Hadopi?
- Hadopi – has it massaged the numbers?
- France puts copyright in ISP contract
- France proposes industrial-scale content filtering
- Sarkozy wants Internet (blocking) talks at G8
- Hollywood's Hadopi lobbying outed in French embassy cables
Online Safety Bill: latest
- Online Safety Bill: does government want to snoop on your WhatsApps?
- What is content of democratic importance?
- Online Safety Bill: One rule for them and another for us
- Online Safety Bill - Freedom to interfere?
- Copyright-style website blocking orders slipped into Online Safety Bill
- £2 billion cost to British businesses for Online Safety Bill
- Online Safety Bill: Ministers to get unprecedented powers over speech
- What's the point of the Online Safety Bill?
IPtegrity commentary
- UK bulk intercept surveillance - court ruling calls for tighter safeguards
- Not a blank cheque: European Parliament consents to EU-UK Agreement
- Oversight Board Decision moves Facebook into human rights ambit
- UK border safety alert - mind the capability gap
- What? Will UK government ignore security as it walks away from EU?
- Britain unplugged: the security risk of no-deal
- Betting on a costly space race: MPs probe OneWeb satellite deal
- Disrupting supply chains: how leaving the Single Market means systemic breakdown
- Big tech and anti-trust: an ill-fitting suit?
- Schrems ruling puts a spoke in UK data flows from 2021
- Russia Report: how to balance social media and national security?
- Digital rights - why they matter in a time of coronavirus
- EU upload filter - Germany’s crucial deciding vote
- Copyright Directive upload filter - why EU Council should block it
- Data and Brexit – a mis-calculation?
- EU lawmakers seek to protect free speech in online content rules
- How Brexit rips up business models Part 2: visas for money and music
Published work
- Algorithms Patrolling Content: Where’s the Harm?
- Content responsibility: The looming cloud of uncertainty for Internet intermediaries
- Freedom of Expression, Human Rights Standards and Private Online Censorship
- The Policy Challenge Of Content Restrictions: How Private Actors Engage The Duties Of States
- Internet Policy Review - The Aereo dilemma and copyright in the cloud
My Linked In profileIptegrity in brief
Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten. I’ve been analysing analysing digital policy since 2008. Way back then, I identified how issues around rights can influence Internet policy, and that has been a thread throughout all of my research. I hold a PhD in EU Communications Policy from the University of Westminster (2010), and a Post-graduate diploma in marketing. I’ve served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe Committee on Internet Freedoms, and was involved in a capacity building project in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. I am currently (from June 2022) Policy Manager - Freedom of Expression, with the Open Rights Group. For more, see About Iptegrity
Speaking engagements
Iptegrity.com is made available free of charge for non-commercial use, Please link-back & attribute Monica Horten. Thank you for respecting this.
Contact me to use iptegrity content for commercial purposes
States v the 'Net?
Read The Closing of the Net, by me, Monica Horten.
"original and valuable" Times higher Education
" essential read for anyone interested in understanding the forces at play behind the web." ITSecurity.co.uk
Find out more about the book here The Closing of the Net
FROM £15.99
In 2012, I presented my PhD research in the European Parliament.
The politics of copyright
A Copyright Masquerade - How corporate lobbying threatens online freedoms
'timely and provocative' Entertainment Law Review
