Friday, February 24, 2012

French Copyright Law - 165 Cases Reached Court; File Sharing Declines


I was following the French anti-piracy law for during last year, through stories on the government agency, Hadopi, that enforces the "3-strike" law (see background here).

A year ago Hadopi reported that it has sent 100,00 Emails ("1st strike" - here) and in last May it was reported that "France Hadopi - Shows Success (while working)" - here.

Another year passed, and while it seems that the copyright infringement is a smaller problem now (due to lots of legal content available at a reasonable price and quality and specifically to France, Hadopi activity), Hadopi continues to look for the bad guys, and filled 165 cases to court (i.e 3rd strike).

Eric Pfanner reports to the New York Times that "The agency that administers the three-strikes system, known by the French abbreviation Hadopi, had sent 822,000 warnings by e-mail to suspected offenders as of the end of December. Those were followed up by 68,000 second warnings, issued through registered mail. Of those, 165 cases have gone on to the third stage, under which the courts are authorized to impose fines of €1,500, or nearly $2,000, and to suspend Internet connections for a month"

" .. Éric Walter, the secretary general of Hadopi [pictured], said that the relatively low number of third-stage offenders showed that the system had succeeded .. A report commissioned by Hadopi, which has a budget of €11 million and employs 70 people, showed a sharp decline in file-sharing since the system was put in place".

See "Copyright Cheats Face the Music in France" - here.


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