Top French Internet service providers are reportedly agreeing to crack down on Netizens illegally downloading music online, agreeing to pull the plug on the actual or alleged pirates while cooperating more in copyright prosecutions.
Reports emerging July 28 indicated Free, Noos, Club-Internet, Wanadoo, and Tiscali France agreed to a government-supported charter standing against swapping copyrighted materials illegally, in what the French government hopes will preclude having to pass laws like the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
That law, among other things, holds ISPs financially liable if they don't pull at once copyrighted material their subscribers post when asked to pull it.
However, the French ISPs are not likely to just cut off such users' Internet accounts altogether. Club-Internet chief executive Chrtine Levet, who is also the head of the French Association of Internet Service Providers, insisted companies like hers would cut subscriptions only on a judge's order.
But the government charter calls on the copyright holders to step up their action, too, especially urging them to launch and publicize targeted civil and criminal court action against online pirate by year's end, according to one of the reports.
