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| Three Strikes Anti-Piracy Budget “Too Expensive To Justify” Says Minister Posted: 03 Aug 2012 02:49 AM PDT It was President Nicolas Sarkozy's baby, a mechanism through which he could prove that punishing file-sharers is the way to get them back into music and movie stores and away from unauthorized sites. But today all is not well with Hadopi. France’s new Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti seems particularly unimpressed with the so-called “three strikes” mechanism, indicating clearly this week that her government would not be giving Hadopi the level of support it enjoyed under the former president. In comments made to Nouvel Observateur, Minister Filippetti said in difficult times cuts have to made, and it appears that spending money on Hadopi is low down the country’s list of priorities. “In financial terms, 12 million euros a year and 60 officers, it’s an expensive way to send a million e-mails,” the Minister said. “As part of budgetary efforts, I will ask that funding of Hadopi is greatly reduced.” The Minister said she prefers to cut funding for initiatives that have not yet proven themselves rather than ones that have. The exact cuts will be detailed in September. Meanwhile, according to a Numerama report this week which quotes Hadopi statistics to June 2012, 340 French account holders are now on their 3rd strike. This leaves them open to losing their Internet connections but according to Minister Filippetti, this ultimate punishment goes too far. “The suspension of Internet access seems a disproportionate sanction against the end goal,” she said. As highlighted many times before, and recently most forcefully by the Danish government, the promotion and development of legal services must be a priority when it comes to reducing online piracy. In this respect, Hadopi appears to have failed. “I do not know what will become of this institution, but one thing is clear: Hadopi has not fulfilled its mission to develop legal offers,” Filippetti said. A consultation on the future of Hadopi led by former Canal+ director Pierre Lescure is expected to deliver its findings in the coming months. Source: Three Strikes Anti-Piracy Budget “Too Expensive To Justify” Says Minister |
| Anti-Piracy Group Sues Torrent Site Webhost for Damages Posted: 02 Aug 2012 10:55 AM PDT
Back in 2007 BREIN managed to kick the torrent site out of the Netherlands where it was hosted by Leaseweb, but it continued to operate from Canada. Later, SumoTorrent returned to the Netherlands at XS Networks, again attracting the attention of BREIN. Hoping to take the site quickly offline, the anti-piracy group asked XS Networks to shut it down and hand over the personal details of the owner. XS Networks refused and said it would only respond to a court order. The provider and SumoTorrent eventually agreed to voluntarily hand over some personal details, but not before the torrent site had moved to a new host in the Ukraine. To make matters worse for BREIN, the personal details on record at the hosting provider turned out to be false. So SumoTorrent escaped again, and according to BREIN the Dutch hosting provider is to blame. The anti-piracy group has taken the matter to court and is demanding damages from XS Networks. BREIN argues that the provider acted negligently when it refused to take the site down when asked to do so. Aside from thousands of euros in legal costs, BREIN also wants the provider to pay for the infringing content that was downloaded via SumoTorrent. During a hearing at a The Hague court yesterday the group demanded 20,000 euros to compensate for the legal expenses incurred to date, plus added damages for yet-to-be-calculated copyright infringements. BREIN further said that it suspects XS Networks of holding back information that could identify the SumoTorrent owner, a claim the hosting company denies. XS Networks did say during the hearing that it would hand over a relevant bank statement to the anti-piracy group. BREIN’s lawyer noted that their purpose is to deal with sites such as SumoTorrent, but XS Networks’ lawyer Steven Kroesbergen sees things differently. He thinks BREIN’s plan was to deliberately destroy XS Networks through expensive legal proceedings, so they can intimidate other hosting companies in the same manner. The Court now has to decide whether the provider can indeed be held liable for infringements that occurred through a torrent site they hosted. This will be an important verdict – a loss for XS Networks means that other Dutch hosting providers will face serious liability issues. For XS Networks it is already too late. The company pulled the plug earlier this year and left the following statement: “In our opinion there is nothing illegal about the websites that were hosted with XS Networks and we are thankful for the warm messages from other webhosters and appreciation of our clients.” “The web is all about innovation and changing the rules. Change which some industries are fighting for years, by throwing money out of the window on law-suits instead of a new business model.” Source: Anti-Piracy Group Sues Torrent Site Webhost for Damages |
Every year Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN claims to shut down a few hundred torrent sites, but | You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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