French “Three-Strikes” Only Warns 100,000 in 2 Months?

Requirement for judicial oversight has severely limited the number of warning letters HADOPI has been able to send out. Only 3 judges are tasked with verifying more than 50,000 daily claims of suspected file-sharing, and the the job will only grow more difficult when second “strikes,” or warnings, become possible next month.

France’s “Creation and Internet” law has been operating far below expected capacity two months after the High Authority for the dissemination of works and protection of rights on the Internet (Hadopi) first began sending out warning letters to suspected file-sharers.

“One day we send 4000 emails, another day 500,” said Eric Walter, the secretary general of Internet Piracy. “This is proof that we are not a speed camera. But it’s still a total of 100,000 messages in two month.”

The Ministry of Culture had said early on that it hopes to send at least 10,000 warning letters per day.

The “Creation and Internet” law is the the controversial “three-strikes” measure to fight P2P that was first proposed back in June of 2008. It was formally passed last September, but not after first before being ruled unconstitutional over the fact that an agency (HADOPI), and not a judge, was allowed to disconnect people from the Internet.

It is the requirement for judicial oversight that has severely limited the number of warning letters HADOPI has been able to send out. It receives in excess of 50,000 suspicious IP addresses per day, and yet has only sent out a total of 100,000 warnings in the two months since the regime went into effect.

Only 15 people, twelve experts assisting three judges, are tasked with verifying claims of suspected file-sharing, and the the job will only grow more difficult when second “strikes,” or warnings, become possible next month.

The large gap between the number of copyright infringement acts that occur per day and the number of warnings actually issued hasn’t been lost on copyright holder groups that aren’t hiding their frustration.

“There is a considerable gap between our 25 000 ‘incidents’ per day and the the replies to Internet Piracy,” says Roger Jerome, Director General of Civil Society of Phonogram Producers in France (SPPF). “For us, the situation is not satisfactory. In the very short term, we hope that Hadopi can send as many email addresses it receives suspicious. Deterrence assumes that the message to the Internet is massive.”

French labels trade body director general David El Sayegh has also voiced his displeasure with the pace of the govt’s warning letters. He said the music industry has been identifying and submitting the IP addresses of more than 25,000 suspected file-sharers per day, even recently raising that amount to 50,000, but the govt’s figures show it’s nowhere near sending out that many.