Ever since DADVSI, the French implementation of the European Copyright Directive, Internet users in France have faced increasingly disproportionate threats of punishment for claims of copyright infringement. The latest scheme promoted by the content industry against unauthorized sharing of music and films on Internet is called "flexible response" or "three strikes, you're dead".

After studying the votes of the french MEPs, Squaring the Net analyzed the vote of the April 10, 2008 by country, crossed with the NRI index. It is obvious that the french graduated response project, initiated by Nicolas Sarkozy, was rejected by the countries the most able to adapt to the digital economy.

Paris, Thursday, April 10. The European Parliament adopted a resolution this morning which commits the member states - therefore France - "to avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access."[1] This vote proves that the system of graduated response that Nicolas Sarkozy wants France to adopt quickly and to extend to Europe during the French Presidency of the EU, is seen as contrary to human rights by a majority of MEPs.

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A new French citizens' lobbying group wants public debate on Internet-related regulation affecting human rights and freedoms, one of its organizers told us Friday. "Squaring the Net" (La quadrature du net) hopes to help spur a "societal movement which we feel is ready to develop," said Philippe Aigrain, director of the Society for Public Information Spaces.

The Italian authority for protection of personal data stated in a press release dated March 13, 2008, that private companies could not legally monitor peer to peer traffic to identify and prosecute users of these networks.

This position of the Italian follows the Peppermint case in which a German company had commissioned a Swiss company in order to raise the IPs of people making available copyrighted works on which it was the right holder.

The largest provider of Sweden has refused to comply to a request by the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) asking it to filter access to the torrent site The Pirate Bay.It should be recalled that the IFPI has launched a campaign some time ago to require Internet providers to filter access to P2P sites. This campaign successfully obtained a court order requiring TELE2 to block access to the famous site which features a pirate galleon as its emblem.

Permanent link: http://www.laquadrature.net/the-debate-is-open

Paris, March 26, 2008. While the Olivennes bill [0] aimed at building the "graduated response" must be voted before the summer in France, a group of citizens launched "Squaring the Net" to alert on this and other equally disturbing governmental projects, and to make alternative proposals.

Since the beginning of the year, the french government has announced various projects relating to Internet:

The French parliament will soon debate a draft law "about the High Authority for the dissemination of works and protection of the rights on the internet". The project incorporates the recommendations made by the then CEO of FNAC (biggest CD and DVD retail stores in France), Denis Olivennes. One of the key measures is to sanction a violation of copyright by cutting access to the Internet.