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      France’s New Strategy For Tackling Online Piracy Presented in New Bill

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Friday, 9 April, 2021 - 07:09 · 2 minutes

    Pirate Key For more than a decade, French anti-piracy agency Hadopi had made headlines in its quest to reduce illicit sharing on peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent.

    France became a pioneer of the so-called “graduated response” system back in 2010, with Hadopi chasing down persistent copyright infringers with threats to disconnect them from the Internet. Since then, however, many aspects of the piracy scene have changed and France believes that change is needed to better tackle today’s threats.

    Bill Presented to Council of Ministers

    This week, France’s Council of Ministers was presented with a new bill that aims to more tightly regulate and protect access to cultural works in the digital age.

    “Much awaited by cultural and audiovisual professionals, this text provides concrete answers to three major challenges in the field of audiovisual communication in the digital age: the protection of rights, the organization of our regulation, and the defense of public access to French cinematographic and audiovisual works which constitute our heritage,” a statement from the Ministry of Culture reads.

    The bill’s aims are split into three broad sections, two of which deal with piracy matters – the protection of creators’ rights and the modernization of regulation.

    Protection of Creators’ Rights

    A key aim of the bill is to make it much harder for sites that profit commercially from the distribution of infringing content to operate freely. Under the current system, much focus had been placed on French Internet users using P2P networks to share content but with a shift towards other technologies, France sees a need to upgrade its toolbox.

    “This bill thus strengthens the means of combating counterfeiting on the internet against streaming, direct download or indexing/linking websites, which profit from the posting of works in violation of the rights of creators,” the Ministry says.

    In particular, the bill will see the creation of a centralized “ blacklisting ” system for blocking pirate sites, restricting their appearances in search engines, and preventing them from generating revenue from advertising, for example.

    The bill also aims to establish a system to combat “mirrors”, sites that help to facilitate access to platforms blocked as part of earlier enforcement actions. In addition, France wants to create a new mechanism to deal with piracy of live sporting events, one that is able to cope with the urgency associated with preventing access in real-time.

    Modernization of Regulation

    In 2019, France’s Ministry of Culture revealed early plans to create a powerful authority capable of regulating both audiovisual and digital communications by merging Hadopi with the country’s electronic media regulator. Those plans are moving ahead.

    “To implement these new innovative and ambitious anti-piracy tools, the bill creates a new regulator, marking both the desire to move up a gear in the fight against pirate sites and to include this action in a broader policy of regulation of online content,” the Ministry notes.

    The plan is to merge Hadopi with the Higher Audiovisual Council (CSA) to create the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (ARCOM), an agency with greater powers and jurisdiction over the entire field of audiovisual content, “whether that is to fight piracy, protect minors or defend the public against online disinformation and hatred.”

    The bill will now be discussed by the French Parliament.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Piratage : la Hadopi se moque des défauts des sites illicites pour vanter l’offre légale

      Julien Lausson · news.movim.eu / Numerama · Friday, 11 December, 2020 - 12:35

    Hadopi publicité PUR

    La Hadopi et le CNC lancent une nouvelle campagne anti-piratage, centrée sur trois spots et des affiches qui soulignent les désagréments classiques que l'on peut rencontrer en utilisant des sites illégaux. [Lire la suite]

    Abonnez-vous à notre chaîne YouTube pour ne manquer aucune vidéo !

    L'article Piratage : la Hadopi se moque des défauts des sites illicites pour vanter l’offre légale est apparu en premier sur Numerama .

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      French Three-Strikes Anti-Piracy Law Mostly Benefited American Movies

      Ernesto Van der Sar · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 22 October, 2020 - 19:53 · 3 minutes

    France has been fighting on the anti-piracy enforcement frontline for more than a decade now.

    The country was the first to introduce a graduated response system , Hadopi, where Internet subscribers risked losing their Internet connections if they were caught sharing torrents repeatedly.

    This elaborate anti-piracy scheme provided a great opportunity for researchers to study the effects on legal consumption. Over the years, many papers have been published, documenting both positive and negative effects.

    Recently, a new study was added to the mix that looks at the effect of the three-strikes law on movie theater visits. The researchers specifically examine the effects of Hadopi’s early period. That’s years ago now, but the academic papermill moves slowly.

    The paper, published in the peer-reviewed journal Information Systems Research, shows that the anti-piracy law didn’t increase box office revenue overall. However, it did have an effect on the type of movies people were picking.

    Hadopi Boosted Market Share of US Films

    “We show that, following the introduction of the Hadopi law, the market share for US films increased by 9% at the expense of other movies,” says Christophe Bellégo, Assistant Professor in Economics at ENSAE and lead author of the paper.

    This market share increase comes at the expense of other films, including French ones, as the overall expenditure on box office tickets remains relatively stable. The researchers expect that this increase in U.S. movies can be explained by the belief that these are riskier to pirate.

    “Without an anti-piracy law, some people illegally consume American movies online and legally watch domestic movies in theaters because illegal copies of American movies are easily available on the Internet during their theatrical exhibition. This is much less the case for other movies,” Bellégo tells us.

    While one might think that overall movie theater visits would increase, that’s not the case. According to the researchers, this can be explained by the fact that people have limited time and money.

    No Overall Revenue Increase

    The findings are not very uplifting for the French movie industry. Instead of boosting revenue, attendance of French films dropped. However, the researchers don’t want to conclude that the three-strikes measures failed. They simply changed consumption habits.

    “[The effects are] clearly not in line with the French cultural policy aimed at supporting the production of domestic films and cultural diversity. However, depending on what the ultimate goal of the government is, supporting fair competition or supporting domestic cultural production, the policy is more or less efficient.”

    Put differently, Hadopi corrected legal consumption patterns in favor of the US movie industry, which more accurately reflects people’s true demand. At least, when it comes to movie theater visits.

    Limitations

    There are some limitations to the study of course. The research period is limited to the period between 2008 and 2011 when Hadopi was getting started. It’s likely that these effects wore off over time. Similarly, the researchers only looked at the theatrical market. Other revenue streams, such as DVDs and Blu-ray sales, were not considered.

    That said, it’s clear that anti-piracy measures affect various types of content in different ways. For some it’s positive, and for others, it clearly isn’t.

    “As in many other areas, the effects of policies are complex. They often lead to redistributive effects where there are winners and losers. It’s a bit like sitting on a waterbed. Your weight displaces some water elsewhere, but the total volume is the same,” Bellégo tells us.

    “Understanding the asymmetric effects has important implications for firms whose profits may be affected by legislation fighting piracy as well as for governments for the design of their policy,” he adds.

    The paper by Christophe Bellégo and Romain De Nijs, titled “The Unintended Consequences of Antipiracy Laws on Markets with Asymmetric Piracy: The Case of the French Movie Industry,” is available here (paywall) . A free pre-print can be found on SSRN .

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Hadopi n’a engrangé que 87 000 euros en 11 ans d’existence

      Julie Hay · news.movim.eu / JournalDuGeek · Tuesday, 4 August, 2020 - 10:44 · 2 minutes

    Crédits : Glenn Carstens Peters on Unsplash

    A l’heure du bilan, la loi Hadopi est loin d’avoir fait des miracles. Alors que l’institution a été financée à hauteur de 82 millions, elle n’aurait rapporté que 87 000 euros en onze ans d’existence. Près d’un tiers de ces recettes ont été engrangées en 2019. La même année, l’institution s’est vu allouer un budget à hauteur de 9 millions d’euros. Dans un rapport annuel, repéré par Next INpact , la Haute autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet se félicite d’avoir envoyé près de “13 millions d’avertissement à des internautes ayant méconnu le droit d’auteur” . Le président, Denis Rapone, précise que “dans 70% des cas, aucune réitération des faits n’est constatée après un premier avertissement.” Pour lui, ces chiffres dénotent “d’une efficacité difficilement contestable de la procédure”. Selon le rapport, “50% des personnes sensibilisées à la réponse graduée déclarent s’être tournées vers une offre légale.”

    Pour rappel, Hadopi a pour mission d’identifier les internautes ayant téléchargé des contenus sur les plateformes en P2P. Malgré son essor dans les années 2000, ce type de téléchargement ne représente aujourd’hui qu’une infime partie du piratage, désormais dominé par les IPTV et le streaming. Dans le cas où un internaute est repéré par les réseaux de Hadopi, il reçoit d’abord un premier mail d’avertissement dans les deux mois. Si son adresse IP est à nouveau repérée dans les six mois suivant, l’internaute reçoit alors une lettre à remettre contre signature ainsi qu’un nouvel avertissement électronique. Enfin, un an après le deuxième rappel à l’ordre, si une nouvelle infraction est constatée, la commission décide ou non de transmettre le dossier au procureur de la république. La contravention peut atteindre les 1 500 euros maximum.

    La fusion du CSA et de Hadopi repoussée

    Dans son rapport, l’autorité mentionne aussi la prochaine fusion du CSA et de l’Hadopi. Elle semble s’inquiéter de ce nouveau projet visant à “mettre en œuvre de plus vastes et plus puissantes modalités de régulation des communications audiovisuelles et numériques.” En somme, le regroupement permettrait de lutter sur tous les fronts de l’audiovisuel et d’unir les forces de frappe de toutes les entités. Pourtant, Hadopi semble voir en cette fusion “une absorption de l’Hadopi par le CSA.” Pour l’instant, le projet de loi de réforme de l’audiovisuel, dont la fusion des autorités fait parti, semble remis à plus tard. Interrogée par France Inter (relayée par Ouest France) , Roselyne Bachelot, actuelle ministre de la Culture, disait “attendre d’avoir du temps parlementaire. Le calendrier législatif va complètement être occupé par le plan de relance (post-covid ; ndlr)”.