Three Strikes May Decrease File Sharing, But If Sales Keep Dropping, Who Cares?

from the and-so-it-goes dept

A year ago, we asked what could possibly be the "value" in "cracking down on piracy" if that didn't then lead to increased sales. It's an issue that we've dealt with time and time again. We ask people a simple question: would you rather stop piracy or make more money? Most people note that the latter is the real goal. If the former does not lead to the latter then what good does "stopping piracy" actually do? The answer is none at all. The latest data out of France shows that, despite Hadopi (the administrators of the 3 strikes program) claiming some sort of victory because stats on file sharing are down, the bigger issue is that the sale of recorded music keeps declining. Digital Music News, who normally supports the the "anti-piracy" side of things, has some slides from French labels that show that sales keep decreasing, even as Hadopi highlights a big drop in file sharing and the use of cyberlockers. But all that really matters is this one: This is the key point that we've been making for well over a decade now. "Fighting" piracy is not the same as making more money. The focus should be on figuring out ways to make money. Even if we believe that copyright infringement is a bad thing, if efforts to stop it are both expensive and ineffective, why continue? It makes absolutely no sense. Instead, let's focus on the areas of the industry that have shown that they are expanding and where there's lots of money to be made for those who embrace them.

Oh, and for what it's worth, you have to imagine that the "declines" reported in file sharing and cyberlockers severely undercounts those things too, as using some rather basic tools can let people hide that sort of information from being collected -- and the efforts by Hadopi to "educate" the public likely educated them about how to use VPNs. It does not appear to have educated them to go back to buying at the same levels as the artificially inflated rates in the past.

Filed Under: file sharing, france, hadopi, music, sales, three strikes
Companies: hadopi

Hadopi Says French National Library Needs Unprotected Works... To Put Its Own DRM On

from the locking-up-culture dept

In the past, many have noted that proprietary formats for content almost guarantee that certain works will be lost to history. Backwards compatibility becomes a problem, and before long content that could be accessed by tons of programs may be impossible to open just a few years later. For libraries and archvists this is a huge problem -- and it's made even worse when you add DRM to the mix. It appears that even the "anti-piracy" folks in France recognize this, but only to a limited extent.

According to the French publication, Numerama, Hadopi (the agency in charge of stamping out infringement in France), has published an opinion in which it suggests that content creators give the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France or BNF) works without any DRM on them. As they quite rightly note, in order to better make sure that the culture is preserved and that future archives are accessible, a lack of DRM makes much more sense. They even note that just providing a DRM'd copy with the keys to decrypt it, or with circumvention tools, really isn't sufficient for proper archiving.

That said, the report also then appears to fret about the BNF leaking these unprotected works out into the world. The suggestion seems to be that (wait for it...) the BNF then create its own DRM to lock up the unprotected works that it needs to keep them from getting locked up. In other words, the whole plan is pretty useless anyway.

This is just an opinion, and not binding in any way. So apparently the French government is still considering what sorts of requirements it intends to put on submissions to the BNF, but once again it seems like an overly aggressive "fear of piracy" may actually lead to some bad technical decisions for the sake of "protecting" some works against infringement.

Filed Under: access, archives, copyright, drm, france, hadopi, library, locked up
Companies: bnf, hadopi

One More Copyright Infringement, And HADOPI Must Disconnect Itself From The Net

from the equal-before-the-law dept

The governmental body that oversees France's "three-strikes" law, HADOPI, has already been caught once infringing on the copyright of others -- by using a logo designed with unlicensed fonts. Now it's been spotted using photographs without respecting the so-called "moral rights" of the photographer, which include the right to attribution (French original), absent on HADOPI's site. Such moral rights are taken very seriously in France, where they are automatic, perpetual and cannot be waived (unlike in some other jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom.)

As with the earlier slip, the current example shows just how easy it is for someone to infringe on copyrights through error or oversight. Of course, HADOPI doesn't accept either excuse when it's a matter of sending out its famous warnings, or disconnecting people from the Net. So, in the spirit of fairness, it would be unjust to grant itself any leeway either.

That makes two strikes against it so far; let's hope it's more careful in the future, or it will obviously be forced to cut off its own Internet connection to set an example to the rest of France.

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Filed Under: copyright, france, hadopi
Companies: hadopi

Another Day, Another Study That Says 'Pirates' Are The Best Customers... This Time From HADOPI

from the damn-that-data dept

We've pointed out that a whole series of studies have all suggested that the biggest infringers of content online also tend to be the best customers of content, rather than just "freeloaders" who refuse to pay for content. Critics of these studies brush them off (without any evidence) by simply saying if that were true, then sales of content wouldn't have dropped so much in the music industry (other industries, it should be noted, have not seen such a drop-off). But that's misunderstanding (or misapplying) basic statistics. No one is saying that this means that file sharing automatically leads to more sales. But it does suggest that treating those people as just "freeloaders who just want stuff for free" is absolutely the wrong response. It shows that these people are willing to pay money if they're given a good reason to buy. The problem is that they're not.

From a strategic standpoint, this impacts how one responds to increased "piracy." If you realize that they're merely underserved customers, the correct response is to come up with better business models. If the problem is that it's "free, free, free!" then perhaps enforcement could make some sense. But... all of the studies seem to suggest it's the former, rather than the latter... and thus the enforcement/stricter copyright responses won't help at all (as we've seen).

Joe Karaganis, from SSRC, points us to the news that there's been yet another such study... and this one is from HADOPI, itself. Yes, the French agency put together to kick people off the internet for file sharing did a study on the nature of unauthorized file sharing, too. Not surprisingly (and consistent with every other study we've seen on this topic), it found that those who spend a lot of money on content... were much, much, much more likely to also get content through unauthorized means. HADOPI released the results in a somewhat convoluted way (perhaps trying to downplay this result), but Karaganis reformatted the results to make this clear: Karaganis suggests, then, that HADOPI's method of dealing with this -- threatening people to stop their file sharing, won't do very much to help the bottom lines of the entertainment industry:

If piracy is a sampling and discovery tool for high spenders, then suppressing piracy could depress legal sales. If–as I’ll argue at more length in a subsequent post–we’re in a mostly zero-sum market in which consumers are maxed out on discretionary media expenditures, then enforcement won’t significantly expand but at best just cannibalize one media sector for another. Music, games, and movies, let’s say, competing for the same discretionary dollars–and all of them competing with rising, increasingly non-discretionary internet access and data charges. If we’re in this type of market, then HADOPI is just in the business of eliminating its best customers. Good luck with that business model.

And suppressing the means of communication at the same time -- collateral damage for no good purpose. Brilliant!

Filed Under: customers, file sharing, piracy, studies
Companies: hadopi

54-Year Old School Teacher Who Doesn't Know How To Download Movies First To Be Kicked Off The Internet In France

from the hadopi'd dept

We recently noted that, over in France, under the HADOPI three strikes regime, they had their first 10 people get their third strike, and each was being reviewed to see if they should lose their connection. Well, it looks like the first guy has lost his connection... and it's a 54-year old school teacher who insists he has no idea how to download unauthorized content. The story is a little unclear, but it sounds like he had open WiFi, and he didn't understand what the "first strike," was really about. When he got the "second strike" notice, he tried to figure out how to secure his WiFi, but it either took too long or he was unable to figure it out... and so along came the third strike. The guy is pretty upset about this, for a damn good reason. It's going to be ridiculously expensive to fight and it may get appealed up to European courts outside of France, which would entail significant travel expenses as well. This is why it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, right?

Filed Under: france, hadopi, oversight, review, three strikes
Companies: hadopi

France Suspends 3 Strikes Monitoring Following Data Breach

from the oops dept

Over the weekend, TorrentFreak reported that the company that French "three strikes and you're off the internet" agency Hadopi had hired to help it track down infringers, Trident Media Guard, had been hacked, though, in reality it appears to be much more of a simple data breach caused by TMG poor setup. The breach left open a lot of details of the tracking system, including IP addresses linked to the whole 3 strikes process. In response, it appears that Hadopi has "temporarily suspended" its work with TMG, perhaps to measure the damage and see if it can actually learn to lock down its computers. In the meantime, however, as TorrentFreak points out, there are no other providers doing this monitoring -- meaning that (at least for a little while), it appears 3 strikes monitoring has stopped in France.

Filed Under: breach, copyright, france, monitoring
Companies: hadopi, triton media group

Exploit On Hadopi Site Turns It Into Pirate Bay Supporter

from the guilty-until-proven-innocent dept

Hadopi, the French agency set up to enforce France's three strikes and you're kicked off the internet policy, apparently isn't very good at securing their own website. Someone found a simple XSS vulnerability and set up a page where Hadopi was promoting the Pirate Bay with an integrated search. Of course, lots of sites end up with XSS vulnerabilities. It's often tough to avoid them (and yes, we've been caught with them a few at times). But, the reason why this is especially ironic is that part of Hadopi's position is that if you fail to secure your internet access point, you're still liable for the actions of users on that access point. Thus, it's not a stretch to argue that Hadopi is, by its own rules, liable for any infringement that may have occurred via its own site, right? Perhaps Hadopi should kick itself off the internet.

Filed Under: exploit, hadopi, xss
Companies: hadopi, the pirate bay