French ISPs To Pull Plug On File-Sharers

France is to set up a new Internet authority with powers to suspend or cut access to the web for those who illegally file-share, under an agreement.

A memorandum of understanding between music and film producers, Internet service providers and the government was signed in the Elysee Palace in the presence of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said it was a "decisive moment for the future of a civilised Internet".

Service providers will co-operate in identifying illegal file-sharers who will be issued with first a warning and then the threat of a suspension or termination of their contract.

In order to encourage the legal supply of cultural wares on the Internet, producers undertook at the same time to remove some blocking mechanisms on the web and to shorten the time between a film’s release and its on-line availability.

In London the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (Ifpi), which represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide, praised the initiative as a major step forward against on-line piracy.

"This is the single most important initiative to help win the war on online piracy that we have seen so far. President Sarkozy has shown leadership and vision.

’He has recognised the importance that the creative industries play in contemporary western economies," said IFPI chairman John Kennedy.

The agreement was reached by a special committee on the Internet and cultural protection set up by Sarkozy and chaired by Denis Olivennes, president of the French media goods chain FNAC.

"The challenge is clear. If we let piracy keep developing, we threaten the cultural diversity of our country and of the world. But if we over-suppress, it is ineffective," Olivennes told Le Monde newspaper.

He said that France had become a "paradise for piracy, with all the risks that means for our creative environment.... In France we pirate twice as much as Germany, three times as much as Britain, and five times as much as the United States."

Olivennes said that existing sanctions - including a maximum 300,000 euro fine and five years in jail - were fine for "industrial" defrauders, but "totally disproportionate for dissuading my children or yours from copying a few hundred songs for themselves and their friends."