Orwell wasn’t French - Piracy and privacy oddly intersect

Michael Hedges May 11, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Imagine, if you will, feeling compelled to write your local elected representative about an interest that affects not just you, you believe, but a lot of people. You thoughtfully compose a letter – email, being the post-modern age – and send it off. Your elected representative was so impressed he, then, forwards your email to the government department working on the particular issue. Then a person at that government office decides to forward your email to your employer. And then you get fired.

This actually happened. I’m not making it up. But the story is, now, even bigger.

Jérôme Bourreau works, or did, as a Web developer in France. He wanted to express to his elected representative – Member of Parliament Françoise de Panafieu – a few concerns about pending legislation on internet piracy “Création et Internet,” known informally as the Hadopi law. The law’s informal name refers to a new government agency for policing the internet and catching people illegally downloading stuff.

MP de Panafieu forwarded M.Bourreau’s email to the Ministry of Culture, which has been charged by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to get the legislation passed. The primary objective of the Hadopi law is implementing a “three strikes and you’re out” policy; a person suspected of illegally downloading anything three times loses access to the internet. Period. Forever. In the email, sent not from a work address but a private account, M. Bourreau expressed concerns not about privacy, per se, but about forcing people cut off from internet access to continue to pay fees. The law also explicitly limits judicial review.

A functionaire at the Ministry of Culture took it upon himself to then forward the email with comments to M. Bourreau’s employer, television channel TF1. He was fired for a “profound divergence with (company) strategy.” His termination notice also mentioned that the company learned of his email to his elected representative “through the office of the Ministry of Culture.”

At first, Culture Minister Christine Albanel, whose office drafted the Hadopi law, pretended not to notice. French journalists, particularly of the online variety, took up M. Bourreau’s cause and made the obvious connection between President Sarkozy and TF1 owner Martin Bouygues, godfather to M. Sarkozy’s son. (See more on media in France here) Bowing slightly to the pressure, Minister Albanel (May 11) suspended for a month the functionaire who forwarded the email to M. Bourreau’s employer. TF1, as well as music and film industries, officially supports the “three strikes” provision.

The Hadopi law failed its first reading in the French National Assembly but passed this week (May 12). A Senate vote is scheduled this May 13. The European Parliament rejected last week measures to cut off internet users suspected of illegal downloading adding a clause to the pending Telecoms Package stating: “no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities… save when public security is threatened.” Passage of the measure by the European Parliament, by no means guaranteed, would effectively moot the pending French law.

Minister Albanel called the whole mess “regrettable.” M. Bourreau indicated his intention to appeal his firing to a labor court.

See also in ftm Knowledge

The Privacy Issue – new

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Media in France

French audiences are moving fast to every new platform. Mobile and Web media challenges the old guard while rule makers seek new directions. Media life in France... and a few secrets. includes updated Resources 103 pages PDF (November 2009)

ftm Members order here

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