France’s President Sarkozy is keen on forcing French ISPs to adopt a ‘three strikes’ policy, similar to the one being mooted over here by the BPI. Old Sarko believes “there is no reason that the internet should be a lawless zone,” and is pushing for legislation that will see persistent offenders blacklisted after two warnings and denied access to the net for up to a year.
Sarkozy, who has just ascended to the European presidency, is reportedly pushing for this legislation to cover all of Europe, a move which has prompted angry responses from action groups, who fear that the move will lead to intrusive surveillance of users’ browsing histories and invasions of privacy.
Meanwhile, back here in the UK, the BPI spent much of last week scribbling off angry letters to some 800 Virgin Media customers, some of whom may have been entirely innocent of file sharing. The envelopes came emblazoned with a stentorian: “Important. If you don’t read this, your broadband could be disconnected.”
Virgin publicly apologised on Radio 1, saying that the letters were part of an educational campaign, and not intended as any kind of threat. BT have also begun threatening subscribers with disconnection if it turns out that copyrighted material is being distributed over one of their connections.
Virgin who have been the most eager to climb into bed with the BPI and the government on this issue, with BT following closely behind. Of the remaining ISP owners, only Carphone Warehouse have publicly refused to play ball with the BPI, everyone else has remained virtually silent on the issue.
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