French court rejects third strike

The push to remove repeat illegal file sharers from the Internet has stopped at a French high court.

Free access to "public communication services online," the French Constitutional Council ruled, is a fundamental right, and only the courts should have the power to take it away. The decision jeopardizes France’s so-called "three strikes" law, which would cut off Internet access for anyone who was found pirating copyrighted material on three or more occasions.

The law would have created a government agency called HADOPI, whose job would entail sending notices to illegal file sharers, followed by two months to one year of suspended Internet access on the third offense. Other Internet service providers would then blacklist the offender from their service.

France is among the most willing to involve ISPs in the enforcement of copyright protection. The European Parliament prohibits union countries from shutting down Internet without a court order. In the US, no service provider has stepped forward to support the Recording Industry Association of America in any capacity other than sending out notices.

A recent survey shows that sending out letters isn’t enough to stop pirates. Since shutting down Internet access is really the only way for ISPs to punish file sharers, the French three-strikes law seems completely neutered.