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European parliament drops three-strike block
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 26 October 2009
Efforts in the European Parliament designed to hinder the three-strikes system have been dropped. As previously reported, there had been moves to amend new Europe-wide telecom rules so that disconnecting the net access of persistent file-sharers would be illegal. However, that amendment has been dropped, seemingly in response to pressure from those European governments actively considering a three-strikes system for combating piracy and, no doubt, the major content owners.
As previously reported, the French government has successfully got its pretty draconian three-strikes system through the lawmaking process, meaning those French net users who continue to access and share unlicensed content despite warnings could see their internet access cut off as soon as next Spring. Proposals for a slightly less draconian version of three-strikes (leading to net suspensions, rather than disconnections) are being considered by the UK government. Germany may also follow suit.
The European Parliament amendment designed to hinder the three-strikes programme read: “Any such measures liable to restrict those fundamental rights [of net access] may only be taken in exceptional circumstances…and shall be subject to adequate procedural safeguards in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights… including effective judicial protection and due process”.
Although the amendment was designed to prevent EU governments from adopting three-strikes, because the albeit revised French system involves a judicial stage, arguably the new law there would not have conflicted with this European legislation. Ditto the proposed UK system. However, the potential for conflict has been removed with the dropping of the amendment.
Whether this now means a number of other European countries will consider and introduce three-strikes remains to be seen, it may depend on how successful and problem free the system proves to be, or not, in France. As many even in the music business are cynical about the impact three-strikes will really have – many online pirates have found other ways to illegally share music that is harder to detect, while many others now file-share offline from device to device – some governments may decide it’s not worth the negative publicity that comes with introducing such legislation.
Then again, the growth of more compelling legit digital music services, coupled with the fact online piracy is getting harder to detect, might make three-strikes seem a lot more successful than it really has been.
