Big tech accountability? Read how we got here in The Closing of the Net
3-strikes law is passed by the French Parliament in late night session. Opposition arguments failed to change its course, and alternative sanctions were squashed. 1000 people a day are expected to be cut off the Internet under the new law.
At around 11pm last night, the French Assemblee Nationale voted in favour of the Creation and Internet law . This is the law that will bring in graduated response or 3-strikes measures to clamp down on peer-to-peer filesharing and the uploading of music and television videos onto websites such as You Tube. According to French news reports, only 16 Parliamentarians were present for the vote, which
came after five full days, and around 40 hours of debate, split over two sessions in March and April.
The opposition put up a good fight, and indeed, I was watching some of the debate on a webcast, and they were well versed in the arguments against the law. They questioned the Minister, Christine Albanel, and her young malerapporteur, Franck Riester, in great technical detail. They questioned the principles of sanctioning users for downloading, as well as the functioning of the Hadopi - the public authority which is supposed to oversee the law. The argued that the law is unworkable, and that users will get around it, in spite of the excessive controls that have been built into it. The Hadopi is expected to order 10000 emails, 3000 registered letters and 1000 people to be cut off the Internet, every day. The transmission of the emails and the letters will be carried out by the Internet service providers ( broadband providers), who will also be responsible for cutting off their own customers.
Read the report in Liberation.
Click here for the text of the Creation and Internet law , as voted, (French only)."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
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In 2012, I presented my PhD research in the European Parliament.
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 am on the Advisory Council of the Open Rights Group. 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. For more, see About Iptegrity
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