The French government is probably regretting surrendering to the entertainment industry and bringing in a three-strikes law against file-sharers.
According to Billboard.biz French labels are sending 25,000 complaints a day to Hadopi, the agency enforcing that country's "three strikes" law. Quite how it is researching the names of all these file sharers is anyone's guess and it is not clear if they are providing enough “evidence” to switch users off.
The entertainment industry hopes that the threat of being disconnected will force legal digital sales will go up, and alleged infringements will go down. However with that many complaints going through the system and the fact that one-click downloading sites such as Rapidshare are not covered it is looking like the French have created a mess.
The law allows Hadopi to, following a complaint, track down the user in question, initiate a warning process, and ultimately boot the consumer off his or her ISP. But if HADOPI is looking at all these complaints it is moving very slowing to deal with them.
Billboard said that the agency fears its hotline would be overloaded by people calling after having received a warning, or by people protesting at the HADOPI system. Since few people have called the hotline it appears HADOPI is not going after the 25,000 complaints a day.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010 09:03
French might be regretting that three strikes law
Written by Nick Farell
Should never have surrendered to the Entertainment industry
Nick Farell
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view itLatest from Nick Farell