Despite the negative ruling of the French Constitutional Council, the French government has decided to launch the HADOPI. Thus, this authority may use the first two levels of the graduated response:

• sending mails to supposed infringers
• sending registered letter for cease and desist in the event of second offence.

Of course, HADOPI will not be able to escalate to the last level: banishing from the Internet. For this last level, there were mainly two choices (if resuming the same repressive strategy):

• Ask a judge to pronounce the Internet banishment. This track would have been more time and money consuming.
• Define another penalty

The government has chosen this second strategy. It will propose new penalties for the infringers. I am not sure that it solves the second issue presented by the French constitutional Council, i.e., that HADOPI has to prove the guilt.

Until the penalties are defined (and approved by the Chambers), the French graduated riposte may not frighten many P2P sharers.

Thus, the story continues…

Last month, the French Chambers approved the law “Internet et Création”. This law defines the HADOPI that is the administrative authority to handle French graduated response.

About 60 deputies referred to the French Constitutional Council. Was the law constitutional? The council provided the answer today.

In short, the articles 5 and 11 are unconstitutional. There are mainly two reasons:

• The French declaration of Human Rights requires that the citizen has free speech rights. The Council estimates that today the Internet is one of the mandatory means of free speech. Only a judge can restrain this right and not an administrative authority.
• The French Constitution requires presumption of innocence. It means the court has to prove the guilt. The law inverted this principle. The Netsurfer had to prove his/her innocence. This is unconstitutional.

In view of these two points, the French Constitutional Council ruled that articles 5 and 11 were unconstitutional.

Thus, the story continues…

The French law “Création et Internet” has been approved by the two chambers. On Tuesday, the French deputies voted for the second time the law. This time it passed easily. The right wings deputies were massively present to vote yes (compared to the last presentation).
Yesterday, the senators approved the law. The French government can now launch the HADOPI. The HADOPI is the body that will manage the graduated riposte.

Is the story finished? Not sure. Last week European parliament approved the amendment 138 that requires a court decision to cancel the Internet connection. it is not yet sure that the modus operandi of HADOPI will respect the law. No doubts that the anti-HADOPI proponents will try to use this threat.

The story continues…

The story continues. Last week, it seemed that the law was in good shape. But the adventure continues.

Meanwhile, the “Commission Mixte Paritaire”, which has deputies and senators, rejected some amendments that annoyed the government. for instance, this commission decided that the customer should pay the full Internet subscription during the suspension.

Yesterday, the French National Assembly voted this new version of the law. About 40 députés were present (This lower house of the French parliament has 577 députés!) The result was 21 against the law and 15 for the law.

Is the law dead? No. The government can ask a second presentation of the law. It is already scheduled for the 28th April. No doubt, that the government will lobby its députés to avoid the same fiasco.