Several French online magazines and at least one big radio channel told about this story last week : RetSpan, a French association that is supposed to fight against online piracy, has publicly released the identity of several people who use P2P networks to download and distribute music. They wanted to prove that they are really able to identify “pirates” on P2P networks.
We may call it “denouncement”, but RetSpan say that it’s just “denunciation”. When you say that someone is gay, communist or jew in order to hurt him, this is “denouncement”. But when you reveal that someone is illegally distributing music without any authorization, this is “denunciation”. As a good citizen, you have to report any illegal activity (this is “denunciation”). Nice job… It’s a little bit frightening but I presume that many lawyers will unfortunately confirm RetSpan’s point of view.
Anyway, their selection of “pirates” is pretty interesting. They found of course students, but also employees of several companies that belong to big industrial groups. Another “pirate” distributes MP3 files from a famous church in NY (I guess it’s Saint Thomas Church). They also denounce a travel agency and a city hall among others.
What is funnier is that they found a lawyer from Paris and even a company that is owned by a famous French media group (probably Vivendi Universal). Ironically, employees from this major are using P2P networks to steal music sold by another subsidiary of the same media group !
If you can understand French, have a look at their latest news release at www.retspan.info. Real names are hidden for legal reasons but it’s easy to find out who is behind those little *** !
I guess that RetSpan members (majors and other media companies) are happy to learn who are those “pirates”, but they should maybe start to ask their own subsidiaries to stop using KaZaA !
Related
- RetSpan to identifiy P2P users
- RetSpan Announces P2P Pollution Plan
- Razorback is asked to pay 150 billion $ because of Retspan!
- RetSpan: Press Release
- French association releases a free anti-piracy kit in order to block P2P networks.
