Sarkozy reaffirms commitment to the Graduated Response

Attending the Forum d'Avignon on 18 November 2011, President Sarkozy gave a remarkably detailed and impassioned defence of le droit d'auteur and the lois HADOPI. He identified the proprietary nature of copyright as the root of the independence and dignity of the artist: without respect for copyright there would be no more creativity. Culture was fundamental to the French response to the economic crisis: unlike other countries, the government was seeking to increase investment, not cut it. It was necessary to reconfigure the economic model of creativity from A to Z and he was committed to doing so.

The President repudiated the arguments with which, he said, he had first been met when proposing the idea of  preserving respect for copyright: he would lose the election if he pursued such an unpopular line; and the battle against piracy was already lost in any case. These arguments had been shown false by events: he was elected president; after only a few months since the implementation of HADOPI, the level of peer-to-peer piracy had dropped by 35%; and day-by-day more countries were adopting comparable arrangements - the US, New Zealand, South Korea (interestingly, he failed to mention the UK). As technology developed, he was ready to consider introducing a third HADOPI law, in particular to address the problem of illegal streaming, which no one could justify.

The following day, 19 November 2011, the Conseil d'Etat handed down four decisions rejecting complaints brought against the constitutionality of certain decrees implementing the lois HADOPI. The complainant in three of the cases was the ISP, French Data Network; in one, various Apple companies. The same day the Elysée duly announced that the President of the Republic took note with pleasure of these decisions and the apparent reduction in piracy following introduction of HADOPI. 

Pirates and ISPs must presumably be hoping for a victory by François Hollande in the May 2012 presidential elections. It is hard to imagine a stronger or more public commitment to the Graduated Response than that of M. Sarkozy over recent days.