France drops ‘3 strikes’ piracy law
July 10, 2013
The French anti-piracy law that disconnected those suspected of illegal file-sharing after ‘3 strikes’has been overturned and replaced with a system of automatic fines.
The “Hadopi law” succumbed to the pressure of the entertainment industry and would disconnect those suspected of online piracy. Users were first sent two written warnings, in what was called a “graduated response”, and if they did not reply their Internet connection would be cut off on the final warning.
Instead of simply disconnecting users, those suspected of copyright could now be fined if they did not reply to warnings, with a relatively low fine of €60 to begin with, and the size of the fine increasing depending on the number of infractions.
The French government is shifting its efforts towards penalising “commercial piracy” and “sites that profit from pirated material” rather than individual users.