Hollywood’s bible, Variety magazine, always refers to France as Gaul, a “land of wine, baguettes and amour”. But America’s media industry may soon start taking France more seriously. The French government is trying to pass a harsh new law that would cut off internet access for people who download pirated music and films. Media bosses reckon other countries might follow suit.France’s proposed law would create a new government agency called HADOPI to police the internet on behalf of copyright owners. It would force internet-service providers (ISPs) to reveal the identities of users downloading copyrighted material, and would send them two warnings: the first by e-mail, the second by registered letter. If users continued to download such material, the ISP would cut off their broadband access for up to a year and put them on a blacklist to stop them subscribing elsewhere.
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13496729
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