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Hadopi: le Titanic a Coulé!

'Sensational' is a mild word. Conservatives stayed at home to not break ranks.


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PARIS (Radsoft) -- The French Assemblée Nationale sensationally voted down the dreaded 'Hadopi' bill this afternoon. Le Monde wrote 'le Titanic a coulé'. It's been called a devastating personal defeat for Nicolas Sarkozy. It was totally unexpected.

Offline One Year

Hadopi - la Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet - threatened to take file sharers offline for repeated transgressions for a period of several months to one year - all the while they would be forced to continue to pay their connection bills.

The bill was also going to hold restaurants and cafés liable for file sharing taking place on their premises - they too would be disconnected for up to one year at a time.

The last moment move by the greedo IP lobby in Paris that pushed through the last minute change to also hold these open networks liable is probably what tipped things against them.

Almost no one showed up for the final vote.

6.2% Quorum

The French Assemblée Nationale normally seats 577 members. Given all are present 289 votes are needed to pass a bill. But today only 36 members were present. 21 voted against.

Don't Shout

Rick Falkvinge says people shouldn't get too giddy over the victory. 'But it was a very advanced form of civil disobedience and personal courage', he said. 'But the IP lobbyists have a strong foothold in France. So this is something we can only confront at European level. It's important we get people in the EU parliament who understand the issues.'

Falkvinge's Pirate Party are campaigning for parliamentary representation in the EU elections this coming October.

Europe has allowed itself to be swept along in a panic reaction to try to end all evil by increasing the level of surveillance and control over the entire population. We Europeans should know better. It is not twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and there are plenty of other horrific examples of surveillance gone wrong in Europe's modern history. The arguments for each step on the road to the surveillance state may sound ever so convincing.

But we Europeans know from experience where that road leads, and it is not somewhere we want to go. We must pull the emergency brake on the runaway train towards a society we do not want. Terrorists may attack the open society, but only governments can abolish it.
 - Pirate Party: Politics and Principles

See Also
Le Monde: Projet de loi Hadopi: le Titanic a Coulé
Pirate Party: Introduction to Politics and Principles
Rick Falkvinge: Frankrike Röstar Ner 'Three Strikes'

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