While key players from across the music industry welcome the new French laws, and increasingly hope the introduction of three-strikes there might persuade governments elsewhere that they too should introduce such a system, there is still strong opposition to the proposals in France itself, and around the world.
Torrentfreak report on a new survey by the French Institute Of Public Policy which claims that 60% of internet users in France are against the new laws, while 69% think they will fail in their bid to cut the amount of unlicensed content hosted and accessed on the world wide web.
The Institute surveyed just over a 1000 French net users, and found that just under half, 42%, were 'strongly against' the new laws. Perhaps unsurprisingly attitudes towards the new legislation varied according to the age of the respondent, though it was only in the 65 years plus category that more people were for than against the new laws. Though according to Torrentfreak, pessimism regarding the potential success rate of the new anti-piracy initiative was pretty high among all age groups.
It does remain to be seen how effective the three-strike system is in cutting illegal file-sharing overall.
Paranoia among those who oppose the system that thousands of innocent web-users will lose their net access is probably unjustified - while the record companies' monitoring of file-sharing is obviously not 100% accurate, the warning letter system should offer plenty of opportunities for appeal, and the government agency set up to administer the whole thing - an element sadly lacking from New Zealand's previously reported three-strike laws - should ensure such appeals are properly dealt with.
However, claims by the P2P-brigade that the increasing use of software that hides a user's file-sharing activity, and the growth of offline disk-to-disk file sharing, will hinder the effectiveness of three-strike in terms of stopping serious file-sharers from file-sharing, are probably well founded. Though a few high profile disconnections may be enough to stop casual file-sharers from accessing illegal content. And, for the record company execs, most of who do realise you can only reduce and never obliterate copyright theft, that may be enough to justify the hassle of lobbying for, introducing and administrating the three-strike system.