Three-Strikes Anti-Piracy Law

Following file-sharing legislation gives me a headache. From TorrentFreak:

In an attempt to reduce piracy, the French have passed a new law requiring Internet service providers to cut off Internet access for repeat copyright infringers. Under the new ‘HADOPI’ legislation ISPs have to warn their customers twice that they are accused of infringing copyright. If both warnings are ignored, Internet access for that subscriber will be terminated for up to a year – and they’ll have to keep paying their ISP bill throughout this period too.

The law goes much further than disconnecting alleged file-sharers though. In addition it is now possible to take “any action” in order to put a halt to copyright infringement. For example, websites can be blocked without having to provide hard evidence that they are engaging in illegal activities. The Pirate Bay has already been mentioned as one of the sites that could be easily taken out under the new law.

First, everyone knows what a torrent is, right? OK, good.

It’s frustrating that the people making the laws really don’t know very much about the technology as Ernesto talks about in an earlier post. Restricting certain sites like Pirate Bay or Isohunt is not the answer. All the links that they post can be accessed through Google or any other search engine. New aggregater sites will pop up in a matter of months.

Something’s gotta give, though. It just seems like that something isn’t going to give until the legislators have any idea what is going on.

The internet is famed for being dynamic. When a file-sharing service gets canned by the government, users respond with a new way of getting around the legislation. But does that mean we should not do anything about people stealing music (and by stealing, I mean the people who use Torrents and file-sharing without ever purchasing music)?

Anyone interested in solving this mess, please send your proposals via our comments section.