The Constitutional Council validated the French anti-piracy law, after an appeal filed by the Socialists at the end of last month, after a favorable vote by the Assembly and the Senate.
This was the second time that the French Constitutional Council, equivalent to the Portuguese Constitutional Court, evaluated Hadopi, after having determined that a first version was unconstitutional, forcing changes to the text and a new parliamentary vote.
Despite validating the bulk of Hadopi 2, the members of the Council nevertheless censored an article in the text that attributed to the judges the definition of the amount of damages for the holders of intellectual property rights, a responsibility that will fall to the legislators.
This should be resolved by means of a new text, to be voted on by French parliamentarians, who will have to establish the rules applicable to these compensation.
The Minister of Culture, Frédéric Miterrand, has already welcomed the validation of the law by the Constitutional Council and stressed that warning messages to users who download audiovisual content illegally will begin in early 2010, «as scheduled».
