How many strikes will Frances HADOPI hree strikes law get?
If only the French government had had this much determination against the Nazis. The French Senate last week once again passed a version of the HADOPI online copyright infringement bill, this time adding a step after the three accusations in which a judge may choose among three penalties: a ban from the Net, a two-year prison sentence, or a $415,000 fine. Those accused of “allowing” illegal downloading — if a third party used their connection to do so — would face a $2,075 fine or a month’s cutoff from the Net. HADOPI has been championed by French president Nicolas Sarkozy (and his wife, Carla Bruni) and has been supported by Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP party. The UMP party has a higher proportional representation in the French Senate than it does in the lower-house National Assembly. One supposes that the shift — the final cutoff decision previously rested with the newly formed HADOPI agency that gave the bill its nickname — would both denature the nickname and give the bill better t
