The French Ministry of Culture has proposed a number of measures to deal with illegal downloading on the Internet, including a controversial proposal to terminate accused pirates' Internet access after two downloading violations.
Here's an excerpt from "French Gov't Plans to Disconnect Content Pirates":
The government has won agreement for its latest proposals from the French media industry, which will implement the watermarking measures and make legal downloads of films more widely and rapidly available. Albanel signed the agreement Friday with TV channels, Internet service providers (ISPs), and groups representing filmmakers, authors and musicians rights groups.
In return for the support of these organizations, the government will create a new agency to monitor Internet traffic for the presence of watermarked files and handle complaints from rights holders. Anyone whose Internet connection is used to download such files could receive an official warning from their ISP. A second offense could result in their contract with the ISP being terminated and their name being added to a registry of offenders.
Read more about it at "The Insanity of France's Anti-File-Sharing Plan: L'État, C'Est IFPI," "French Pact Aims to Fight Unauthorized Downloading," and "Pirates Face Crackdown over Movie Downloads."
