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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."
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?
Ze deville is in ze details, no?
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.
At 10,000+ notices per day it's simply not practical to sue everyone, which was kind of the point behind this law in the first place; to make it cheaper and easier for rights holders to get people without having to do any of those annoying things like gather evidence.
It's not refusing to relay, it's refusing to send. Hadopi doesn't want to setup an SMTP server, and asks the ISP to send the letter themself.
Free is refusing to do so because there is no compensation for the whole thing, including the identification. It cannot refuse to send the info because of the law, but to send the notification, the law REQUIRES that an agreement was made. An agreement hadopi is refusing to do.
Some people here in france began using anonymous VPN connections like iPredator or Relakks.
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.
IPredator works better than I expected. I thought it would be slow as molasses running uphill in winter, but not only is the pipe as fast as my own connection, but guess what you find right at the exit point: plenty of other sharers, making it all appear like you had a direct line to your neighbors. Speed is always maxed out when I us it (purely for testing of course).
Posting Anon because I fall under that stupid law mentioned above. Cannot wait for the SACEM (French RIAA) and similar to croak and die in their own vomit.
If French courts are anything like courts in the rest of the world, the "spirit" of the law will apply.
You're not american I hope. The country that allows for endless copyright duration by continuously extending the deadline before anything as small as a mouse falls into public domain even though the spirit of copyright law in the US is to mandate the exact opposite of what is going on?
And why is that? Because the LETTER of the law requires a finite duration - it just doesn't care what that duration is or if it's obviously being gamed with endless extensions. (the loophole)
I'm guessing you've not visited France much.
Farmers and fishermen use loopholes in the law to block entire interstates or major ferry ports for weeks on end.
There is a deep and wide cultural history of using legal loopholes to embellish protest.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
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.
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".
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
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 ?
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 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.
Not all of the US operates that way. The state of Louisiana uses napoleonic law. It's probably the only sensible thing about our state.
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