Score one for the movie and music industries in their perpetual fight to punish file-sharers: the entire country of France will police the Internet usage of its citizens in order to stamp out casual consumption of unauthorized intellectual property. Based on a deal among ISPs, record companies, filmmakers and government, service providers will monitor their customers' Internet activities and report to the government any suspicious downloads.
Users caught downloading unauthorized content will receive warnings and if those don't work, they'll get kicked off the Internet. A new arm of the government, headed by a judge, will be created to oversee the warnings-disconnection process.
In endorsing this scary regime, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had this to say about the new pact, which was developed under the auspices of a special commission chaired by the CEO of FNAC, France's biggest retailers of music and films:
We run the risk of witnessing a genuine destruction of culture...The Internet must not become a high-tech Far West, a lawless zone where outlaws can pillage works with abandon or, worse, trade in them in total impunity. And on whose backs? On artists' backs.
Oh brother. Is that what this new web snooping-snitching authority will do? Protect culture? Help artists? Only in France could movie and record companies couch such an intrusive, backward system as one that would "protect culture."
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:23 AM | Print | Comments (1)
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