None of this shit works - Captain James T. Kirk
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France contacts 470,000 out of 18 million tracked filesharers
FRANCE HAS FINGERED 18 million alleged filesharers in less than a year as part of its Hadopi 'anti-piracy' legislation.
Torrentfreak has reported that since France adopted its so-called 'three strikes' law in October 2010, it has identified 18 million filesharers, however detection is one thing but sending out letters is another. Apparently France sent just 470,000 of those tracked letters in the post, due to resource limits.
The Hadopi agency, which is charged with trying to curb online distribution of copyrighted works, sent the 470,000 letters to first time offenders. As part of the law, it is only after a third alleged offence that a French judge gets to see users' personal details provided by an internet service provider.
Tracking online users is not particularly hard, especially on Bittorrent, and unless Hadopi has 18 million unique users in its database, that figure isn't all that impressive. But while 470,000 letters seems relatively few compared to 18 million accused filesharers, it still represents around 50,000 a month, which is a considerable volume of mail.
Reportedly Hadopi has sent out 'second warning' letters to 20,000 users so far and only 10 have received spine chilling third warning letters, which are now being investigated by a judge.
Those 10 accused French filesharers could be asked to cough up €1,500 and have their internet connections disabled. At present there have been no reports of any French filesharers being disconnected.
France's three strikes law has been widely criticised and is universally detested by internet users, however Nicolas Sarkozy's government has ploughed stubbornly forward in what can only be described as a lost cause in attempting to suppress filesharing. µ
Tags: Software
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Some folks are confused over copyright law. Infringement means you used a portion of copyright protected works in another artwork. Theft means you stole the rights to copyright protected works. Piracy is theft of copyright protected works, not infringment, which would be use of copyright work in another artwork.
To be fair they should contact all of those they have identified or non at all....other wise they are wide open to allegations of "cronyism" and such a system could well be judged as inadequate and not an acceptable practice.
An individual could easily argue they have been unfairly and improperly treated in such circumstances if they were proceeded against.
Copying is in no way theft. See clarification here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4
@Sum Yung Gai, yes, you're right: it's a civil offense with money penalty. That's a feature! They're only after money, otherwise it's a losing proposition. That's the whole basis of traffic tickets.
A SHOUT-OUT TO SHOUTER: AS USUAL, YOU'RE EXACTLY RIGHT!
...at least not in the United States. Please see the 1985 case of Dowling vs. United States, in which the Supreme Court of that country made very clear that copyright infringement, while illegal, is NOT theft. Since the MAFIAA companies are almost all based in the US (except Sony), their legal eagles already know this, as (therefore) do their executives. It's already established case law.
I wonder just how much the MAFIAA bosses are paying Mr. Sarkozy and his other officials. We are in the wrong job! We should go into politics and get rich! :-D
IF THE FRANCE GOVERNMENT PLOWS FORWARD AND MAKES IT WORK THEN HOW IS IT A LOST CAUSE?
TORRENT IS A PECULIAR KIND OF THEFT, BECAUSE YOURE STEALING OUT IN THE WIDE OPEN WITH NO FIRM KNOWLEDGE OF HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE WATCHING YOU.
IT'S LIKE: THERE'S THIS LONG MIRRORED CORRIDOR AT THE END OF WHICH IS A MINI LITTLE TREASURE TROVE OF MEDIA CONTENT, WHICH YOU MAY NEVER WATCH OR LISTEN TO; BUT IT TAKES HOURS & HOURS TO STEAL THE LOOT AND IN THE MEANTIME THERE ARE INNUMERABLE CAMERAS BEHIND THE ONE-WAY MIRRORS VIDEO RECORDING YOUR CRIME, AND WHO KNOWS HOW MANY POLICE THERE ARE WATCHING SAID VIDEOS.
(EVEN CRAZIER, MY OWN COMPUTER IS DOWNLOADING TWO TELEVISION SERIES AS I TYPE THIS ALL IN).
ITS BIZARRE!
Let's say there are 62 million people in France. Since a lot of them are married and have children, or have elderly parents with them, that comes to, say, 18 million homes, give or take some. So they tracked 18 million filesharers out of 18 million homes. Very very nice!!!
I think we need to have a referendum in every civilized country. The question would be "Would you like it to be perfectly legal to rip media, break copy protections, download and upload and share anything you wish any time with any body any number of times in any way, and in general have no copyright protections whatever?". Yes or No. I'd be extremely surprised if 50% or more voted No... And put the result in the Constitution.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really work that way. I'm pretty sure that a guy who downloads an mp3 file every day for a month and turns off the PC at night will appear in the database 30 times, simply because he gets a new IP address every time he connects to the Internet. Those 18 million filesharers are probably a lot fewer unique persons.