Set aback by rebellious MPs and an outcry by consumer groups, the French Government is reworking a digital copyright protection bill to lighten restrictions on CD- and DVD-copying and mete out smaller penalties to small-time downloaders.

The story goes, the original version of the bill was so bad that a small group of MPs protested against it by legalising P2P downloading in a middle of the night session.

That, combined with preasure from consumer rights groups, has forced a rethink. The new version will allow users to copy DVDs and CDs for backups and for playing on portable devices and reduce fines for personal copying. Commercial copyright infringment will still carry large fines.

No word on the attempts to band open source software though...