German Vargas Lleras, the Colombian Minister of Interior and Justice, has proposed a new fast-track copyright bill that will require ISPs to spy on, disconnect and censor their users in the name of protecting copyright. The bill was introduced without any public consultation or debate — rather, it is to be rammed through Congress without meaningful scrutiny from Colombians. — Read the rest

The FreedomBox Foundation is a newly formed charity that has set out to make wall-wart sized, self-contained Linux routers that will provide important anonymizing and networking services, even when the government (or some other entity) terminates or surveils your network access. — Read the rest

France's HADOPI administrator (which processes copyright accusations against Internet users) is now receiving 25,000 complaints a day. A family whose household attracts three unsubstantiated complaints is disconnected from the Internet for a year. Meanwhile, use of non-P2P downloading sites to get access to infringing copies is way up. — Read the rest

In this week's Guardian column, "The real cost of free," I reply to last week's broadside by my fellow Guardian columnist Helienne Lindvall, who accused me of charging enormous fees to encourage creators to give their works away. After correcting the record on fees (most of my talks are free, a small number are paid for, and a tiny fraction of those are paid for at large amounts), I go to the meat of the issue: what is it that I tell people when they ask me to speak at their events? — Read the rest

France's "3-strikes" rule comes into effect this week, and multinational corporations are already flooding French ISPs with more than 10,000 requests a day for the personal information of accused infringers; they estimate that this number will go up to 150,000 users/day shortly. — Read the rest

My French is very rusty, and there doesn't seem to be any coverage of this story yet in English-language news… but apparently, the great French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard (above) donated a thousand euros toward the legal defense costs of James Climent (inset), a 37-year-old French citizen accused of downloading 13,788 MP3s. — Read the rest

WPA Cracker is a WiFi security compromiser in the cloud, running on a high-performance cluster. Send them a dump of captured network traffic and $35, and they will try 136 million passwords in 40 minutes, tops (for $17, they'll run the same attack at half speed) — the same crack would take five days on a "contemporary desktop PC." — Read the rest

NetworkWorld reports on a hot-selling Chinese gadget: a WiFi network-locator with a built-in password cracker. These things show you which networks are available in your area and which password to use to get online with them. Alas, they're not stand-alone USB keys with a little LCD display, just WiFi cards with some specialized software. — Read the rest

Hapodi, the French agency that's in charge of the country's new anti-piracy scheme (if someone you live with is accused of three acts of infringement, your whole household is taken offline and added to a list of address to which it is illegal to provide Internet access) has been accused of pirating the font used it its logo. — Read the rest

Things look bad for the European Internet: "3 strikes" (the entertainment industry's proposal for a law that requires ISPs to disconnect whole households if one member is accused — without evidence or trial — of three copyright infringements) is gaining currency. — Read the rest

Glyn sez, "The same French president who has for the second time brought in three strikes to France has for the second time been caught infringing copyright on a large scale. The presidential audiovisual services have produced 400 unauthorized copies of the 52-minute documentary 'A visage decouvert: Nicolas Sarkozy.' — Read the rest

Jérémie Zimmermann from the French digital liberties org La Quadrature du Net sez,

The French Parliament has adopted HADOPI 2, a law aimed at establishing a so-called "three-strikes" policy in order to fight file-sharing. The Constitutional Council made groundbreaking decision on June 10th 2009 that recognized access to the Internet as essential to the full exercise of free speech, and invalidated the sanctioning power of HADOPI 1.

The French "Three Strikes" law is back on — a law that can punish you for being accused of copyright infringement by cutting off your internet connection, fining you, and putting you in prison. It also criminalizes offering free internet access because pirates might use it. — Read the rest

Jeremie sez,

The Constitutionnal Council, highest jurisdiction in France gave its decision1 concerning the HADOPI "three strikes" law [ed: France's insane plan to force ISPs to cut Internet service to people who have unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringment], final stage before the promulgation of the law.

French copyfighter Jeremie Zimmermann sez,

Folks from La Quadrature du Net (big up to Peter K!) have translated the French HADOPI law [ed: the new French copyright law, rammed through by Sarko over howls of public protest], which includes the absurd "three strikes" scheme [ed: if you are accused of infringement three times, you lose your Internet access — no proof needed, no trial, no judge, no jury], bound to fail and utterly dangerous.

You may have heard about the French Assembly passing Sarkozy's mad "three-strikes" bill, which will allow big media companies to force ISPs to disconnect you by accusing you of copyright infringement (without even having to produce proof). Jeremie Zimmermann, a leading French activist opposed to the bill, has a good analysis of the problems it will face, even having passed:

* HADOPI is legally dead because it opposes to fundamental principles of French and European law, including the respect of a fair trial, principle of proportionality and separation of powers.

After a last-minute scramble, the EU has been persuaded to kill the idea of forcing "3-strikes" copyright/internet legislation on European states. The "3-strikes" rule says that you can have your Internet connection taken away after a copyright holder accuses you of infringement three times — but the rightsholder doesn't need to show any evidence that you've done anything wrong. — Read the rest

Alan sez, "Thought you'd be interested in the following two documents, which I've translated from French, concerning the debate over the anti-p2p 'Hadopi' law in France [Ed: this is the "three strikes" law that would allow copyright holders to have your network connection cut by accusing you of three infringements, without having to show any proof. — Read the rest

Here's my latest column for Internet Evolution: "Big Entertainment Wants to Party Like It's 1996" explains how the entertainment industry's greedy, naked lobbying tactics will be their undoing, since these victories end up backfiring because they arouse such public ire.

It's not that these companies can't get their laws on the agenda, and not that they can't cook the process to make it run favorably for themselves.

Glyn sez, "French politicians have unexpected voted against a law that would have forced ISPs to disconnect any one accused of copyright infringement. No proof that would stand up in court would have been need. The final vote was 25 to 15 in the poorly attended National Assembly session." — Read the rest