Is France destined to get its three-strikes disconnection bill, in one form or another?
The last two tries have been failures, though another attempt has now passed both chambers of Parliament. But this time around, legislators were forced to modify the terms of their proposed law, thanks to an earlier rejection on constitutional grounds.
The earlier, harsher version of the bill was blocked by the French Constitutional Council, based on a lack of due process. In the modified reattempt, a judge would be involved, though disconnections could be fast-tracked and batch-processed to give the measure some bite. The streamlined process would actually suspend connections, for as much as one year, even if the owner of the line was unaware of the violations (for example, because of third-party file-sharing on a WiFi account).
So, how close to law is this? The new bill, dubbed ‘HADOPI 2’, just passed the National Assembly by a 285-225 vote. The Senate has already approved the measure, though some constitutional challenges could remain.