28 March 2012
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France
Suspension of Internet access envisaged to tackle Internet piracy
A report commissioned by the French Culture Ministry in September
to detail the findings of a "mission on combating illegal
downloading and for the development of legal offers of musical,
audiovisual and film works" was submitted to the government
on 23 November 2007.
It proposes to protect authorship rights through the setting
up of an independent administrative authority with powers to
cut off Internet access and suspend subscriptions to Internet
service providers' (ISPs) services for repeat offenders, if they
illegally download music or images.
Forty companies and associations active in the publishing and
film artists' and production sector, as well as major ISPs active
in France, signed up to the Olivennes report (named after Denis
Olivennes, its author and president/managing director of French
book and music department store giant Fnac), described by its
author as a system that is "dissuasive rather than repressive",
in response to the widespread practice of illegal downloading
of material subject to authorship rights, and to counter its
negative effects on music and film sales.
Opponents of the plan have responded by describing the initiative as a "repressive escalation" and as belying a "temptation of permanent surveillance of the Net, independently of any crime or judicial procedure".
Olivennes
report, 23.11.2007
Agreement between public authorities,
authorship rights holders in the audio-visual sector, television,
cinema and music, and ISPs and technical service providers
]
List of signatories
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