(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
Under the patronage of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, an agreement was signed on 23 November 2007 between some French ISPs and the music and movie representatives in order to act directly against the big illegal file-sharers. These could be warned in the first stage and then their connection could be even cut-off..
The agreement was struck under the supervision of the Olivennes Commission, named after its chairman Denis Olivennes who is also the President-Director General of FNAC, the largest French retailer of cultural and consumer electronics products. According to this convention and as already announced by EDRI-gram one month ago, the French ISPs will spy on their users to see if they are big file-sharers. Those who are identified could get first a formal warning, but then they could be even cut-off or suspended. The agreement foresees also the possibility to have a national register of the subscribers that were suspended, but it is doubtful that such a register will be accepted by the French Data Protection Authority - CNIL.
As a "compensation", the movie industry has agreed to release the DVD movies just six months after the cinema run and the music industry to offer DRM-free songs for legal download.
But the agreement is not applicable yet, since there is no authority created to apply the agreement. The present authority created by the DADVSI law for the regulation of DRMs and other technical measures does not have attributions in these sense.
The administrative sanctions could be applied also to the ISPs that didn't sign the agreement if they don't collaborate with the new authority.
Another problem of the new agreement is the open support to the filtering technologies, that should be "tested" by the ISPs for maximum 2 years and then implemented if they are "realistic from a financial and technical point of view."
Nicolas Sarkozy used the opportunity to boast himself fro having respected his presidential campaign commitments, and to first make such a type of agreement in France, considering it as the "future of a civilised internet."
The deal was praised by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) that consider it as the single most important initiative to help win the war on online piracy that we have seen so far."
But colleagues of Mr. Sarkozy from the same party, such as Marc Le Fur and Alain Suguenot, argued against it because it "creates a truly exceptional jurisdiction for downloaders, contravening the principle of equality before the law". Even the chair of the commission, Denis Olivennes, admitted that the current penalties were "totally disproportionate" for those young people who could be engaged in illegal file-sharing.
French consumer NGO UFC Que Choisir described the agreement as "very tough, potentially destructive of freedom, anti-economic and against digital history".
A response to the agreement was seen a few days later, when several major web 2.0 actors such as AOL, Dailymotion, Google, PriceMinister and Yahoo announced the creation of a French NGO called Association of Community Internet Services ( L'Association des services internet communautaires - ASIC) that wants to present the "opportunities that the web 2.0 offers for the French economy and culture."
Unfortunately, the French bad example was quickly picked up and used in other countries as a positive example. As EDRI-member Open Rights Group reports, during an event in UK last week organised by the Social Market Foundation with the title "Intellectual Property Rights and Consumer Rights", the minister responsible for UK-Intellectual Property Office spoke of the need for balance in reforming Britain intellectual property regulation but the Government's actions do not yet evidence this commitment.
Richard Mollett from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) flagged moves towards a voluntary agreement between the BPI and ISPs to reduce copyright-infringing traffic, similar to French model. He expects "an initial warning from the ISP that infringing traffic is associated with a particular account will halt 75% of infringers. If suspicious activity continues then account suspension is the next step, before the final sanction of account termination." But "(...) fortunately this point was recognised by all parties to the discussion, cutting off internet access is very much the 'nuclear option'."
In the US, the Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Dan Glickman confirmed this trend at a UBS AG media conference in New York, stating that: "Within the next few years all the major ISPs will be much more aggressive monitoring for people who use their Internet connections" for illegal file-sharing,
Agreement for the development and protection of cultural works and programs
in the new networks (only in French, 23.11.2007)
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/index-olivennes231107.ht...
Mission assigned to Denis Olivennes in the fight against illegal downloading
and the drafting of legal offers of music, audiovisual and cinema works
(only in French, 23.11.2007)
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/index-olivennes231107.ht...
France unveils anti-piracy plan (23.11.2007)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7110024.stm
French record industry, ISPs in entente to boot off file-sharers
(23.11.2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/23/france_isps_record/
Olivennes Agreement: Ratiatum decripts the measures - item by item (only in
French, 26.11.2007)
http://www.ratiatum.com/news6105_Accord_Olivennes_Ratiatum_decrypte_po...
AOL, Dailymotion, Google, Yahoo and PriceMinister are organizing to defend
their position (only in French, 3.12.2007)
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39376103,00.htm?xto...
"3 steps and you're terminated" (2.12.2007)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2007/12/02/3-steps-and-youre-terminated...
ISPs to monitor Piracy (5.12.2007)
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12052007/business/isps_to_monitor_piracy_2...
EDRI-gram: French ruling against video-sharing platform DailyMotion
(18.07.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.14/dailymotion-decision
EDRI-gram: French ISPs agree to spy on Internet users to stop online piracy
(10.10.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.19/french-isp-piracy