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French ISP Refuses To Send Out Infringement Notices
An anonymous reader writes "Last month it was clear that French ISPs were not at all happy about the whole three strikes Hadopi process in France. Now that the 'notice' process has started, with Hadopi sending out notices to 10,000 people per day, it's hit a bit of a stumbling block. The French ISP named 'Free' has apparently figured out a bit of a loophole that allows it to not send out notices and protect its subscribers. Specifically, the law requires ISPs to reveal user info to Hadopi, but it does not require them to alert their users. But, the law does say that only users who are alerted by their ISP can be taken to court to be disconnected. In other words, even if Free is handing over user info, so long as it doesn't alert its users (which the law does not mandate), then those users cannot be kicked off the internet via Hadopi."
Now how is the system supposed to work if one party apparently cheats, didn't think of that huh!
I'm not sure this is a real win. If the user info is turned over, they can still be sued.
Maybe they don't lose internet ability, but the core problem is still intact.
I wonder if France's government has a lemon rule, so if its customers buy a law with a flaw, they can get their money back?
At what percentage of the population breaking a given law does the law become stupid to have around at all?
I don't see how any ISP can afford to lose 10,000 subscribers a month let alone a a week? With 10,000 notices being sent out per day this is a real possibility.
No ISP can be held responsible for refusing to put itself out of business.
I think people have overlooked France's take on intellectual property. They only care so far as domestic brands (eg Louis Vuitton, Hermes) being counterfeited, and those are the only cases they win in their own courts. Outside of France, those brands lose all the time. We'll probably see a follow up within a month of this "loophole" being corrected, but only for domestic content, while foreign content to do their own damn work.
Ahhh, you have to love the civil law system.
Probably couldn't get away with it in the common law cluster fuck system of the states.
Hadopi's required / they say they need to send 25 000 notices per day I believe, but actually send 100 for this time. Also, "Free" handed the IPs on paper instead of providing the data digitally like every other provider. And yes another provider urged the governement to act to make "Free" comply as they sensed "Free" was gaining a little bit more popularity with this trick.
I can already the hear the American lawyers for the RIAA, in perfect distributed unison, asking their big boobed secretaries for the telephone access code for France.
Alright, so Free says THEY don't have to send the notices. Fine, so Hadopi has to send the email. Big deal, the customer's email address was probably in the data Free handed over.
But then there's this:
“The thing is, the HADOPI and most ISPs decided it was more convenient and secure to use the ISPs’ SMTP [mail] servers [for sending out warnings],” explained Guillaume.
“But ‘Free’ did not agree to Hadopi using its SMTP servers without a signed agreement, which apparently was refused, probably because they required payment or other forms of compensations.”
So, Free is literally refusing to relay the emails via SMTP from Hadopi? Somethings not right with Free's reasoning here. How else do you send an email to the user (as required by the law) without using the ISP's SMTP servers? And since when do ISPs charge others for the right to email their customers?
Watch as the loophole is plugged faster than you can say DRM. If there's anything particular about the French, it's their unholy draconian copyright law. For example, there's no first-sale doctrine in France. They have the exact opposite: Copyright owners are expected to be paid every time a work changes owners. I am not aware of how often it's actually claimed, but I do know it's in the law.
Laws like this are going to push people over to TOR, or Freenet or whatever other new piece of software that guarantees anonymity. The internet pandoras box has been opened for the recording industry. All the king's horses and all the king's men won't fix this.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
I don't understand why the citizens of the French Republic don't overthrow their government and behead their leaders.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!
Viv'la France!
DRM DRM DRM
Free is my isp in france, and I have to say they have a real clue about things at times. The router/voip/tv box they supply works brilliant and is well thought out, they allow proper reverse dns on static ip's, and its easy to get a fixed ip from them with no blocked ports. The only time theyre let down is by the quality of the psu on the modem and the 1st line support. They also run various mirror sites for FLOSS projects, gentoo etc so it makes my life a lot quicker and easier.
Ive always strongly got the impression theyve got some serious unix geeks on staff who actually get a say in what happens.
So, given they technically get it, I am not at all surprised to hear they have a handle on the whole hadopi bullshit and are looking for ways to make life awkward for the people trying to implement it.
Allez ici monsieur, vos chevres sont sur le pont. Voulez-vous Durex?
I'm happy to read this news, I liked Free before it, I like it even more now. Let's hope it will make the whole hadopi crap even more irrealistic ...
We probably want to keep domestic violence illegal, even though it is very common in some places. (IE: Some 20% of families)
In case you don't speak French, I'll point out a few choice words you really need to know to appreciate this post:
les chèvres, noun: goats. Yes, that kind of goat.
le pont, noun: deck
Durex
I hereby forgive the french for trying to run me over while I was visiting france. Now I know that it is legal since the driver did not alert me before the attempted vehicular homicide. Score one for the goodguys. I say the US should now allow French fries back into the us since the freedom fries don't taste as good since there knocked off in china.
comes the centralized focus of power for those who would declare themselves our moral superiors.
Of course, thanks to their self-overestimation, they make a major botch of the job.
>les chèvres, noun: goats. Yes, that kind of goat.
goat cex?
Stealing is great! Did you know that George Lucas had to do Star Wars episode 3 four times? I stole the first three films, together with backups, the backups that I couldn't steal, I deleted. So, the movie that's currently out is actually the fourth one. Though it's more or less the same as the first one.
I also have a few versions of Duke Nukem Forever. Every time they complete it, I steal it and they have to do it again from scratch.
It seems Hadopi announced it will consider the ISP have complied and sent the notices to their users, and will cut their connections and/or fine them accordingly (Hadopi has to send you a snail mail notice beforehand anyway). In other words, it seems Hadopi and Free are playing chicken on this one.
Indirect source: http://www.ecrans.fr/VIDEO-Ecrans-fr-le-podcast-Le-gore,11016.html (video, in french; at 30:50)
The French probably just have this stupid law because of Vivendis interests which probably bribed the government, or probably they didn't have to because the where at the same grand école... This is a sign of hope in times where we are governed by Insurance, Banking and Global media companies to reastblish democracy..
Let's not get too excited here. Free does good things indeed, and I have a good overall opinion on them otherwise I wouldn't be their customer any more; but there are times where they fuck up pretty heavily, such as a couple of months ago, when they provided all of their customer IP ranges to Trend Micro's MAPS for inclusion to the DUL. In essence, they told a major provider of spam rejection lists that no Free customer is allowed to host their own SMTP server -- which is plain wrong: Free customers are allowed to host whatever service they want. But now, many recipients systematically reject their direct mail deliveries as spam. By providing these IP ranges to Trend, Free essentially worked *agaist* their contract with their customers -- and worse yet, it seems Free is unable to have an IP removed from the DUL.
This is exactly the reason why in the US, similar action has been limited to only one user pr day, due to the extreme costs put on the ISP.
In the french case, it's currently 10.000 users daily, and that number will soon rise to 150.000 (!) Imagine costs of say.... 5 euro to locate and send the information to the central location (Hadopi), then imagine sending registeret mail to the users at the cost of... Let's assume 20 euro. Some will have problems getting the registered mail, that's an added cost. Then there's the disconnect process, the court fees etc. All of which gets put on the ISPs. Even if it's only 1% of your users that gets hit with this, you're talking a large percentage of your income, when a broadband subscription can be had for less than 100 euro per year. With the competition amongst providers here in Europe, the budget providers will drown in expenses. I can't see a way for providers to survive without huge pricejumps, which is why I think the legislation is unfair in terms of costs. They're litterally killing the business of anyone following the law.
Similarly, in Denmark, someone convinced the government that it'd be a good idea to store information on what everyone transmits and sends over a broadband connections with a speed greater than 256kbps, for reasons of investigation and anti-terrorism (because it's a certain fact that terrorists EXCLUSIVELY uses fast broadband connections ?!?!?) This means that broadband connections jumped to more than double the price of the EU average for broadband connections.
If the accusers would carry the costs, then fine, let them accuse the entire world, let them tap every single IP adress, let them pay for postage to every person on earth, and for everyone to listen to what their neighbor is doing. Let's reinvent the stasi archives and digitize them, if that's what the people wants (!). But the businesses in these cases get everything for free, because the costs have been put on the ISPs, and consequently the consumers. Hopefully, these terrible laws will be repealed, or civil disobedience will become the norm. While I respect the right to protect your property and rights, these rights are extended to individuals aswell, and I feel trampled on when I read about this case.
My solution: Tell your government how you feel, tell them with your vote, and with your voice. Let them know this is not ok, and ask them to stand up for what's RIGHT. Tell them of injustice. Tell them of the enormous waste of money and time. Ask them to question if a law is for the good of the people, or for big business. The politicians are elected by US, not the corporations. Tell them today. If not now, when ?
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
Too bad Hadopi doesn't give a f*ck about if you download illegaly or not. This thing is a frigging lottery! The equivalent of the RIAA send some IPs to the Hadopi, which relay them to the ISP, which in turn relay them to the user. No verification at all in the process, of the data comming straight out of an interested side. It's a legalization of private police.
And, as was pointed out earlier, what is punished isn't illegal downloading, but "non securization of your internet line". A good joke, if you ask me.
Valiant effort on Free's part, but I have to wonder how long it will be before the French government grabs its ankles for the corporations (again) and fixes the loophole.
I read the headline, thought "free.fr" and lo behold, once again it's free.fr.
Be it transfer limits, FTP hosting, IPv6 pioneering or their user's basic rights: free.fr is the awesome one, the one you only hear good things about.
If I lived in France, I would subscribe to them and to them _only_.
Suck on that you goddamn FUCKERS!
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
The loophole they're using is not actually a loophole. It's been repeatedly affirmed by the courts that when the gov't has to pay private companies when it passes laws requiring them to do work for them, if what is required of them is not part of their business. Example: wiretaps. Since they're not getting paid, they argue they don't have to do it. It's not just they're not getting paid yet, but the executive order outlining how they should get paid and how it should be calculated hasn't been passed yet. And there are precedents according to which that means this part of the law isn't applicable because of it.
In Rwanda millions killed. So because a very large group did it, it is okay?
I think I found a flaw in your "bloke in a pub" idea.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the latest local elections, the first since that law was passed, Sarko's party got disastrous results in the younger demographics. His MPs were freaked out by this, an insider reported. Now they're not exactly the most highly voting demo, but since Sarkozy's core constituency is the 65+, and they tend to eventually die, it does not bode well for 2012.
But there is every indication that Sarkonazy and his fellow reichwingers are actually paid for by Hollywood and the USUK music industry.
They will have to have at least one person full time handling problems. Most likely half a dozen. Remember that those mails have some sort of legal value, and if they don't get delivered because of a bug in Free's infrastructure, they're on the hook. So it's better for them to refuse entirely than to give the assholes a free pass. Plus it annoys the shit out of the assholes so it's good.
'adopee: Zend ouwht zees eenfrangement noteesuh raht naw!
ISP: Bof!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Okay, I clicked 3 links away from the original article and didn't find my answer. I understand a "3 strikes law" to be that if you commit a crime of a certain caliber 3 times, you go to jail, regardless of circumstances.
What does that have to do with the ISPs ?
How many of us would like to (a) help distrubute useful stuff, (b) make the lives of the **AA more difficult and (c) supporte the use of BitTorrent for distribution?
I would be more than happy to serve all three of these goals by adding BitTorrent to our company's server. The problem is finding torrents that make sense. They must be unequivocally 100% legal to distribute, and there ought to be some benefit to someone in having another seed - i.e., there are currently too few seeds out there. Probably the files to be distributed will change over time.
Does anyone have suggestions how to find content that meets these criteria?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The part that is not actually theirs and where they can't easily upgrade ("non-dégroupé"). They're not shaping AFAIK on their fully owned network (unbundled loop).
Whoever discovered this gaping sinkhole in the HADOPI regulation should get a medal!
Viva la resistance!
At least in U.S. constitutional law, an innovator or creator has no right to the ideas they create. That is why copy-right is such a poor word choice. The constitution provides the *privilege* of a limited-time monopoly on their idea as a way to encourage innovation and creativity. But copying was never a right and ideas were never property, until the lobbyists became involved. The confusion comes from the word choice and the natural inclination that people should be compensated for effort. People should be compensated for value, not effort, the two aren't synonymous. The cost of copying ideas was hiding some over-inflation of the value we placed on ideas, and when the cost of copying plummeted, some people were shocked at how little we valued creation. But people do still value it, multiple pay sites have shown that, its just not the value we thought.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
And if they do end up being legally forced to send out notices? Smoke signals.
when they invented the gun, there was much handwringing about the threat to age old standards of "gentlemanly" combat
when they invented the automobile, the laws of the road going back millenia had to change
when they invented the printing press, the middle class was born, religion was challenged, and democracy became possible, and the old feudal systems of centuries was wiped off the map
and now that they have invented the internet, copyright law has to change too
disruptive technology changes society, and the law, and arguing against that process is fruitless and nothing more than a demented form of nostalgia
a system put in place when distributors pressed LPs and cassette tapes does not hold any water in a world where one teenager with a modem has more publishing power globally than time warner, bertelsmann, etc, in 1988
economically speaking, it simply means that i, by myself, can distribute 10,000 copies of a song or a movie to johannesburg, novosibirsk, kyoto, and belo horinzonte with zero cost and zero effort. that's a game changer my friend. the laws written before the internet about media distribution are now simply neutered and powerless and unenforceable
morality is not going away. technology simply changes the status quo. you are confusing the death of morality with the death of just a specific economic agreement specific to its technological time that is now antiquated. deal with it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You know, if you actually presented your argument in a calm and logical manner rather than foaming at the mouth screaming Bullshit every few sentences and calling people morons people might listen to you. As it stands a lot will simply stop reading or be disinclined to give your points any thought due to the way they are presented.
Also, did you really compare copying a movie or song to committing murder? Seriously?
It's another way of ORANGE to make money, that's the bottom line 2 Euro's to join. Hope everyone refuses to comply.
..but to protect their bottom line.
Sending out 10,000 notices every day incurs operational charges to the ISP and they used the loophole in the law to make a point. It went to court, and they won. They were awarded 65centimes (about 0.9 USD) for every notice they send out:
Original news http://www.lepoint.fr/chroniqueurs-du-point/emmanuel-berretta/free-resiste-et-l-etat-se-couche-08-10-2010-1246765_52.php
Googlated: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://www.lepoint.fr/chroniqueurs-du-point/emmanuel-berretta/free-resiste-et-l-etat-se-couche-08-10-2010-1246765_52.php&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhhbwq7L_-y48DXa9kD3IL0ZXaK3dg
Here's a thought.... if any ISP is forced to disconnect an internet client, then could other 3rd party companies like netflix, gamefly, and the like now be able to sue someone for depriving them of a subscriber? If 1 person had a gamefly account, a World of Warcraft account, or anything else... Could Netflix and blizzard now sue someone for the $15/month they won't be collecting anymore?
10.000
Do we need that kind of precision? I could maybe understand 10.0 if you wanted to imply no half users (10.5). But what would constitute 10.001 anyway? Someone with a mole they wanted to remove? Or would they be 9.999 if they clipped their fingernails? In general I would think ISP's would only care about whole users. Just my American opinion.
Never let a mediocre career stand in the way of a good time
What... the... hell...
BTW, you forgot some sort of comparison with NAZIs.
Let me preamble this by pointing out how infantile and ad-hominem your response is. You do your cause a disservice.
Bullshit. First of all, there are some moral standards throughout the centuries and cultures, and one of them is that theft is not ok
"Theft" means I deprive you of an object; "illegal duplication" doesn't deprive you of the duplicated object. Whatever "moral standard" you're appealing to, it simply doesn't apply here.
I'm sure you already know this, since you feel you are well-versed in the circumstances of this debate, but nonetheless you keep pushing regurgitated talking points, decorated with profanities. That doesn't reflect well on you, you know.
Secondly, the current moral values of society may be wrong. Remember Galileo?
Galileo wasn't condemned by the people or by any "moral value"; he wasn't despised or burnt at the stakes. He was condemned by a (relatively small) organization with an interest in maintaining a certain set of assumptions about the world in order not to lose power. So again, your point is moot.
Maybe not all movie downloads are lost sales
if not all movie copies are lost sales, therefore 1 copy != 1 lost sale, which is what the parent post says. Some downloads are lost sales? Maybe. Unfortunately, there's no proof of that, so it looks like you're basing your assumptions on pure faith. Hello, Believer in the Holy Crusade for the Enrichment of Entertainment Enterprises.
You are not a serious person, are you?
if being "serious" means attacking the messenger rather than the argument and using a lot of cussing, then I guess you're right. If it means knowing what he's talking about, then I'm afraid the definition of "serious person" might apply to him rather than to you. The definition of "troll" seems better suited to you, at the moment.
The value you assign to the movie is not the actual economic value of the movie.
That seems to imply a confused definition of value, and it looks like you're the only one holding it here. The concept of "Economic value", which is what the OP (I think) was referring to, is indeed flexible and subjective. I'm perfectly free to assign an economic value of 0$ to "all the work that has been done to produce the movie"; movie producers would disagree, and we *might* end up haggling until we reach a "market value". then again, we might not: I could just tell the producer to go away and not buy his overpriced goods.
You see, this is what entertainment executives don't get: all of a sudden, the distribution price of their goods went down to 0$. Distribution price is the most obvious parameter on which a buyer can base his evaluation (because he doesn't know anything about the production cost), and has been such since markets were "invented". This means that the common man now "naturally" values their goods at 0$, and it's the trader's own job to persuade him that the good has, in fact, a higher value. They don't want to do that, unfortunately. A distribution price of 0$ is a fantastic opportunity for all sort of new economic tricks, but clearly entertainment moguls aren't interested in finding them out, i.e. in doing their job.
No. A lower valuation does not directly relate to financial harm.
Bullshit. So, if I can valuate your house at 1 dollar, am I entitled to take it?
The house is a physical item, that only one person can own at any given time. A digital copy is a virtual item, that can be duplicated to infinity.
If you can perfectly copy my house for $1, i don't see why you should pay me; indeed, I would say "more power to you!"
No. The net effect may be neutral or even possitive given an increase in popularity. i.e. MS-DOS.
Bullshit. Yes, it may be neutral, or even positive, but it is usually negative. But it doesn't matter if it's not negative or not.
-- Let's go Viridian.
You are rude and obviously do not intend to have a constructive discussion. It seems you believe anyone disagreeing with you is not worthy of respect and deserves to be insulted.
Therefore I politely ask you to GTFO.
If I come to your house and I steal your car, you now have no car as I have taken it from you. If you make a song and I download it using bittorrent you still have your song, I have not taken it from you.
Copying != stealing.
Copyright infringement != stealing.
Please look up the definition of stealing if you are still confused.
The French have finally figured out a way to make not doing anything work for them. Good (non)Job!
Review your contract or french law. At least here in Finland you cannot host a SMTP server or connect to SMTP server not maintained by your ISP as antispam policy. Some providers supply connection where there's no blocking of SMTP to outside their network, but you don't have legal right to do so even tho it's not stopped, unless you are an ISP.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
I have already reviewed both the French law and my contract, and both allow me to host a SMTP server -- Free even provides explicit support for it, which makes their action toward Trend even less acceptable.
BTW, the European directives specifically mandate that end users be able to use and provide services as they so decide.
BEDEMIR: Well, now, uh, Launcelot, Galahad, and I wait until nightfall,
and then leap out of the rabbit, taking the French by surprise --
not only by surprise, but totally unarmed!
ARTHUR: Who leaps out?
BEDEMIR: Uh, Launcelot, Galahad, and I. Uh, leap out of the rabbit, uh
and uh....
ARTHUR: Oh....
-__- we are headed that way
dont be to proud of the dirt u stand on
warning pointless sig
We need to throw off the out-dated and fatuous, MAFIAA-peddled notion that a digital copy is like a material object that its owner can be deprived of: it is not. We must also reject the MAFIAA-peddled notion that every free copy is a 'lost sale': it is not.
What it actually is is free advertising to millions of people. The more it is 'pirated' the more valuable the advertising. All you have to do is drag your mind out of the materialistic 20th Century and look to the future; devise a way of capitalising on this fantastic publicity that back in the 20th Century would have cost you millions of whatever currency you use.
The free distribution of digital content is inevitable; even the might of the MAFIAA and all the politicians it can bribe will never stop it. So use it; turn it to your advantage. Many claim that free e-books sell paperbacks; that free software sells support contracts; that free movies can be financed by advertisers (who will be delighted if it is 'pirated' by millions); that free music sells merchandise and concert seats. And that your greatest fear is obscurity, not 'piracy'.
The forward-thinking minds that embrace free distribution of content will soon think of many other ways of turning a penny from it, that we can currently not even imagine. Who would have thought, back in the 1960s where the record industry seems to have become frozen, that a man could become a billionaire from setting up a social media site with no charge for entry? We must not let the Luddites of the media industry stifle all that, and in the process deprive ordinary folk of access to their world's information.
Ideally you also print it using 4 point squint; print it on paper that has lots of defects in it; format your data so that some of the columns run together so that using OCR cannot produce a whitespace delimited table;
Print it on paper that is larger than conventional paper. (Tabloid printers are common. Tabloid scanners less so.)
And, because this data itself is copyright by the ISP, print it on that green paper that is really hard to scan/photocopy.
Oh: Print it using an inkjet printer.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.