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French Report – Legal Punishment for Filesharing as Severe as Manslaughter

Drew Wilson — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:14:08 +0000

One of the criticisms of copyright laws has, for some time, been that the punishment is far too severe for the crime being committed. This debate is nothing new and it seems to be heating up in Europe right now. One French news site decided to compare the penalties of file-sharing to the penalties of other offenses. The results? They are a little scary.

The report comes from Numerama which was inspired by a recent conviction in Sweden. They asked, if someone could be put in jail for 3 years for file-sharing, what other crimes could someone commit and get either an equal sentence or less? They said (Google translated, original) said that the answers pretty much speak for themselves and I, for one, completely agree. Two things to keep in mind: this is all about French law and the laws are sourced nicely (job well done to Numerama in that department for sure). Here are some of the offenses that could earn you a jail sentence similar to that if you were convicted of copyright infringement on a file-sharing network:

Manslaughter
Repeatedly sending death threats on a transfixed medium
Conducting biomedical procedures on someone without the consent of the patient
Theft
Breach of trust
Some forms of obstruction of justice

Here are some of the offenses that could land you in jail for less time:

Sexual exhibition in a public place
Harassment in order to obtain sexual favors
The desecration of a corpse in a cemetery/attacking a corpse
Third party identity theft (note: this wasn't entirely clear in the translation, but we are presuming that the translation meant "third party" since it simply says "by a third")
The abandonment of a child/infant
Making sexual advances to a minor whether electronically or otherwise (if the minor is 15 years old or younger)
Destruction of other people's property
Serious offenses related to animal abuse

I'm looking through this and I really wonder what is wrong with a legal system that says that if you are caught sharing copyrighted works, you could get a sentence as long as someone who killed someone. I personally can't see how it should be possible in the first place. Still, this has always been an extremely effective way of showing just how extreme the penalties have become for something so trivial as someone having a copyrighted work in their shared directory. I'm a music producer myself and I have always been all for the sharing of my works online for free. I think that even if I were hardcore all for copyright, I would have a hard time, at the very least, trying to explain to the public why someone who made sexual advances to a minor should serve less time than someone who is uploading an album on the Gnutella network. The thing is that with a lot of these offenses in the list are offenses where people are being directly harmed. For me, I don't think anyone could make a convincing case that file-sharing is a crime that is as bad as killing someone. Such comparisons have been made before. One great example in the US was looking at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill - the largest oil spill in US history. According to one report, BP was facing a $21 Billion fine. Looking at the damages for infringement one can find out that the BP fine presented in that particular report can be the equivalent to downloading 140,000 songs or 70,000 songs in the case of willful infringement. In any event, I think for French people, this really does put into perspective how high the penalties are for infringement. The day we start placing intellectual property on a higher level of value than life itself is the day I think society needs to seriously re-look at our values. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Load Gearing Up for Massive 8GB Multinational Data Dump

Drew Wilson — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:27:09 +0000

The hacking community has taken notice to another hacker who claims to have internal documents on several governments from around the world including the US, Russia and several European countries. To prove it, the hacker released a small set of "preview" leaks which appear to be internal documents of embassies and government minister offices.

If this particular hacker delivers in full, the data dump might send shock waves around the world. In a posting to PasteBin, Load claims to have obtained a total of 8GB of internal government and industry documents that span numerous countries around the world. The release is said to be exposing corruption. Here's the statement:

Heynow, This is a prerelease of a series we are going to make to reveal the biggest in history of European LE cyber operation Evidence exploitation and abuse. Thing's gonna get published and twittered all over anonymous and lulzsec community. Today we were granted with the Italian law enforcement Pandora box, we really think it shall be a new era of “regreaissance” to the almighty Homeland Security Cyber Operation Unit in EU. So we decided to leak everything they got since they were established as a full scale cyber taskforce named CNAIPIC. This corrupted organization gathered all the evidence from the seized property of suspected computer professional entertainers and utilized it over many years to conduct illegal operations with foreign intelligence agencies and oligarchy to facilitate their lust for power and money, they never used obtained evidence to really support ongoing investigations. Today we reveal a whole Load of stuff (estimated leak would be over 8Gb) from such owned institutions, just to make it clear all of this stuff was stored on CNAIPIC evidence servers for years while people are doing time in jail waiting for the trial while CNAIPIC used the evidence in the global spy game galore

Load provided a sample list of institutions affected by this data dump and, to say the least, there are big names included - from government to business entities:

Egypt: Ministry of Transport and Communication Australia: Ministry of Defence Russia: Atomstroyexport, Diaskan, Sibneft, Gazprom etc. Ukraine: several embassies and consulates on it’s territory Nepal: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Belarus: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belneftehim, Belspetzexport Gibraltar, Cyprus, Cayman Islands etc: Tecno Develp, Line Holdings, Dugsberry Inc, Alpha Prime, Alpha Minerals etc. Vietnam: PetroVietnam (PTSC), Ministry of Natural Resources (MONRE) USA: EXXON MOBIL, US Department of agriculture and hundreds of attorneys and DOJ accounts including: McCallion & Associates LLP, Goodkind, Labaton, Rudoff & Sucharow, LLP, and hundreds of bullshit agencies we don’t even know why we pay taxes to support all of them.

We've had a chance to go through the files. One file is a file structure that doesn't even look anywhere close to being complete. Just looking at the extensions alone, one can easily get a sense that these files are all over the map. There's power point slides, PDF files, gif images, .doc files - really, you name it, it's probably there. Also included in this was two preview leaks. The first preview appears to be predominantly two languages: Italian and Russian - though some documents are in French and English among others. Some of the files were pictures of scanned documents. There was a set of a screenshot of some people's e-mail inbox (some in English, others, not). One PDF appears to be an oil drilling agreement document (in English) with ExxonMobil regarding a "Master Marine Survey Agreement Order #2288701". In fact, there were a few documents surrounding oil drilling plans that seem almost freakishly detailed. Another PDF appears to be a flow chart regarding some alleged illegal activities (money laundering) with "Medici Enterprise's" (also in English). One PDF appears to be from the Australian Government Department of Defence - a letter to the "Bureau de la defense". The letter appears to be in French. That first file is about 27MB big. The second "preview" leak appears to be much larger - weighing in at around 60MB in size. A large majority of these files appear to be little more than scans of passports of different people from different countries. There were a number of files in Russian, but two files were in English. One dealt with gas company PetroVietnam. The other dealt with what appears to be something with India and Kabul. It mentions someone by the name of Shri Gurpreet Singh. There's not a whole lot more I can really read in to these documents. It would require a different set of knowledge to drill down deeper in to the significance of these documents. Some of this might involve someone who is more familiar with environmental sciences, geology and math to understand one document in particular. I can say that what is leaked certainly looks impressive given the different types of content that seems to be present in this "preview" release. Exactly how significant, I can't personally say. It's unclear when the full release will happen or what the implications might be, but given the number of countries involved inside these documents, it looks like this could be a big international story for whenever or even if the data dump actually occurs. [Hat tip: anonymouSabu] Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

School Teacher Could Take HADOPI to Court Over False Accusations

Drew Wilson — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 10:18:35 +0000

He is a 54 year old school teacher. He is also one of the first number of people to receive multiple notices from HADOPI for copyright infringement. He also doesn't know how to download pirated copies of copyrighted works and says that he was the victim of WiFi hacking.

Throughout our coverage of the three strikes law being developed over the world, we've noted repeatedly that false accusations will happen. It is very likely that people who don't download copyrighted works will find themselves disconnected from the internet because a number of these system being put in place in different countries is guilty until proven innocent. That is what makes this, perhaps, one of the most predictable stories we've covered all year. A 54 year old school teacher is now finding himself with multiple notices from HADOPI for copyright infringement. The problem? He never downloaded copyrighted works online. Now, he is going to be fighting an organization that only started issuing these notices back in October of last year. According to Numerama (Google translated, original), he says he is even prepared to take this issue to the European Justice court if need be to clear his name. The sad part of all of this is that he is fighting this at great expense. Not only will he fight these charges, he will have to move from the countryside at his own expense should the matter be escalated to going to the European court. How did this happen? Apparently, his internet connection was hacked. After the second false accusation, the school teacher apparently took steps to secure it. Apparently, his efforts proved fruitless after hackers still managed to break in to his internet connection and get caught downloading Iron Man 2. He told Numerama that he is being accused of downloading that movie and he doesn't even know how it is done. This is really no surprise whatsoever. With such a highly publicized new law and organization, people were bound to start covering their tracks by doing things including breaking in to other people's WiFi connection and using their access to the internet to avoid detection. The result? Innocent people will be accused of copyright infringement. This is clearly what is happening here and I guarantee that this secondary level school teacher won't be the last either. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

OSCE – Three Strikes Laws Incompatible with International Obligations to Free Speech

Drew Wilson — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:29:44 +0000

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization has issued a report that explicitly states that a three strikes law is a disproportionate response to dealing with copyright infringement.

Last month, Frank La Rue, the UN’s Special Rapporteur slammed attempts to put in place three strikes laws as a violation of human rights. Now, it appears, that another large organization agrees with this. The OSCE recently published a paper documenting freedom of speech on the internet and laws that impacted such freedoms. The available PDF states the following with regards to the emerging of three strikes laws around the world:

The increased use of so-called “three-strikes” legal measures to combat Internet piracy is worrisome given the growing importance of the Internet in daily life. “Three-strikes” measures provide a “graduated response” resulting in restricting or cutting off the users’ access to the Internet in cases where a user has attempted to download pirated material. The third strike usually leads to the user’s access to the Internet being completely cut off. This disproportionate response is most likely to be incompatible with OSCE commitment on the “freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.” (55) In the Charter for European Security, the participating States in 1999 “reaffirmed the importance of independent media and the free flow of information as well s the public’s access to information [and committed] to take all necessary steps to ensure the basic conditions for free and independent media and unimpeded transborder and intra-State flwo of information, which [they] consider the be an essential component of any democratic, free and open society.” (56) Any interference with such a fundamental human right, as with any other human right, must be motivated by a pressing social need, whose existence must be demonstrated by the OSCE participating States and must be proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued. (57) Access to the Internet must be recognized as a human right, and therefore “graduated response” mechanisms which could restrict users’ access to the Internet should be avoided by the OSCE participating States.

(55) Paragraph 9.1. of the Final Act of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, June 1990. http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2006/06/19392_en.pdf (56) Paragraph 26 of the Charter for European Security adopted at the OSCE Istanbul Summit 1999. See at http://www.osce.org/mc/17502. (57) See Paragraph 26 of the Final Document o fthe Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, at http://www.osce.org/fom/item_11_30426.html. See also Olsson v. Sweden (No. 1), judgment of 24 March 1988, Series A no. 130, § 67, and Bladet Tromsø and Stensaas v. Norway [GC], no. 21980/93, ECHR 1999-III.

In other words, if a government of a given state supports their international obligations to free speech, then the "graduated response" laws where users are cut off after a third accusation of infringement must be avoided. You can't have free speech and a three strikes law at the same time. It's particularly interesting that this finding was made since France, the country that has a three strikes law already in place, is also a member of the OSCE. Another member of interest is the US, the same country that has been pushing other countries to implement a three strikes law. What this report essentially does is help solidify the point that a "graduated response" or a three strikes law is a violation of human rights. There are international bodies that do agree with this. The next question will no doubt be whether countries will actually listen to the report or push for laws that disregards human rights. We already know that the United States seems to be content with sacrificing their national security in favor of a six strikes agreement, so, it's difficult to say that free speech will be a motivating factor to slow down the implementation of these laws. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

NZ – AFACT Demanding That ISPs Should Pay for Enforcing Three Strikes Law

Drew Wilson — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:47:31 +0000

New Zealand is one of the countries that have the oppressive three strikes law. It hasn't taken effect yet, but AFACT, a local copyright lobby, is demanding that ISPs pay for all of the enforcement costs.

There was an interesting development that occurred in New Zealand recently. If you remember, New Zealand was one country that was considering a three strikes law. The the law was financed and written by American corporate interests. Unsurprisingly, the idea that corporations from another country are writing your laws became a political fumble for some politicians in the country. The revelation, which was brought to light by Wikileaks diplomatic cables, sparked outrage by members of the political opposition - the Green Party to be more precise. Regardless of the political questions a law that was financed, pushed and passed mainly because of foreign interests, the legislation was, in fact, passed in spite of major opposition and protests. There was a particularly notable thing that happened recently. ZDNet is reporting that questions are being raised over who pays for the enforcement. AFACT, an organization that no doubt pushed for this law, is saying that the costs should be put to ISPs, and not rights holders. From the report:

"AFACT notes the New Zealand Government's approach of a rights holder fee per notice, which is out of step with the more common and preferred practice in other jurisdictions where right holders and ISPs bear their own respective costs," AFACT said in a statement. "For example, we note that in last week's voluntary agreement in the United States between the movie and music industry and the country's largest ISPs that each party agreed to bear their own costs." AFACT has recently been trying to get Australian ISPs to act on their users who are allegedly infringing copyright, recently sending a letter to providers saying that they should act, or expect action. Although it lost its appeal in the Federal Court where it tried to show that iiNet had authorised its users to infringe copyright, lawyers have said that the judgement provides a legal avenue for the federation to have providers aid rights holders in policing copyright infringement.

This is interesting for two reasons. The US Connection The first reason is the fact that AFACT is latching on to what is going on in the United States - that is, the 6 strike agreement. It's really an absurd position to say that ISPs should bear the costs because of what is going on in the United Stats, then go on to say that New Zealand is out of step with international practices. If New Zealand was out of step because of this, then AFACT should expect to have total disconnection completely removed from the process. New Zealand is out of step because they disconnect users. Moreover, if one want's to look at the US case on whether or not ISPs bear all of the costs, then one might like to look at the Hurt Locker Case. When ISPs were inundated with copyright complaints, American ISP Time Warner Cable resisted. The relevant section is here:

TWC and the U.S. Copyright Group came into an agreement a few months ago to limit requests to 28 per month in exchange for limiting the cost per IP address requested to $32.50. But since then, TWC has been served with more subpoenas, which TWC says was a breach of its agreement. Now, TWC wants to limit its exposure and make the plaintiffs pay the full cost in advance.

It's relevant when you compare the cost to the Ars Technica report on the case which makes the following comment on the case:

The company says that it has the capacity to handle 28 subpoenas from the US Copyright Group per month. Instead, TWC was hit with a request for 809 names within 30 days. In addition, the company has received two other subpoenas, both from the same law firm, asking for another 398 and 224 IP address lookups. Each lookup costs TWC $45.

So, in other words, the normal cost is higher than an agreed upon cost - insinuating that rights holders, in fact, bore some of the costs. So, if AFACT is suggesting that the common practice when it comes to ISP lookups is that ISPs always bear all of the costs in question, this insinuation is wrong. It is not unprecedented for others to at least bear some of the costs of lookups - others being entities outside of the ISPs in question. In fact, one can look at the Hurt Locker case and say that if ISPs are dealing with an increase in IP lookups, that rights holders now bear the responsibility of shouldering some of the costs of enforcement. In fact, if New Zealand wanted to have a regime more in line with the US, the first logical step is to completely scrap the three strikes law entirely - after all, the 6 strike agreement in the US isn't actually a law in the books in the first place. I would argue that it is unfair to force ISPs to get an increase in the number of lookups by, say, 100-fold, and then expect them to eat all of the costs as a result. At that point, ISPs more or less become a service to these rights holders and since it deals with a business to business service, I find it shocking that one business is expecting free, no strings attached services from another. The French Connection The other interesting way to look at this move is that this seems to follow along what France deals with. This is good news, in a way, for the people of New Zealand because they can actually look at another case to get a good idea of what is likely going to happen. France passed a three strikes law and costs was a major controversy in France with regards to this law. In September of last year, after HADOPI passed, questions were being raised over who was going to shoulder the costs of enforcing copyright infringement. It came down to a battle between the government and the ISPs who rightfully noted that this increase in cost of doing business was simply unfair. Not only that, but this cost was government mandated - hence the idea of hiding behind constitutional jurisprudence at the time. Ultimately speaking, the government won out on this and forced ISPs to pay for the look-ups. It was at that point that the costs went straight to the consumer. ISP rate hikes ensued. In retrospect, you have this absurd thing happen where consumers are paying for an industry's failed business model. It's pretty much the equivalent to demanding that all cars being sold have a levy weighed on them. That levy would then go to subsidize the horse-drawn carriage industry because the horse drawn carriage industry isn't making the profits they once did when horse drawn carriages where the main form of transportation. It's a bit like that kind of absurdity we saw in France. It is not to say that the events will unfold in New Zealand the same way they did in France, but disturbingly, they are so far. If consumers hope to not have a rate hike in ISP rates in New Zealand, then they might want to find ways to make sure rights holders pay for the services they are demanding. Clearly, they are demanding that others work for free for them. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Major French Political Party Wants to Repeal HADOPI

Drew Wilson — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:07:06 +0000

Martine Aubry, the secretary of the Socialist Party, has recently announced her intentions to repeal HADOPI ("law promoting the distribution and protection of creative works on the internet") - the famous French law that contains a three strikes law.

Numerama is noting some interesting news (Google translation, original) The article suggests that she feels that there is a better way to ensure that artists get paid for the content they create. She proposes a global license to be put on ISPs instead of disconnecting people from the internet based on mere accusations of infringement. More from the translation:

"Fairly, it would be a massive contribution to support culture in France, and to find that balance, I call first in an honest dialogue with all stakeholders," continues Martine Aubry, who Is also in favor of an adaptation and strengthening of copyright, particularly in the digital sphere. Finally, the fight against counterfeiting business must continue and be intensified. "Therefore, the war against Internet users who share the same time, they buy - will not happen again. The abandonment of the web laws, expensive, inefficient and against the time, seems to me so self-evident. That's why we are determined to repeal the "Martine Aubry concludes the chapter Culture and profitable new business models.

It's not hard to find flaws in a three strikes law. We've noted some of these flaws in the past on a number of occasions. One of the major flaws is the inability to conclusively tie a person to an IP address. One example of how flawed pinning an actual person to an IP address can be found in a study which concludes that one could frame a printer for copyright infringement in a BitTorrent swarm. Global licenses for downloading isn't necessarily a new idea, however, a number of people have proposed such ideas in the past. I think it's fair to say that many would also agree that a blanket license over ISPs is better than mass lawsuits or disconnections based on mere accusations. In Canada, one can trace the SAC proposal to as far back as 2007. In the US, the EFF has been proposing this sort of idea at least as far back as 2008. The French Socialist Party is no small party either. Wikipedia notes that the party has been around since 1969 in France. As of the last French election of 2009, the party finished second in popular support - second only to the current governing party, the UMP. They obtained 16.48% support while the UMP won with 27.88% support. In short, they are not a small party in France. What this could show is a growing discontent for HADOPI. If a major political party feels they can gain public support by outright saying that it should be repealed, then it doesn't exactly cast a positive light to the law itself. It's not surprising that the law isn't very popular and it looks like there might be some kind of momentum to ax the law completely. It will be interesting to see if this resonates enough to carry this over in to the next election which is still a long way away. Do you think HADOPI should be repealed? Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

UN Report: 3-Strikes is a “Violation of Human Rights”

Jared Moya — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:29:54 +0000

Frank La Rue, the UN's Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, submits report concluding that disconnecting Internet users, "regardless of the justification provided," is a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights because it limits the type of media individuals are allowed to use to express themselves.

It appears as though the UK and France have some explaining to do now that UN Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue submitted a report to the Human Rights Council concluding that Internet disconnection is a violation of human rights because it illegally restricts the type of media individuals are allowed to use to express themselves. The report explored ways to promote and protect the right of freedom and expression, particularly "key trends and challenges to the right of all individuals to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds through the Internet." "The Special Rapporteur underscores the unique and transformative nature of the Internet not only to enable individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression, but also a range of other human rights, and to promote the progress of society as a whole," it reads. With this in mind he says he's "alarmed" by proposals to disconnect individuals from the Internet for copyright law violations. He says that individuals should never have their Internet access terminated for any reason, including copyright infringement, and that to do so would be a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. "While blocking and filtering measures deny users access to specific content on the Internet, States have also taken measures to cut off access to the Internet entirely," it reads. "The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from Internet access, regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of violating intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." That article specifies that everyone has the right to freedom of expression in any type of media. "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice," it reads. It's a slippery slope if the govt is able to dictate what types of media individuals can use to express themselves. This applies most notably to France and the UK which either have a "three-strikes" disconnection scheme in place (France) or are in the process of establishing one (UK). Though neither country have begun disconnecting Internet users both have enacted legislation in place that permits it in order to combat online infringement. "This also includes legislation based on the concept of 'graduated response', which imposes a series of penalties on copyright infringers that could lead to suspension of Internet service, such as the so-called 'three-strikes-law' in France and the Digital Economy Act 2010 of the United Kingdom," he wrote. It's hard to argue with his line of reasoning. The Internet is more than about email and YouTube, it's about news, politics, business, art, history, music, and so much more. What do you think? Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com ___________________________________ Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression

Anti-P2P Group Hacked, France Suspends “Three-Strikes”

Jared Moya — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:12:02 +0000

Hackers breach Trident Media Guard's servers and leak IP addresses accused of illegal downloading. Govt suspends ties with the firm while it investigates the breach, but as the sole anti-P2P firm forwarding IP addresses of suspected pirates places a de facto fold on the country's "three-strikes" law.

Trident Media Guard, the firm tasked with hunting down online file-sharers as part of France's "three-strikes" law, suffered a rather embarrassing data leak this past Saturday, and as a result the French govt has decided to temporarily suspend ties with the firm. The news is important because it also means a de facto suspension of the country's graduated response system. The leak involved 5342 archive files from a TMG server. In it are a large amount of HTML files with the name of hash files it was monitoring on BitTorrent. Some date back as far as 2008, raising questions about data retention times. Eric Walter, the secretary general of High Authority for the Protection of works on the Internet (HADOPI) announced on Twitter that "as a precaution Hadopi decided to temporarily suspend its interconnection with TMG." This means that TMG won't be able to forward IP adresses, and HADOPI's actions will be limited to only on those which has "already received" before the leak. HADOPI and the Commission on Human Rights Protection (CDP) is expected to meet with TMG today to determine if it should adopt a "protocol of technical expertise" to protect user data the in the future. Meanwhile, TMG has played down the leak, claiming that no confidential data or personal information has been leaked to the Internet. "These data are from a test server of the company dedicated its team of R&D," said TMG co-founder and CEO, Alain Guislain. "At no time, the infrastructure used by GMT as part of its operations have been impacted, in particular the dedicated platform for collection of infringements on P2P networks on behalf of copyright holders under the law HADOPI." Yet, with leaked IP addresses in hand, one can find an array of personal information relating to the individual be it simply what the person is accused of downloading. In ay event, after today's meeting between HADOPI, CDP, and TMG we ought to know where things will go from here, but the leak is just the latest reminder of the law's shortcomings, especially since it's only caused less than 3.5% to quit illegal file-sharing. Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com

French “Three-Strikes” Survey: Less Than 3.5% Have Quit P2P?

Jared Moya — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:32:54 +0000

HADOPI survey says that 7% of 1500 surveyed Internet users reported they or someone close to them had received a notification letter, and of that 50% have stopped entirely, but govt spins survey to report that 50% in general have been "encouraged to legally acquire copyrighted material."

There's a saying that a good politician never lets the facts get in the way of the truth, and this certainly applies to a recently released French "three-strikes" survey. The High Authority for the Protection of works on the Internet (HADOPI), the govt agency tasked with enforcing France's draconian "three-strikes" regime, conducted a survey on the impact that Internet users feel the law has had on their illegal downloading habits. It cites several "key figures," in the survey's introduction, but once you read what they're predicated on it your realize the law, in reality, has had minimal, if any impact on overall illicit P2P behavior. The survey says that HADOPI has encouraged 50% of users to "consume more regularly works respectful of copyrights," and that a similar 50% believe establishing HADOPI is "a good initiative." The problem is that both stats are deceiving. Only 7% of the 1500 surveyed reported that either they or someone close receieved a warning letter for illegal downloading, and of that 50% stopped entirely. This means the law has caused only 3.5% of 1500 to quit, and this figure includes third party assumptions that the "someone close" had really quit. The other stat, that half believe HADOPI is a "a good initiative" is also deceiving. As pointed out by the French site Numerama, it's not a question of effectiveness, but its legitimacy . A previous HADOPI survey found:

(google translation) ...nearly half in doubt the legitimacy, appropriateness to changing technological or legal. They are thus 51% find it "only serves the interests of certain", 43% thought it 'has no real effect on the illegal use of cultural works ", and 41% judge that it "infringes on individual freedoms."

It seems HADOPI still doesn't let facts get in the way of the truth. Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com

French Pres Reaffirms Commitment to “Three-Strikes”

Jared Moya — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:20:42 +0000

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the defense of copyright protections is a "categorical imperative," and he hopes that the actions of the High Authority for the Protection of works on the Internet (HADOPI) will "continue its deployment on a large scale."

It's been about two and a year and half years since France approved a “three-strikes” bill to allow authorities to disconnect illegal file-sharers from the Internet, and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has reaffirmed his commitment to that process. During a recent speech before the installation of the National Council of the Digital, Sarkozy said that defending copyright protections is as much a "categorical imperative" today as it was when the legislation was passed. Sarkozy also said that it "would have been useful" when the law was passed if that a body such as the National Council of the Digital could've been tasked to help "formalize the dialogue" between the various stakeholders in the online digital economy. "Neither the merits of the action of Internet Piracy, or the need for a determined fight against piracy, have been questioned by the president who never reported, unlike terms used by some media, a questioning of this device," reads a press release from his office. In fact, Sarkozy apparently intends to share his country's concerns about online piracy with other heads of state at the upcoming G8 summit. Warning letters commenced nearly six months ago, and to date no repeat infringers have been disconnected from the Internet, but Sarkozy still lauds the the "innovative model" for which he claims there is "worldwide growing interest." He "wishes to reaffirm his full support for Hadopi and hopes that the action of this independent authority continues its deployment on a large scale, in accordance with the law voted by Parliament." The implementation of the "three-strikes" regime isn't likely having quite the anti-piracy effect he or the country's parliament intended however, for a more likely scenario is that file-sharers are doing a better job of encrypting their traffic and switching P2P protocols to make them harder to track. Last year US intelligence agencies complained to France that Hadopi will only encourage Internet users to arm themselves with the same encryption tools used by criminal networks, making their job of detecting threats and illegal activity that much harder. Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com