French Record Labels Identifying 25,000 Pirates p/ Day

[Archiee]

French labels trade body director general David El Sayegh says the music industry has been been identifying and submitting the IP addresses to the govt of more than 25,000 suspected file-sharers per day.
It appears that France’s “Creation and Internet” law is in full swing with news that record labels in that country have been identifying more than 25,000 illegal file-sharers per day.

Now the figure is not the exact amount of how many have been subsequently warned by the govt to discontinue their illegal activities, but it does point to a disturbing trend of what’s possible.

First proposed back in June of 2008, the “Creation an Internet” law was formally passed last September, but not after first before being ruled unconstitutional over the fact that an agency (HADOPI), and not a judge, was allowed to disconnect people from the Internet.

The first email warnings were sent out earlier this by the ISPs Bouygues and Numericable. Free at first refused to send them on the govt’s behalf due to the fact that Article L331-25 of the Code of Intellectual Property says that warning letters shall be submitted “through” ISPs and not “by” ISPs.

It eventually relented after the Minister of Culture, Frederic Mitterand issued a decree amending the Code of Intellectual Property so that it clearly states ISPs are “required to submit” warning letters to subscribers on the govt’s behalf.

Free has vowed to appeal the legality of that decree.

In the meantime, according to French labels trade body director general David El Sayegh, record labels have been identifying and submitting the IP addresses of more than 25,000 suspected file-sharers per day.

“It is too early” to know if the law is helping to boost digital music sales, says El Sayegh, but I think it’s unlikely to dramatically boost sales, if it all.

File-sharers will simply switch to so-called cyberlockers like Mega Upload, RapidShare, etc., to other P2P services like Usenet and BitTorrent, or mask their traffic altogether from the comfort of an encrypted VPN connection.

[godfader4]

thanks