'UK needs France's piracy law'

Industry calls on Government to copy French PM Sarkozy’s strongarm approach to illegal downloading
The UK’s anti-piracy laws are feeble and place the game industry in grave danger of further closures and economic damage.
That was the opinion of some of the games industry’s most notable figures this week, as the domestic trade called on the Government to emulate France’s new legal clampdown on illegal downloaders.
The French bill, passed into draft law last week, will see illegal downloaders of games, music and movies sent two warnings, first by email and then by recorded delivery.
Following these cautions, the offender’s details will be passed to a judge – who has the power to cut off internet access and issue heavy fines or even prison sentences.
The UK Government is working with internet service providers on plans to bring in a similar ‘three strikes’ approach – but has so far avoided mention of court action.

“Nintendo applauds France for approving this legislation,” Nintendo’s European anti-piracy boss Neil Boyd told MCV. “We hope that other Member States will see this as an example of a country attempting to significantly reduce illegal file sharing and recognising the important collaborative role that ISPs can play in doing so.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...ces-piracy-law

hmm tell em to bollox comes to mind

I saw the news about a uk isp that cancelled a womans service because they say she downloaded a single film but she says she had no knowledge of it so there must already be some legal powers, people will end up wasting time going to court proving they downloading a backup of a title they already own, and it'll end up like speeding tickets guilty until proven innocent.

i'm from France and i just want to add that the "illegal downloaders" are denounced by private actors working for the entertainment industries (music, video, game ...) and if you want to prove your innocence (if you are) you must buy and install a spy on your PC (if your PC is too old or your OS not suported then i imagine that you need to change it)

but better is comming, LOPPSI, who will filter the web ...

Proxies and vpn will become essential in France for have little privacy :(

You can go here, if you want more info


sorry for my bad english

Any software on pc can be bypassed to let you download so that is useless, and in the UK we have a lot of campaigns to get people to share their internet with open access points, so who gets convicted for illegal downloads there? France always wants to be first at things but history's shown they rush into it and make a lot of mistakes.

peh. Seems to me that you pirates are for it. Also lot of licences are only for the single individual copy, so even the supposedly legal "Backups" are going down.