Hadopi Begins Issuing Tens Of Thousands Of 'Notices' For Infringement In France

from the begin-the-takedowns dept

Tue, Sep 21st 2010 4:25pm — Mike Masnick

Almost a year after the law officially went into effect, the French Hadopi organization, which is responsible for managing the "three strikes" process to kick file sharers offline after three accusations (not convictions) of unauthorized file sharing, has started sending out notices. Initially, it's sending out approximately 10,000 per day, with plans to ramp up to 50,000 per day. Already overburdened ISPs will be responsible for handing over the info on those accused within eight days, or they could get fined 1,500 euros per day per IP address. That could add up quickly. Some ISPs have threatened to ignore or fight the demands for info, but it's unclear if any ISP is willing to stand up to that kind of liability...

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Filed Under: france, hadopi, isps

40 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:39pm

Denial of due process for everyone, huzzah!

Mon dieu - what's the population of France? Will everyone be getting a notice? Would one feel left out if they don't? I see downloading parties with excellent wine and fabulous crudite on the horizon.

Why do they think this will work again?
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- Anonymous Poster, 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:51pm
  
  Re:
  Fear.
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- Sean T Henry (profile), 21 Sep 2010 @ 7:27pm
  
  Re:
  F R A N C E
  FR - 64,768,389 population (2010) - Country Area: 547,030 sq km
  Capital city: Paris - population 2,187,534 (2010)
  44,625,300 Internet users in June/10, 68.9% penetration, per ITU
  http://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm
  
  If they move it up to 50000 a day it will take 2.44years for every one to get one.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:48pm

It will be interesting to see which and what kind of IPs (not addresses) will be favored by hadopi.
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- RD, 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:51pm
  
  Re:
  "It will be interesting to see which and what kind of IPs (not addresses) will be favored by hadopi."
  
  Even better, I Cant wait to see when some of those IP's turn out to be from ISPs OUTSIDE of France. Should be interesting. Oh and since Sarkozy and his cabinet have been found to be infringing at LEAST four times, does that mean they will get a letter too? hmm whats that you say? Not in this lifetime? Right. One rule for them, one rule for us....
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:50pm

Pop. of france = 62,277,432 / 50,000 per day = 1 245.54864 days / 365 = 3.14 years.

In a little over 3 years every single citizen of france will have a warning. Assuming 3 strikes and you're out, in 10 years, nobody will be allowed online in France. Essentially the problem will solve itself.
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- Hephaestus (profile), 21 Sep 2010 @ 7:31pm
  
  Re:
  Its actually "150,000 IP-addresses per day according to official reports"
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- Hephaestus (profile), 21 Sep 2010 @ 7:34pm
  
  Re:
  so figure one year till the french have no internet users left ... and good riddance ;)
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Jay (profile), 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:55pm

Oh this definitely won't end well...
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- Hephaestus (profile), 21 Sep 2010 @ 5:35pm
  
  Re:
  Todays news from france ...
  
  President Sarkozy was beaten by and angry mob of baguette weilding frenchmen.
  
  In other news a antique guillotine was stolen by a woman dressed in clothing from the time of the French Revolution.
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  - Jay (profile), 21 Sep 2010 @ 5:50pm
    
    Re: Re:
    "In other news a antique guillotine was stolen by a woman dressed in red clothing from parts unknown.
    
    FTFY. :)
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    - DS, 22 Sep 2010 @ 6:07am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Where in the world did she go? I wonder if she left any clues with the front desk at the hotel.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:56pm

@RD

Heh, I guess a certain UK minister isn't the only person out there who gets their "IP"s confused.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:56pm

What happens when the IPs invariably are government or critical line of business to France's economy/health?

HADOPI itself?
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abc gum, 21 Sep 2010 @ 4:57pm

ISPs will be raising rates soon in order to cover the administration costs.

Collateral damage will mount quickly and there will be hand wringing on the polical scene.

Can't wait for the inevitable class action law suit. (Do they have those in France?)
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- Hephaestus (profile), 21 Sep 2010 @ 5:40pm
  
  Re:
  "Can't wait for the inevitable class action law suit. (Do they have those in France?)"
  
  No but they do have the EU courts. Which will smack this down. It will probably end up with internet access becoming a "right" in france. The funny thing is how much attention this is going to generate in europe and the inevitable backlash against IP.
  
  C'est la vie :)
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  - Hephaestus (profile), 21 Sep 2010 @ 5:43pm
    
    Re: Re:
    oops sorry the french do have class action lawsuits ....
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 5:08pm

Considering how essential the Internet has recently become, I think it should be illegal for any government to kick a person offline unless that person is out on parole or under probation. If copyright holders wish to fight copyright infringement, let them bring cases to court. That anybody should ever be forced offline because of Hadopi's accusations is outrageous and undemocratic.

How long until copyright holders begin to abuse the process by targeting those who engage in fair use? Will the government (or other powerful entities) ever abuse this process to force its critics offline?
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 5:23pm
  
  Re:
  Oh, I would say 5 minutes after your post.
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kingalekz, 21 Sep 2010 @ 5:58pm

The article on Torrentfreak you linked says 150000 IPs a day, not 50000.
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Josh Taylor, 21 Sep 2010 @ 6:56pm

Good Try European Community but 3 strikes are still in ACTA now.
I can see that Saroky disagrees with the EC and going "We have to do what the ACTA treaty says and sign it. And I don't want to hear any of that 'No Three Strikes Policy'. No more whining an Anti-ACTA legislation. Sign it or we will be nuked by other countries who agreed to this treaty. Like it or Not. Infringers must be punished."

Okay, who wants to move to China or Hong Kong?
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 7:51pm

How many of these notices will go to people who never used the filesharing software in question?

For instance, it is well known that some Bittorrent trackers add fake IP addresses to the list of peers they return.

In fact, it would not surprise me at all if some people have already found the IP addresses used by Trident Media Guard and are feeding them fake data.

Not to mention the reaction to the disconnections. If enough people are cut from the Internet, they will form a parallel network, most probably some sort of wireless mesh network.
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 7:56pm
  
  Re:
  And I just noticed I missed a fun one: the ISPs have to pay a large fine for every unidentified IP address. But there are IP addresses they cannot identify: addresses which were never allocated to a costumer at all (but were in the list either because of a defect in the data collection or because they were faked by someone else), and IP addresses which were allocated to a costumer but never logged, due do a glitch in the logging system. So they cannot avoid paying large fines daily.
  
  Either the ISPs fight this, or they go bankrupt.
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  - Sean T Henry (profile), 22 Sep 2010 @ 6:41am
    
    Re: Re:
    Solution create fake people to pin it on.
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- abc gum, 21 Sep 2010 @ 8:20pm
  
  Re:
  If allowed to continue to its natural conclusion, there will be no IP Addr lookup effort as that cost time and money. The process will become much more efficient and since there is no penalty for a wrong result, it will become a selection routine similar to that used by the telemarketers simply going through a sequence of ranges based upon input parameters. You will be a victim sooner or later. The cost in time and money will be more than that of just paying up. Most will give in and then it will become a crime to proclaim ones innocence. Woohoo, I wonder if it will be tax deductable.
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Josef, 21 Sep 2010 @ 8:34pm

History lessons
The French should look at Prohibition in the US. Yeah that worked real well. You take something people enjoy and don't see as morally wrong and make it illegal. They will do it anyway.

If you need to send out 50,000 notices a day, just maybe file sharing isnt the problem.
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 10:35pm
  
  Re: History lessons
  It still _isnt_ working real well.
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  - nasch (profile), 22 Sep 2010 @ 8:33am
    
    Re: Re: History lessons
    He's referring to prohibition of alcohol (you can tell by the capital P), which is long since over. Prohibition of certain other drugs is still not working.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 8:47pm

Every one should inject fake French IP ranges.
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- Hephaestus (profile), 22 Sep 2010 @ 11:28am
  
  Re:
  Better idea lets use real IP addresses. The ones from all french government offices, web sites, politicians, and politicians homes.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 9:15pm

Doesn't hadopi sound like a tasty Benihana dish?
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 10:51pm
  
  Re:
  It's more Americanized for me: Heh, dopey.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2010 @ 10:37pm

I wonder if ISP will prioritize those things over law enforcement requests that would be priceless.

After 20 years people will come out of the closet and say, there were serious problems that the government at the time hide it from the public so they could continue the project.
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The Rust Belt (profile), 22 Sep 2010 @ 12:00am

Content Industry's Revenues
So, now all these French will open their wallets and start paying for everything they have otherwise been pirating. Right.

Another nail to the coffin of less and less significant French culture.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2010 @ 2:19am

Where is the DOPI man, we need some money and the DOPI will help us get that money man.

Aliens have infiltrated governments everywhere they come from many planets like Universalland, Disneyland, EMIland and others, be careful the body-snatchers have taken our congress.
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Major, 22 Sep 2010 @ 3:29am

Meh
Never been fond of my own country and all this BS doesnt help. It's a bit unnerving that politician seem to obey the wealthy,a bit too similar of what is happening everywhere. Too much for most of us to even bother. Wasting our money to make stupid law seem to be an huge trend these day. Lets hope a country patent stupidity and sue the ass of politician who are doing it worldwide, so they may stiffle politician stupidity innovation... Well i'm off need to buy some baguette to feed my pet frog.
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Marco, 22 Sep 2010 @ 5:24am

Crazy ...
The new Napoleon has been found ... together with G. Bush Son they show the world what's these days modern democracies and liberty ...
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homie, 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:01am

VPN market
A funny news this morning in France. Whereas the Hadopi law is starting, the START-vpn.com (http://www.start-vpn.com) company announce a 300% increase of VPN accounts signups. Only for september... There, the press release: http://fr.finance.yahoo.com/actualites/le-march-des-vpn-en-france-boost-par-hadopi-newswire-fbd2ab5f 8d85.html?x=0
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NoName, 6 Nov 2010 @ 6:24pm

Hadopi's English name
I thought the full name of Hadopi translated into "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice".
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gene, 7 Jan 2011 @ 6:20pm

Interesting. France, and other European socialist countries might have to adopt a more "democratic" culture, similar to what the US has had for a couple generations, due to the "free" internet :)
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