[x-pubpol] France’s new president poised to strike out 3-strikes law

[Joly MacFie]

http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/08/frances-new-president-poised-to-strike-out-3-strikes-law/

By Jeff John Roberts <http://paidcontent.org/author/jeffjohnroberts/> May.
8, 2012

Content owners have been hoping that France’s controversial HADOPI scheme
for disconnecting file-sharers might provide a model for the rest of the
world. Now, the fate of the plan is in confusion (like much else in France)
after last week’s election that brought Socialist Francois Hollande to
power.

The French law with the funny acronym went into effect last year. It
resulted in the creation of a large bureaucracy that has sent a reported
 755,015 email warnings to those who take copyrighted content without
permission. The warnings are supposed to be the first strike in a series of
measures that culminate in citizens losing their internet connection — a
prospect that has created great alarm but has not actually come to pass.

France’s former government claimed HADOPI reduced piracy by up to 66
percent but others questioned the
statistics<http://paidcontent.org/2012/03/28/419-france-claims-three-strikes-has-hit-piracy-but-has-it-really/>
.

The Socialist party has long promised to revoke the measure altogether and
the French press, where HADOPI has been a big deal, has already been
speculating about when Hollande will actually kill the law.

In a report on digital issues confronting
Hollande<http://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/high-tech/les-chantiers-numeriques-qui-attendent-francois-hollande_293628.html>,
French news magazine L’Express says HADOPI is the most important one and
that the new president will implement a revised version of the law by 2013.
In the meantime, the report suggests, the existing law’s enforcement
measures will soon be suspended.

But at the same time, Hollande is beholden to the country’s powerful
cultural interests. He has vowed to
fight<http://www.gizmodo.fr/2012/05/07/hollande-et-leconomie-numerique-le-point.html>
illegal
distribution platforms that “distribute cultural content without
participating in their financing.”

Overall, this suggests that the new French government will cease
enforcement campaigns against individuals and instead target file-sharing
websites as part of a nationalistic cultural campaign. The details — like
much of Hollande’s plans for fixing France — have yet to be sketched out.

Meanwhile, the European Commissioner for a digital agenda has expressed
discomfort with HADOPI-style punitive measures, and appears focused instead
on creating more seamless
licensing<http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/02/europes-digital-chief-hopes-france-can-liberalise-digital-copyright/>
frameworks
for content.

The United States, for now, is poised to go in a different direction with a
“six-strike<http://paidcontent.org/2011/07/12/419-no-more-lawsuits-isps-take-lead-in-policing-piracy-with-six-strikes-pla/>”
regime set to go into effect this summer. The scheme is the result of a new
collaboration between studios and ISP’s, and would result in a series of
warnings and enforcement measures.

At the same time, copyright owners from publishers to porn studios have
become more aggressive in using the courts to sue dozens of people at once
through “John Doe”
lawsuits<http://paidcontent.org/2012/03/29/419-publisher-unmasks-dummies-ramps-up-lawsuits-against-e-book-sharers/>
in
which a case goes forward and names are filled in later. Content owners
have also been working with federal authorities to seize “rogue”
websites<http://paidcontent.org/2012/02/03/419-feds-seize-hundreds-of-websites-days-before-superbowl/>
.

-- 
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