HADOPI Copyright Law To Get New Set Of Teeth With Additional Law

The Sarkozy government will implement a law aimed at promoting legal online downloading in the coming months despite being prevented from cutting off the internet access of alleged three-time offenders, according to official sources. Meanwhile, the government has already begun preparing a new law that would restore penalties this time decided by a judge rather than by the newly created HADOPI commission. This would conform to a constitutional ruling on the HADOPI law.

French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said in a 12 June press release that the high-level authority for the diffusion of works and the protection of rights on the internet (HADOPI) would now only be in charge of the prevention of piracy and promotion of legal downloading.

But a new law, completing the HADOPI law and entrusting a judge with the power to temporarily suspend the internet access of alleged infringers, will be presented to the council of ministers before the end of June, she said. The draft law would then be on the agenda of the extraordinary session of the Parliament in July.

Albanel also said that as a result, the full “graduated response” mechanism is expected to be set into place in September and that the first emails and registered letters to alleged infringers would be sent in the autumn. The graduated response, or three-strikes policy, would impose penalties on users after three alleged infringements.

The government’s persistence comes after the French Constitutional Council, which reviewed the constitutionality of the law upon request, on 10 June censored two paragraphs of the so-called HADOPI law which would have instituted a graduated response for alleged copyright infringers on the internet, with a possible service suspension from two months to one year (IPW, Copyright Policy, 11 June 2009).

The Constitutional Council found that paragraphs 5 and 11 of the law went against the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789, because it did not guarantee the freedom of communication and expression, and did not allow for the presumption of innocence, as provided for in the Declaration.

Article 5 empowered the HADOPI Commission to take direct action against users for alleged infringement, rather than putting their case before a judge. Article 11 is related to the responsibility for internet access in infringement cases.

On 13 June, the law numbered 2009-669 and legally dated 12 June, with the mention of the censored paragraphs, was published in the French Journal Officiel (in French), promulgating it.