HADOPI 2: Internet disconnections are effective in France

The law for the protection of copyrighted works on the Internet (Hadopi 2) passed the Conseil Constitutionnelle second scrutiny. The most relevant news is the exclusive attribution to the court's decision of the disconnection from the Internet after the second warning. The special authority created to monitor the phenomenon of the file-sharing (Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet) will only be responsible for reporting violations and won’t be allowed to intervene directly on the user. Among other key points on which the Constitutional was requested to take position there were the legality assessment of the abbreviated procedure in case of copyright infringement and the proportionality of the sanction in relation to the violation. The Court has clarified that the sanctions and the amount of damages have to be set by law and not to be evaluated on a case by case basis during the interim proceedings. The second constitutionality screening has left intact the spirit of the law, giving full support to the so-called Sarkozy doctrine.


10/30/2009 | Internet