France may have voted for the measure, but European Parliament members are bitterly opposed to this form of “graduated response”. Last week in Strasbourg, they voted for a third time to write in to a telecoms reform bill a stipulation that any authorities wanting to disconnect ISP users must first seek a court order - if adopted, MEPs’ request could render France’s move illegal.

France has rejected Europe’s jurisdiction on its copyright enforcement throughout - its cultural industries felt threatened in recent years; TF1 filed €140 million suits against YouTube and Dailymotion in the last couple of years. The UK’s Digital Britain paper also advocates warning customers caught freeloading and some entertainment execs want the warnings backed up with the same three-strikes threat, but Lord Carter’s paper has not yet decided on enforcement that strong. Today the pro-consumer group Consumer Focus and the Internet Service Providers Association both voiced their opposition to a three-strikes law in the UK.

(Photo: chs_paris, some rights reserved)