France Three Strikes Law Suggests A Huge Percentage Of French Citizens At Risk Of Losing Internet Access
from the yeah,-that's-not-going-to-play-well dept
When you have a law that a huge percentage of the population violates, you have to wonder if the law is just. The first data is out about the French 3-strikes HADOPI program, and apparently copyright holders have sent in notices claiming 18 million incidents of unauthorized file sharing. The Torrentfreak article suggests that it's 18 million individuals, but I think that they really mean 18 million incidents, which could include some repeat offenders. Still, it suggests a large number of people in France have engaged in file sharing... Of course, HADOPI, much to the chagrin of the entertainment industry, only sent out 470,000 "first strike" notices, 20,000 second strike notices, and just ten third strike notices (which are being reviewed by judges, but no one has been disconnected yet). It'll be interesting to see if there's any noticeable impact on purchases in France. Other reports have already suggested that a mere 4% of unauthorized file sharers in France said they were changing their behavior because of this. Many others were simply shifting to encryption to keep their activities away from prying eyes. Still, the bigger point is that when you have so many people violating the law, perhaps the problem is with the law, and not the people violating it...
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Filed Under: france, hadopi, statistics
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YES, as I've said, if gov't wishes to, they damn well WILL.
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Re: YES, as I've said, if gov't wishes to, they damn well WILL.
...Anyone want a free IOL CD?
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Re: YES, as I've said, if gov't wishes to, they damn well WILL.
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Thomas Paine tried to explain natural rights to both the French and the Americans, but they too enacted simulacrums of Queen Anne's statute of 1709 that annulled in the majority their natural right to copy - leaving it, by exclusion in the hands of a few (copy-right holders).
If you support copyright, you won't like the natural rights explanation of its demise in the face of the people's natural liberty and right to copy, so don't read this: http://culturalliberty.org/blog/index.php?id=276
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And don't worry, I do 'realize'.
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The worst are those who invite friends to watch TV, that is streaming copyright material to 'thieves' too.
I feel sorry for the likes of George Clooney getting a paltry $15 million dollars per film, (how does he survive on such a pittance?) think what he could ask if there were no pirates!
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I so hope some IP max type runs with that one.
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I feel sorry for the likes of George Clooney getting a paltry $15 million dollars per film, (how does he survive on such a pittance?) think what he could ask if there were no pirates!
What about the prop man, his makeup person, the boom operator, his driver? Fuck Clooney, there's a few hundred thousand people trying to eak out a middle class existence to consider as well.
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Re: The behind-the-camera crew's health and retirement plans are funded in part by downstream revenue.
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This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
Obviously, they're all email.
And I think "half a million" easily qualifies as "bulk".
And I see no evidence that the recipients of these messages solicited them, that is, that they asked Hadopi to send them or subscribed to a mailing list. (Given the context, I can't imagine that they would.) Therefore these messages are all unsolicited.
Which means that Hadopi is sending unsolicited bulk email, or UBE...which is the canonical (and only acceptable) definition of spam.
So Hadopi are spammers.
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Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
Or maybe not. Maybe they were sent by regular mail. Just imagine the carnage of trees that would imply. All of the damages (supposedly) caused by piracy in the whole world would pale in comparison.
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Re: Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
French Copyright Cops: we're swamped with three strikes complaints
specifically says "email".
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Re: Re: Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
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Re: Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
Worth noting, though, is that these email messages are not coming from the ISPs: they're coming from Hadopi. While users may have agreed to receive communications from their ISPs (e.g., "There will be a network outage from 2 to 4 AM on Friday") they have not agreed to receive same from Hadopi.
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Re: Re: Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
Not all unsolicited communication meets the definition of spam.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
Government does not get a free pass to spam merely because it happens to have some relationship (regulatory or otherwise) with your business or with a business that you have a relationship with or some involvement in.
Moreover, solicitation isn't transitive -- and can't be, of course, since this would provide an instant excuse to every spammer on planet. (Thus: even if we stipulate that user U has solicited bulk email from ISP I by virtue of becoming a customer of I and agreeing to TOS that say same, U has not solicited bulk email from anyone else, nor can the ISP I do so on U's behalf.)
What you are correct about is that not all unsolicited communication meets the definition of spam. That is why the canonical definition of spam (in the context of email, which is the only context applicable here) is unsolicited bulk email.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
Give you another example. I work tech for insurance agencies. One of the things they can do is send late-payment reminders to their customers via email (assuming they have the email address). If they get 50 clients in a single day who missed a payment, and they send 50 form-letter emails saying "hey, don't forget your bill!” they are NOT spamming.
And that's what the government in this case is doing... they have a large number of emails to send out to people for a transactional purpose (issuing a legal warning).
I think one of the biggest differences here is that spam applies to commercial email, and I don't think you'll see anyone enforce that these government notifications qualify for that definition.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
For example, the canonical definition of spam (UBE) does not discuss who is sending the email, why they're sending the email, what the content might be (or even whether there is any content at all). These omissions are not an accident: they were done with purpose decades ago when the term was coined, and when we were all engaged in numerous (and lengthy) debates about how it should replace earlier extant terminology (e.g., "mass mail abuse", which was in use during the early 1980's).
It also does not include word "commercial" -- another deliberate omission. It is a newbie-level mistake to presume that non-commercial UBE can't be spam...because of course it is. (Do not conflate the canonical definition of spam with the incorrect ones written into statutes in various jurisdictions. As far as I'm aware, no legislation anywhere in the world has actually used the correct definition of spam. This is unsurprising: not only do legislators wish to exempt themselves, as they've done from telemarketing statutes, but the legislative process is heavily influenced by pro-spam lobbyists. Here in the US, the DMA is largely responsible for the CAN-SPAM bill which essentially legalizes spam.)
Non-commercial UBE from political, charity, non-profit, religious or other entities is still UBE therefore still spam -- by definition. (And of course all of us who are familiar with the long and sordid history of spam and telemarketing and junk faxing are painfully well aware that spammers will go to great lengths to claim otherwise.) This is, incidentally, why it is a fundamental error to use the term "UCE"; while the email in question may in fact truly be commercial in nature, this is completely irrelevant in determining whether it's spam or not.
Your insurance company analogy does not hold: the customers have solicited that email traffic by agreeing to subscribe to the "late payment notification system" or whatever the functional equivalent to that is. So while it's bulk, it's not unsolicited, therefore not spam.
Your government (traffic ticket) analogy does not hold either, but for a different reason: it's clearly spam *unless* the drivers in question have signed up for a "traffic ticket notification via email system" or whatever we might choose to call it. The government does not get a free pass to spam merely because it's convenient or because it has something it wishes to communicate or because it has notices to issue.
Now...this particular case, the one we're talking about involving Hadopi, is very clear: the messages are obviously UBE. We need not concern ourselves with who is sending them; why they're sending them; what's in them; or any of the rest of the irrelevant details. Unless Hadopi is running some kind of "sign up here to receive notifications if someone is accusing you of being naughty" service, and I see no indication anywhere that they are, they're spamming.
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But when you started the thread, you mentioned that the French Government is a spammer because of this. If you mean they are canonical spammers, ok... but who cares? I had assumed you made this comment with the intention that 'something should be done about it'. That's why I assumed you mean they were sending out spam as defined by the laws that actually could do something about it.
Looks like we're both right, we were just having two different arguments. I was talking about enforceable spam, I guess. Even those things allowed by CANSPAM are still spam by definition, but I was talking about those things that aren’t allowed.
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Err... Yes, they do. Anti-spam laws do not include communications of legal matters, and if you think they do a judge might have something to teach you.
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Re: This leads to an interesting conclusion about Hadopi
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I would like to know how many are false positives, but that is a difficult thing to ascertain as evidenced by the recording industry attempts to foist the responsibility upon the government. If it were easy the industry would be doing it themselves.
This has the potential of becoming another massive government program of little benefit to a majority of the population. Once established, it is difficult to remove. The wise thing to do at this point is rescind the three strikes law.
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/french-agency-were-swamped-with-three-strike s-complaints.ars
...Another reason for the apparent backlog is that, in some case, Hadopi has received numerous notices for the same user. "If we get the same notice, from the same people, the same week, with the same software, it's counted as just one notice, not 10, or 15, or 20," said the spokesperson.../i>
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That in a few months...
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/sarc
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It ain't going to stop there
And I'm surprised that only 4% said they would change. Usually with a survey like that the numbers are skewed the other direction for fear of prosecution. Unless they're counting all the people who said "no comment" and "I don't infringe" (doesn't look like it).
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Re: It ain't going to stop there
No, one person could get any number of complaints about any number of activities. All we know without more specific information is that it's fewer than 18 million people. Unless I'm reading something wrong here.
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KISS
Oh, wait, then EVERYONE would know what is really going on... damn.
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When it gets to 50 Million...
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Re: When it gets to 50 Million...
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Sinners
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Re: Sinners
.... aybe its our somewhat daffy religious heritage. We are all sinners.
No that's the wrong conclusion from the religious heritage.
The correct conclusion is based on "let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Because we are all sinners we should avoid condemning others when we are no better.
The problem is that the religious heritage has been garbled - we need to go back to the original version.
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I see money in the future of...
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Re: I see money in the future of...
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It's also the first time I've fired up a BitTorrent client since I downloaded Slackware 13.1 Linux, also perfectly legal.
Am I freeloading?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: I see money in the future of...
You are not paying your Microsoft tax.
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"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,"
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Hadopi m'a tuer!
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Re: I see money in the future of...
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- Building seedboxes: NOT illegal.
- Renting out seedboxes: NOT illegal.
What valid reasons? What intent to infringe?
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"It'll be interesting to see if there's any noticeable impact on purchases in France."
So as usual, your anti-copyright bias plus your ability to ignore real world factors means that your "economic" predictions are trivially wrong.
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Re: "It'll be interesting to see if there's any noticeable impact on purchases in France."
Stop 'freetards' and there's still going to be a decline of sales?
So...you're saying the two aren't linked then.
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Re: Re: "It'll be interesting to see if there's any noticeable impact on purchases in France."
Stop 'freetards' and there's still going to be a decline of sales?
So...you're saying the two aren't linked then."
Your close....but..... What he's ACTUALLY saying is that he's an idiot, and at the first opportunity he will confirm this by posting another comment.
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Re: Re: "It'll be interesting to see if there's any noticeable impact on purchases in France."
Both are flat out laughably wrong, but there you see the copytrolls' reality distortion field.
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Re: "It'll be interesting to see if there's any noticeable impact on purchases in France."
Stop jumping to conclusions like this, if you think something different fine I respect that but don't come with this attitude like oh your predictions are so wrong.
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Re: "It'll be interesting to see if there's any noticeable impact on purchases in France."
When (not if) the "3 strikes" campaign comes to the USA, will this dis-economony come in to the discussion? In business-oriented USA, the lack of bang for the buck would seem to mean we should not want 3 strikes at all.
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Systemic problem, anyone?
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A Wast of a lot of money
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Re: A Wast of a lot of money
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Deja Vu All Over Again
See "Drug War", especiall, "Marijuana"
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Re: Deja Vu All Over Again
So, what's your point again ?
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Re: Re: Deja Vu All Over Again
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This is easy to fight
I wonder what would happen if people started issuing DMCA takedown notices against the member corporations of the MAFIAA?
Just an idea.
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Most Western societies are a system of State law and Church law, although the progressive ones tend to replace the Church with organized crime "protection".
The bubble will burst soon. It will be a mess.
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Population of france
If they are counting individuals rather than incidents, Hadopi's after about 1/3 of the adult(ish) population of France!
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Yeah..but did they.....
That's what the French should do! I mean..don't they know their own history?
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