Hadopi Sends Info On Those Accused (Not Convicted) Of Repeat Infringement On To Prosecutors

from the kicking-you-off-the-internet dept

You may remember last fall's numbers concerning how many first, second and third strikes Hadopi, the French agency in charge of kicking people off the internet for possible copyright infringement, was sending out. Now come reports that France is finally moving beyond just the strikes, and has passed along info on those accused (not convicted) of infringement to "prosecutors" for the next stage, which could result in them losing internet access.

The report also notes that Nicolas Sarkozy, who was the original champion of three strikes plans, is already looking to expand the law to go after cyberlockers rather than just peer-to-peer, as is the case with the current Hadopi plan, apparently. I'm sure, in an effort to support such a move, politicians will push the misleading claim that Hadopi has actually worked, even if the actual data suggests what really worked was wider availability of legitimate services and tools.

Filed Under: disconnect, france, hadopi, infringers, prosecution, three strikes

iPhone Data Debunks Recording Industry's Report On How French Three Strikes Law Increased Sales

from the correlation-is-not-causation dept

The annual Digital Music Report (pdf) of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is a curiously conflicted production. On the one hand, it must celebrate "a healthy 8 per cent increase in our digital revenues in 2011 -- the first time the annual growth rate has risen since records began in 2004 "; on the other, it must continue to push the party line about how the industry is being destroyed by piracy.

The IFPI has a stab a reconciling that contradiction, writing: "The truth is that record companies are building a successful digital music business in spite of the environment in which they operate, not because of it." However, it desperately needs some proof of that statement, because otherwise the simplest explanation is that piracy is not a serious problem, and that the recording industry is thriving, just like the rest of the creative industries.

The IFPI probably thinks it has found some proof in the French HADOPI experience, which, according its report, demonstrates that introducing three-strikes measures against unauthorized sharing boosts digital sales.

A new academic study -- The Effect of Graduated Response Anti-Piracy Laws on Music Sales: Evidence from an Event Study in France, by Danaher et al -- has also found evidence that Hadopi has had a positive impact on iTunes sales in France. The authors studied sales of digital singles and album downloads on iTunes from July 2008, before the law was adopted, until six months after the start of notices. They developed an estimate of what French iTunes sales would have looked like in the absence of Hadopi by studying a control group of similar markets.

The analysis found that French iTunes sales saw a significant uplift at exactly the period when awareness of Hadopi was at its highest, in Spring 2009, when the law was being debated in the National Assembly. This effect was maintained throughout the period studied. French iTunes sales were 22.5 per cent higher for singles and 25 per cent higher for digital albums than they would have been, on average, in the absence of Hadopi.

Taking a look at the study (pdf) provides some details of how the research was carried out:

For this study, we obtained a panel of total weekly iTunes sales units for a number of European countries including France. Our data extend from July 2008 to May 2011, and we observe separately both track unit sales and album unit sales. The data were obtained directly from the four major music labels -- EMI, Sony, Universal, and Warner -- and aggregated to reflect total iTunes sales for the majors.

In an attempt to observe the effect of HADOPI, these sales were compared with a control group of five other European countries that didn't introduce similar legislation: the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Belgium. By looking for differences between these two data sets, the researchers hoped to observe the effects of the three-strikes legislation on sales of digital music, using a Google Trends graph of searches for the word "HADOPI" as a proxy for awareness of that legislation, both before and after it was passed.

The graph of iTunes sales for France clearly diverges from that of the control group, lying consistently above it. The divergence begins around about the time that HADOPI was first presented to the French National Assembly, increases slightly, and then decreases a little after the first warning letters were sent out. From this, the researchers deduce that the discussion around HADOPI caused significantly increased sales of iTunes compared to the control countries:

these estimates indicate that French track sales units rose about 25.5% in the control group after March 1, 2009 but by 48% in France, indicating that French iTunes track sales were 22.5% higher on average than they would have been in the absence of HADOPI. Similarly, album sales units rose by 42% in the control group but 67% in France, indicating that HADOPI increased iTunes album sales an average 25% per week in France.

That's a plausible explanation if you believe that piracy is stopping people from buying digital music, but it's not the only one. The French newspaper Le Monde decided to use the same technique of comparing the rise in iTunes sales with Google Trends, but with a different search term. Since iTunes is intimately bound up with Apple's products, Le Monde thought to take a look at the trend for "iPhone" searches on Google.

What it found were five very pronounced peaks in the French searches that corresponded exactly with five (smaller) peaks in iTunes sales, and also to five well-defined external events: the launch of the Iphone 3GS and iPhone 4, and three Christmas seasons. The effect was so marked in France because it was starting from a lower base: according to the researchers, the average sales of iTunes in France were 450,000 per week, while in the UK they were 2,900,000 per week. So an alternative explanation for those impressive increases in sales is simply the uplift in iPhone ownership generated by new launches and the holidays in an immature market with plenty of room for growth.

The researchers do offer one other piece of evidence for the uplift in sales being due to the crackdown on piracy:

EMI surveys of French citizens show that that Rap and Hip Hop are the most heavily pirated genres, even relative to popularity in legal sales channels. While Rock and Pop experience average levels of piracy, the data also indicate that genres such as Classical, Christian, Folk, and Jazz experience significantly lower levels of piracy.

Therefore, they argued, if the increase in sales were due to reductions in piracy, they would expect "the increase in Rap sales to be larger than that for Rock and Pop and the increase for Classical, Christian, etc. to be quite low." And that is precisely what is observed. Conclusive proof? Maybe not.

As the Le Monde analysis points out, another explanation is that many recent iPhone purchasers are younger people, who are generally the most interested in acquiring the latest technology as soon as it comes out. And younger people, by and large, listen to more Rap than Classical or Christian music, which would explain the difference in the increase across genres.

Spending so much effort here on exploring one research report might seem excessive, but it matters. The IFPI is already branding this supposed increase in digital music sales -- quantified by the researchers at $18.6 million annually for France -- the "HADOPI Effect". In the months to come, you can bet that the recording industry's representatives and lobbyists will be visiting governments and showing them this "proof" that three-strikes really "works" -- and demanding they follow suit to "protect" the artists.

What's ironic is that the IFPI report spends many of its pages discussing a much more sensible way of reducing unauthorized sharing: offering high-quality music streaming services instead, as recent market research from Scandinavia indicates. Unfortunately, the recording industry is so obsessed with punishing pirates that it can't see that its future lies in promoting innovation, not legislation.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: data, france, hadopi, iphones, research, sales

HADOPI Wants To Research File Downloads: Shouldn't It Have Done That First?

from the better-late-than-never dept

One of the most important aspects of the UK's Hargreaves Report was that it called for copyright policy to be based on evidence. It also noted that so far that simply hadn't been the case, and that practically all of the so-called "studies" used to justify laws in this area came from the copyright industries, with missing or dubious methodologies.

The French three-strikes scheme known as HADOPI (actually the name of the government agency that oversees its implementation) is a perfect example of such dogma-based legislation: no research was done into how files were being shared or even whether they did any harm (there's a fair amount of evidence that file sharing increases sales).

So it's interesting to see HADOPI putting out a call for some research into streaming sites (original in French):

The commissioned study focuses on an economic analysis of streaming sites and direct download where illegal practices are the most common, offering cultural property in the areas of music and video.

This new interest in streaming sites is presumably a consequence of Nicolas Sarkozy's announcement at the recent Forum d'Avignon that "we have to tackle the streaming web sites." It's certainly welcome that HADOPI is doing some research before it draws up its proposals in this area; but shouldn't it have done the same with the original three-strikes scheme?

There's an interesting parallel with SOPA here. In the section with the splendid title "Denying U.S. Capital To Notorious Foreign Infringers", we read the following:

Report to Congress- The Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator shall, not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, submit to the Committees on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Senate a report that includes the following:

(1) An analysis of notorious foreign infringers and a discussion of how these infringers violate industry norms regarding the protection of intellectual property.

(2) An analysis of the significant harm inflicted by notorious foreign infringers on consumers, businesses, and intellectual property industries in the United States and abroad.

Again, it's good that some research into that "significant harm" will be carried out, but shouldn't that come before the legislation is drawn up and enacted, not after it?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: evidence, france, hadopi, hargreaves report, impact, pipa, piracy, post hoc, protect ip, research, sopa

Leading French Presidential Candidate Would Repeal HADOPI But Keep Net Surveillance

from the out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire dept

As a recent Techdirt post noted, France's HADOPI "three strikes" policy has effectively criminalized vast swathes of that country. Despite widespread opposition, the law was pushed through in 2009 by the current French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, as one of his pet projects - it's probably no coincidence that he is married to a pop singer.

Sadly, the damage to online users' civil liberties caused by HADOPI's approach of guilt upon accusation is not limited to France: variations on the "three strikes" law have appeared in the UK and New Zealand, and other countries are flirting with the idea of introducing something similar. In addition, Sarkozy used the G8 meeting in Paris this year to call for the "wild west" of the Internet to be regulated – which presumably means passing even more copyright-friendly laws around the world.

Against that background, news that Sarkozy's campaign for re-election next year is struggling badly gains an extra interest:

The French Socialist party's newly elected presidential candidate, Francois Hollande, would score a landslide victory over Nicolas Sarkozy if the election was held tomorrow, according to an opinion poll.

The survey – the first since Hollande, 57, was nominated as the Socialists' official candidate – gave him a crushing 62% of votes against just 38% for the incumbent in the final round of a two-round vote.

With seven months to go before the presidential elections next April and May, anything could happen. But the poll, carried out by CSA and published on Wednesday, shows a level of support never before achieved by a Socialist candidate.

As that points out, there's still a quite a while to go before the elections, and so Hollande's election to the Presidency is by no means certain. But given his unprecedented showing at this stage it's worth looking at what his position would be on HADOPI if he were to win.

Until recently, his views were clear: he voted against HADOPI when it was passing through the French Parliament, and said he wanted it repealed. But a few weeks ago, from total abolition his position shifted to what amounts to only a partial repeal, as revealed in a blog post by his digital policy adviser outlining Hollande's plans (in French).

To be sure, they contain some good ideas: encouraging more "legal" online music services by making it easier for startups to license music from major record companies, and proposing the creation of a new "remix right". Most importantly, they will remove the threat of connections being cut if people are accused several times of downloading copyrighted material. Sadly, though, Hollande aims to keep one key aspect of HADOPI – its surveillance of users:

maintain the mechanism for detecting piracy and warning Internet users (for discussion: as a last resort, the user's file could be sent to the copyright holders for civil suits)

Clearly, if that point currently marked as "for discussion" were implemented it would give a powerful new weapon to the copyright industries to deploy against those accused of downloading or sharing unauthorized copies. It would probably cause even more of the shake-down schemes we have seen elsewhere to spring up – with the added twist that the copyright holders would have access to the user's connection records. That's clearly a dreadful prospect in terms of preserving people's privacy online, and would be wide open to abuse.

If Hollande does indeed become the next President of France, let's hope that he doesn't follow in the footsteps of his predecessor by bringing in such a bad Internet law.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: france, hadopi, hollande, politics

No Surprise: Scammers Focus On Tricking The French With False Three Strikes Infringement Notices

from the but-of-course dept

We've seen similar scams for a few years now, but with the French three strikes administrators, Hadopi, sending out 650,000 first strike notices, it should come as no surprise that the scammers have jumped in to try to take advantage of people. They're sending notices to people pretending to be infringement notices from Hadopi. They ask people to click through to access their report. Following the link brings you to a cleverly faked Hadopi website, which asks for a registration code and provides the following instructions:

“To get the access code by SMS: Send CODE to 81083. For the confirmation code by SMS: send CODE to 81015. To get the access code by phone: call the following number: 0899 230 141. Confirmation code by phone: call the following number: 0899 230 148.”

And that's where the scam part comes in. The numbers are apparently premium access numbers, meaning that sending those text messages will end up costing quite a bit. Pretty sneaky. Yet another example of the kind of collateral damage created when you set up systems that treat people as guilty without any hearing or trial. It leaves itself wide open for abuse from scammers.

Filed Under: france, hadopi, scams

France Continues Mass Processing Of Infringement Accusations: 60 People Get Third Strike Notice... 650,000 Get First Strike

from the crimininalizing-an-entire-country dept

The latest stats coming out of France's HADOPI "three strikes" (really three accusations) policy are really quite stunning. Most of the focus is on the fact that 60 ISP account holders have received their third strike, and now await to see if they'll be fined and/or kicked off the internet without ever having actually been convicted of copyright infringement. But, to me, the much more interesting numbers are the first and second strike numbers. An astounding 650,000 people have received "first strike" notices, with 44,000 of those receiving a second strike as well. Those are huge numbers. It makes you wonder, at what point do those in power begin to recognize that if so many people are engaging in this, there must be some sort of better solution.

The entertainment industry loves to call infringement "theft," but I don't think anyone would argue that 650,000 people are running around France stealing things out of stores. And that's because people inherently recognize that there's a massive difference between stealing a physical product, such that there's one less of it, and listening to a song that they like, where nothing is removed for anyone else. When a huge percentage of your population is accused of breaking the law, the problem is not with the people... but with the law.

Filed Under: france, hadopi, statistics

Sarkozy Routes Around Parliament, Ditches Net Neutrality, Forces Copyright Clauses Into All ISP Terms Of Service

from the but-of-course dept

This is hardly a surprise, given that the Sarkozy administration appears to believe that copyright is more important than all other human rights but apparently, as part of a telecom bill in France, the administration added a clause that forces all French ISPs to have clauses concerning copyright infringement in their terms of service, which also force ISPs to ignore some basic principles of net neutrality. What's interesting here is that Sarkozy didn't even go through Parliament to do this, but rather made use of some process called "transposition" that allowed him to add certain clauses to the Telecoms Act, outside of the Parliamentary process.

Over the summer, the French government has published its transposition of the Telecoms Package. The Sarkozy regime has used a controversial manipulation of the legislative process to get the transposition into law without going through the French Parliament. It includes provisions which contradict the French government’s stated objective of protecting net neutrality. Moreover, it includes a copyright obligation on ISPs to support France’s 3-strikes law.

Sarkozy even ignored the government's advisory committee on the digital economy, which explicitly came out against some of the provisions that were added. Of major concern is the fact that the required terminology being forced into ISP contracts, says that ISPs will restrict certain services for those accused of infringement. As the article notes, this could include things like blocking Skype, something that would go against basic net neutrality principles, which the French Parliament has said it supports. So, in yet another effort to put draconian copyright law ahead of all else, it looks like Sarkozy has routed completely around Parliament, slipped some extra rules into a Telecoms Package, and in the process made it clear that France officially has no respect for the principles of net neutrality.

Filed Under: broadband, copyright, france, hadopi, net neutrality, nicolas sarkozy, three strikes

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 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...

Filed Under: france, hadopi, statistics

Major French Political Party Puts Repealing HADOPI/Three Strikes On Its Platform

from the but-suggests-a-blanket-license-instead dept

Apparently the secretary of the Socialist Party in France -- which came in second in the last elections, so is a serious party there -- has suggested that the party is interested in appealing HADOPI. Hadopi, for those not paying attention, is the French three strikes plan, designed to kick accused (not convicted) file sharers off the internet. Instead, she is proposing a blanket license on ISPs. Such ideas have been discussed elsewhere, and I believe there are significant and serious problems with a blanket ISP tax, but on the whole, it's a much more acceptable solution than kicking people off the internet. At the very least, it's focused on a carrot-approach, rather than an unworkable stick-approach.

That said, there are still significant problems with any such blanket license, many of which we've covered in the past. It significantly distorts the market, and often at the expense of up-and-coming artists. It also kicks off an ever upwards ratcheting process that we've seen historically with collection societies. Furthermore, it sounds like the Socialist Party's ideas here still include "strengthening of copyright, particularly in the digital sphere." That sounds like a step backwards.

Filed Under: collective licensing, france, hadopi, three strikes