French Regime Ordered To Adopt Decree Providing For Isp Compensation

In 2009 French Republic adopted the so-called three-strikes graduated answer to the scourge of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing.  Overseeing the organisation was Hadopi (Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet);  This administrative ascendence was responsible for sending the alert letters to infringers.  Identifying the infringers was the chore of rightsholders in addition to ISPs, alongside the latter bearing substantial costs inward in addition to then doing.  The master statute provided for a decree that would compensate them for the specific costs incurred inward carrying out this government-mandated task.  However the decree was never adopted.

Fed upward alongside the situation, 1 Internet service provider Bouygues Télécom (currently the subject-matter of a rumoured takeover past times Orange; run across here), took the authorities to courtroom (State Council) contestation that its failure to adopt the decree was unlawful.

On 23 Dec last, it won its illustration against the authorities (see here).  The State Council opined that spell the statutory provisions (Section L. 34-1, par. III of the Code of Post in addition to Electronic Communication) could not, inward lite of their generality, live applied direct inward the absence of a decree, such provisions create non exit whatever discretion for the Prime Minister inward the adoption of such a decree.  The Council farther held that the reasonable delay to create in addition to then had expired and, accordingly, annulled the French government’s implied conclusion to reject to adopt the regulatory measures in addition to directed the governement to accept necessary regulatory measures inside six months from the engagement of notification of the decision, failing which, a fine (astreinte) of 100 euros per twenty-four hours of delay would apply.

Given the relatively modest sum of the fine, it remains to live seen whether/when the authorities volition genuinely comply in addition to adopt the long-awaited decree.