The French government resurrected its "Cr�ation et Internet" three-strikes bill today after suffering a stunning defeat some weeks back, and it doesn't mean to make the same procedural mistakes twice. The bill must go through another round of parliamentary debate, but it looks set to pass sometime in May. In the meantime, however, the European Parliament plans to pass a major telecom overhaul that just might make the French approach to online copyright infringement illegal. And, as if the pure political situation weren't crazy enough, the grassroots groups opposing the graduated response law plan to stage May Day marches in protest.

"Cr�ation et Internet" has been talked about for years, and was supposed to pass last month. Taking passage for granted, most deputies left the lower chamber during the vote. At the last moment, though, 15 Socialists swarmed in from the hallway, voted against the bill, and defeated it 21-15—a shockingly small number of votes for such a crucial piece of legislation.

The bill is now back in the National Assembly for a second reading, according to French newspapers, and its backers don't sound ready for anything like "compromise" after being tricked the first time around. If it passes, the bill would create a new administrative authority called HADOPI to handle copyright infringement notices; HADOPI could then choose to warn or disconnect Internet users, placing them on a national Internet blacklist.

But the European Parliament isn't keen on the idea, and has voted several times to basically ban such practices without judicial oversight. MEPs like France's Guy Bono have repeatedly sought to make the issue part of the massive "Telecom Package" reform bill that will reshape Europe's telecom architecture, but Parliament's bills need to pass muster with the European Council before becoming law. The Council, made up the various EU member states, has opposed (under French leadership) most attempts to restrict Internet disconnection rules.

Today, though, it appears that a compromise has been reached in principle between Parliament and the Council. Reuters notes that the Telecom Package will now contain a line about cutting off Internet access only when an "impartial and independent tribunal" agrees. This deal is broader than past attempts to get judges involved, but narrower than Council ideas about letting any "legal authority" oversee disconnections.

But will it ban HADOPI? No one seems quite sure, and it's not clear that the full Parliament will even go along with the compromised text. Guy Bono yesterday railed against the attitude of his own government, which was acting "contraire � l'esprit europ�en" by refusing to go along with Parliament's will.

While the politicians clash, 'Net heads are taking action of their own. Sci-fi writer Roland Wagner, for instance, has organized his fellow scribes into a "Sci-fi against HADOPI" group, while the French Data Network organizes a May 1 protest march through the streets of Paris.

Being against HADOPI is one thing, but having a positive vision in place for the overhauling of copyright is another. Consumer groups including La Quadrature du Net and UFC Que Choisir have joined forces to launch Cr�ation Public Internet (a play on the bill's title), a project devoted to finding new business models and thinking about the important questions of cultural creation and artist income. Yesterday, they held a meeting in a National Assembly conference room to launch their new platform and kickstart a very different sort of debate on HADOPI, copyright, and the Internet.