This week saw a landmark move by the French government which could see illegal file sharers, of music, and eventually movies, and television shows, to have their Internet connections severed, with no trial, and no right to reply.  

Users thought to be illegally sharing files will be booted from the Internet, with or without proof.  

It seems France is condoning a new deal between the RIAA and its Internet access providers without thought to the consequences this could have around the globe.

Davids Vs Goliath

Here in the US, persecuted ‘Davids’ around the country have been taking a stand against this ‘Goliath’, fighting back by counter-suing and generally standing up to the RIAA bully tactics. 

Do I think illegal file-sharing is wrong? Of course. But I also think that proof should be required of the alleged file sharing, and so far the RIAA has failed to show proof in 95% of their lawsuits. 

That doesn’t even begin to touch on the way the lawsuits are filed in the first place, and against whom (the elderly who don’t have computer access, children, parents of teenagers, college students, the disenfranchised).

A Decisive Moment?

French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, had this to say about the landmark decision: [the deal is a] “decisive moment for the future of a civilised Internet”.  

How can a decision made in France affect American computer users? It is doubtful the impact will be a direct one.  

It is much more likely that the precedent set by this will encourage the RIAA to redouble its efforts here in the States and give anti-net neutrality politicians and Internet service providers more angles from which to push the bounds of privacy and bans on legal file sharing.

Threatened By Net Firms

According to the BBC website from which we sourced the story :

Net firms will monitor what their customers are doing and pass on information about persistent pirates to the new independent body. 

Those identified will get a warning and then be threatened with either being cut off or suspended if they do not stop illegal file-sharing.

On the face of things, the change for French computer users looks benign.  Loss of Internet access certainly sounds more benign and affordable that the current system of fines and jail employed in most countries.  

This sounds especially appealing on the face of things if you are one of the disenfranchised currently being targeted by the RIAA for illegal file sharing that you aren’t even guilty of.

Sharing Our Private Information

The snag for me comes in the clause that allows the sharing of our private information between the RIAA, Internet services providers, record companies and the government. 

This bothers me because the RIAA has not yet been able to prove illegal file sharing has occurred.  Anyone can log on to your WiFi network, for example, if you aren’t savvy enough to protect it, and few people are.

That means you can get blamed for a random users borrowing your access to get files illegally.  

That hardly seems fair or logical, and until unauthorized use of private networks, hacking and other issues that can create false identifiers for illegal sharing are accounted for, it will only create more false positives for illegal file sharing.

A Band Aid Solution

This band-aid solution ignores the changes in the music industry. The world has already moved on to a mostly Web 2.0 platform, with Web 3.0 not far behind. 

Better than continuing to attack the average computer user for rolling with the changes and moving to an online only environment faster than the RIAA and music industry has would be figuring out how to monetize the new model, before it is too late. 

Leslie Poston is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com

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