The boss of globally focused record label trade body the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry reckons that the French government will find away to get around last week's Constitutional Council ruling on its proposals for a three-strike system to combat online piracy.
As previously reported, the French government wants to introduce a system whereby web users who continue to access or share unlicensed content online, after receiving two warnings that what they are doing infringes copyrights, would have their net connections cut off. A special government agency would administer the system, and have the right to order ISPs to disconnect repeat offenders.
Although the country's parliament passed the three-strike system into law (on second hearing), the country's supreme judicial body, the aforementioned Council, last week ruled it was unconstitutional to give a government agency the power to cut off copyright infringers. Only a court, the Council argued, should be allowed to order such a penalty. Moves are also afoot at a European level to pass a similar directive that would insist that a paid up user's internet connection could only be cut off if a court says so - ie not as a matter of course at the insistence of a non-judicial agency.
Speaking to Billboard, IFPI boss John Kennedy says the French government are already looking into the Council's ruling, and expect to find a way around it to allow the three-strike system to become law - most likely having a special court that sits on a regular basis where a judge basically rubber stamps disconnection orders issued by the aforementioned government body.
Kennedy: "We believe there will be a solution to this. The French government is looking to appoint a special judge to process three-strikes cases, as that would satisfy the requirements of the Constitutional Council. It will take some time, but there is still the determination on the part of the French government to make sure that this happens".