Piracy could have a new foe by the end of the week: the French government.
Lionel Laurent reports for Forbes :
Pirates sailing the online seas looking for downloadable plunder may have to put France at the bottom of their list this week, as politicians debate a radical new package of measures that would allow the government to cut off Internet access as punishment for illegal downloads.
If the new law is voted through on Thursday, file hunters indulging their appetite for illegal freebies may find themselves facing a "three-strike" system, in which the French government would issue two warnings before finally cutting off Internet access.
According to Agence France-Presse, final tweaks to the proposed measures on Tuesday included a minimum cutoff period of two months, as well as outlining the precise structure of the government body intended to monitor both legal and illegal content distribution on the Internet. Both chambers of parliament will vote on the bill Thursday.
Such a law would be a big boost for media companies like Vivendi as well as retailers with a stake in defending sales of compact discs and DVDs, such as PPR. Up until now, the media industry has had to devote its own money and manpower to go after file-sharing Web sites and their users--one example being the ongoing trial of the Swedish site "The Pirate Bay"--but the proposed law would see a government directly getting involved for the first time.
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