Sarkozy Routes Around Parliament, Ditches Net Neutrality, Forces Copyright Clauses Into All ISP Terms Of Service

from the but-of-course dept

This is hardly a surprise, given that the Sarkozy administration appears to believe that copyright is more important than all other human rights but apparently, as part of a telecom bill in France, the administration added a clause that forces all French ISPs to have clauses concerning copyright infringement in their terms of service, which also force ISPs to ignore some basic principles of net neutrality. What's interesting here is that Sarkozy didn't even go through Parliament to do this, but rather made use of some process called "transposition" that allowed him to add certain clauses to the Telecoms Act, outside of the Parliamentary process.

Over the summer, the French government has published its transposition of the Telecoms Package. The Sarkozy regime has used a controversial manipulation of the legislative process to get the transposition into law without going through the French Parliament. It includes provisions which contradict the French government’s stated objective of protecting net neutrality. Moreover, it includes a copyright obligation on ISPs to support France’s 3-strikes law.

Sarkozy even ignored the government's advisory committee on the digital economy, which explicitly came out against some of the provisions that were added. Of major concern is the fact that the required terminology being forced into ISP contracts, says that ISPs will restrict certain services for those accused of infringement. As the article notes, this could include things like blocking Skype, something that would go against basic net neutrality principles, which the French Parliament has said it supports. So, in yet another effort to put draconian copyright law ahead of all else, it looks like Sarkozy has routed completely around Parliament, slipped some extra rules into a Telecoms Package, and in the process made it clear that France officially has no respect for the principles of net neutrality.

Filed Under: broadband, copyright, france, hadopi, net neutrality, nicolas sarkozy, three strikes