Anyone who downloads films and music in France without paying will face up to a year's ban from the internet under a disputed law that is to be approved by the French parliament today.

Hollywood and the music industry are behind President Sarkozy's "three strikes and you're out" scheme for curbing the illegal use of entertainment.

Paul McGuinness, the manager of U2, said the French law, in which rights holders will trace and turn in abusers to the state, set an example in the fight against piracy. "It is equitable and balanced and will work," he said.

Critics, who include internet and civil liberties groups and some artists, are denouncing it as a breach of freedom that will not work. One internet campaign group called Quadrature du Net said the law amounted to "imposing a social death sentence".

Punish

They said it would punish citizens whose internet access is used by their children, employees or people hooking into their wi-fi.

A group of French directors and actors, including Catherine Deneuve and Victoria Abril, published a protest. They urged film lovers to fight a law that was "demagogic, inapplicable and stupidly ignorant of new ways of downloading".

The Socialist opposition plans to challenge the Creation and Internet Law in the constitutional court but if that fails a state agency will begin tracking down abusers next summer. The agency, known by its acronym Hadopi, will send two email warnings and then a registered letter. If the warnings are ignored a one-year internet ban can be imposed. (© The Times, London)

- CHARLES BREMNER