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."

Comments

Re:Circumvention via methods such as TOR

[zproc]

Some people here in france began using anonymous VPN connections like iPredator or Relakks.

Re:Where are the parents?

[arivanov]

Rezt of ze world means USA and UK, no?

Most of the "rest of the world" relative to the aforementioned precedent culprits including France uses the napoleonic law system. This system mandates a strict separation of legislative, judicial and administrative powers. In that system the letter of the law is followed strictly and the courts do not go on inventive sentencing and precedent creation spree which practically replaces functions of the legislative branch. Similarly, the parliament cannot suspend, amend, correct and violate fundamental rights the way the UK does on a casual basis under the pretext that "the parliament is sovereign and cannot be bound". And so on.

The law will be returned to parliament, amended and "normal service" will resume shortly. However prior to that the courts will not "replace the pariliament" and engage in "inventive sentencing" the way they do in the UK and the USA.

It is actually more "common sense" than USA and UK because it does not feed endless litigation and appeals of anything regardless how small all the way to the supreme court. It makes the law "stick".