I have written a briefing paper on the French Creation and Internet law (Project de Loi favorisant la diffusion et la protection de la creation sur l’Internet).

Called The French law on Creation and Internet – contracting for surveillance it asks the question whether the new law will usher in a new era of electronic surveillance. This is the law which will support graduated response / 3 strikes measures. The paper  summarises the key elements of th law. Peer-to-peer downloads and user-generated content sites will be monitored for potential breaches of copyright - this is self-evident, it is the only way that the rights-holders can collect the evidence. Web surfing records will have to be trawled to link the user to the alleged infringing content - again, this is the only way it can be done. And people at home will have to have a form of self-imposed surveillance, in order to stay within the law, although it is not yet totally clear how this is envisaged to operate. But it will all be in their contract with their Internet Service Provider - and although not well understood, the contract is the mechanism for implementing  the law.

You can read the paper by downloading it here.

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