France's internet piracy law 2009

President Nicolas Sarkozy

"President Nicolas Sarkozy's governing party rejoiced when it muscled one of his pet projects through the French parliament: an unprecedented law to cut the Internet connections of people who repeatedly download music and movies illegally."

"In France, opponents of the law say it misses the point — targeting traditional peer-to-peer downloads while online "streaming" is taking off. They also say the law will be technically impossible to apply, in part, they claim, because the software required for monitoring does not exist.
The French law creates a government agency to sanction the offenders, with the actual monitoring left to industry watchdogs. It's a role the industry, suffering from a drop in profits due to file-sharing, is ready to assume."