French piracy laws hit stumbling block

A French law aimed at curbing pirates from downloading material illegally from the internet has hit another stumbling block.

France's most powerful court has struck down a key provision of the law which would allow officials to terminate the web access of pirates.

Under the law, passed in parliament last month, officials are empowered to limit internet access.

However, the Constitutional Council ruled that only a judge could bar people from the web, describing access to online services as a human right.

Under the French law, people who repeatedly download illegally would be first warned about their activity by email, then by letter and if they do not desist they could have their service cut off.

In the UK, the music industry is calling on the government to adopt a similar scheme, but Andy Burnham MP, until recently Media Secretary, all but ruled out such action, favouring slowing down internet access instead of kicking pirates off the web.

A recent report found that a letter-writing campaign is highly unlikely to deter the vast majority of people who download illegally.

Digital music analyst Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research said the drawn-out legal and parliamentary processes of developing laws to deal with the internet were too slow.

"By the time this bill has cleared the successive challenges of domestic legislature, domestic courts, European legislature, European courts the very nature of online piracy is likely to have morphed to such a degree that the provisions could be left looking hopelessly outdated and insufficient," said Mulligan.