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Censorship Your Rights Online

HADOPI To Disconnect 60 People In France 255

Posted by samzenpus from the no-internet-for-you dept.
bs0d3 writes "Today in France under the new HADOPI law, 60 people have received their third strike and are facing disconnection from the internet. The first 60 may only be the beginning. 650,000 people have received their first strikes, and 44,000 are on their second."
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HADOPI To Disconnect 60 People In France More

HADOPI To Disconnect 60 People In France

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  • There were supposed to be 61... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06, 2011 @03:14AM (#37623054)

    ...but they haven't caught me ye^#a$s%!_5%j~NO CARRIER

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Elbereth ( 58257 )

      That "NO CARRIER" thing hasn't been funny in 20 years.

      • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

        by toQDuj ( 806112 )

        Hear, Hear. It wasn't even funny when it was a real message on my terminal screen. ...

        Fuck, I'm getting old.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) *

        Yes it has, stop posting.

      • That "NO CARRIER" thing hasn't been funny in 20 years.

        Not to mention watching an entire generation trying to figure out what the hell that means or grasp the concept of being disconnected at any time as they read this from the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere from their 3G cell phone...

      • That "NO CARRIER" thing hasn't been funny in 20 years.

        Yeah, the modern equivalent would be something like
        -> www.google.com [enter]
        "Page failed to load. Server not found. Program failed to locate www.google.com."
        "Check the spelling, your network connection. If you are in France, check if someone has been downloading music and videos they love."

        The numbers are interesting. The "connection-less" will start being really interesting in real lively form, as soon as thousands of people start getting cut off and a social reaction starts. Perhaps the Pirate Party

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arielCo ( 995647 )

      Actually we'd never get the NO CARRIER notification from your modem, and even then you'd need to be on a plain-text BBS without PPP+TCP.

      There's more: to get the unfinished message, it'd have to be a char-by-char chat protocol like ICQ or the olden Unix chat. Otherwise, how did you hit [Submit] ?

      • Yeah, but logic totally ruins the joke. It's like how if you post a Candlejack joke online (for those of us Freakazoid fans), you still couldn't have possib

  • Angry Voters (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @03:16AM (#37623062) Homepage
    650,000 warnings, that 650,000 people so far who are very unlikely to vote for Scarsleezy who snuck the law in with no public review. Guess who is going to lose the next election big time and what law will be changed by the next incoming President to ensure an extended political career.

    • Re:Angry Voters (Score:4, Insightful)

      by master5o1 ( 1068594 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @03:18AM (#37623078) Homepage

      I think that's being just a tad too optimistic.

      • Indeed, the French pirate party split in 3 and then merged again. Not exactly the best strategy to convince people to vote for you...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
          Anyway, without a proportional vote like in Germany and with such a high barrier to get reimbursed in your election costs (To get public funding you need 5% of votes vs 0.7% in Germany) there is no chance at all that the pirate party gets a good score ever.

          In France, the way to fame is through the presidential election : candidates have to be given equal time in the media. But the PP decided not to go.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
        Sarkozy will probably not be reelected. Polls are very bad for him. his party has tried to seduce the internet crowd a bit last year but apparently decided that it is definitely lost to them (and rightly so). They simply do not understand this network of tube through which computers communicate with each other.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      That's about 1% of the population of France. It seems pretty likely that those people will eventually get their third strike, but 1% of the population isn't really enough. To get the kind of network effects that would turn outrage over this into an actual movement, you'd have to hit something like 10%. Plus, since those people would be having their voice in modern society crippled by being disconnected from the Internet, it would be even harder for them. Just try to organise any sort of large movement in th

      • Re:Angry Voters (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @03:41AM (#37623190) Homepage
        True, 650,000 is about 1% of the population. However that's not 650,000 people that have recieved HADOPI warning letters, it's 650,000 households. Figure an average of two adults plus a good chance of a late teenager about to get the right to vote and you could be looking at 1.5 million people on the first step towards disconnection. Then there's student digs and bedsits where you could potentially be looking at five or more people on a shared connection - France has a large population of immigrants from across the EU and Northern Africa so I'd imagine the actual number of individuals might be much higher.
        • Plus, count friends and families of those who received letters. You can bet this conversation will come up during lots of meals and drinks. If you personally know somebody who got struck by this asinine law, it's much easier to get worked up against it than if you just read in an anonymous blog about it.

        • is that it's 650,000 households with a very late teen/young adult still at home and responsible for the warning.

          I also wager this therefore represents 650,000 young adults that will vote to oust the lawmakers involved.
          countered by 1,300,000 parents to vote back in the lawmakers involved, to get junior the hell out of the house/basement....

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by eth1 ( 94901 )

          And I'm sure it will snowball quickly. Everyone who's disconnected will be connecting to any open wireless or other access they can find, and ultimately probably getting completely innocent people disconnected as well. Then they'll just move on to the next source of access.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by toQDuj ( 806112 )

        Sure, but I cannot imagine the music industry letting it get too large, fearing a backlash. Now, it's just a fringe of the populace which has been caught, enough so you have a friend of a friend who got a message, but not enough that you have mass disconnects. If the group is small enough, you will never consider yourself a possible member.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        Yes, it's about 1% of the population but about 2.5% of all households. Pretty much everyone will know someone, friends or family who has gotten such a notice. I would guess those that are first hit are those renting out apartments, typically the internet subscription is in the name of the one renting out while the tenants are doing the infringing. That should quickly escalate to a debate where the person disconnected is not the "bad guy" nor are most of the tenants. My prediction is that this will turn into

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by BlackCreek ( 1004083 )

          I live in France, and don't know of any one who's got that letter. I think a lot of people in my age and income bracket would be embarrassed to mention they got suck a letter.

          What _really_ sucks (not only in France, but in most of Europe AFAIK) is that I have no way of easily renting/buying videos through the internet. All choices I've looked at had a really old and incomplete catalogue. Last I tried to check that was in the beginning of the year, and all alternatives sucked big. I live in Paris (i.e. squar

          • These days even a mediocre computer can rip a DVD and make an MPEG4 file. Maybe you should organize a DVD-borrowing society. What you do with the disc while you have it is your business.

            • I either buy DVDs or get them at a local public library. Like with books before I got a Kindle, the nuisance of getting videos (ordering DVD + shelve space, physically going to the library), means we watch less movies than we would otherwise. Having a small baby means going to the cinema is not a trivial thing to do.

              My point is that the lack of convenience for getting movies at home is such that even people with the cash to spare don't buy DVDs.

              > These days even a mediocre computer can rip a DVD and make

              • I have numerous computers with DVD, and numerous ones without, and I also have an Asus USB2 DVD burner.

          • So let me get this straight... because you dont want to have to leave your apartment, and because its a massive hardship to have a dvd binder on a shelf, you should be allowed to steal.

            http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827998006 [newegg.com] If you bought one of these you could have 400 movies/albums in a smaller space than you would consume with one law book. If the amount of space it would take to have one shelf in one bookcase filled with those binders is such a massive financial burden, then t

            • > So let me get this straight... because you dont want to have to leave your apartment, and because its a massive hardship to have a dvd binder on a shelf, you should be allowed to steal.

              Let me get this straight: get your reading comprehension improved because it sucks.

              Hard to answer without swearing. First downloading torrents is not stealing. Second, what exactly lead you to conclude that I download illegally? Does anyone complaining of the lack of legal digital video download options is to be taken as

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jez9999 ( 618189 )

              Nice try. Newegg don't ship outside the USA.

              • Are you actually going to suggest that something comparable (or likely that exact product) cant be purchased from one of a dozen local outlets or online stores in Paris?

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by nedlohs ( 1335013 )

            I live in Paris (i.e. square meters cost a lot), there is no way I will pile up DVDs in the house.

            Are you serious?!? Rationalize much?

            I live in Manhattan where square meters also cost a lot. I have 100 DVDs sitting in front of me. They are on a spool which is a huge 7 inches tall. Given DVDs have a diameter of 12cm and there's a bit under half an inch of spool base sticking out all round, we have a box 14.5 cm x 14.5cm x 18cm.

            You don't have room for such a "pile"? You could hang it from the ceiling, taking up no square meters. I'm sure you have 15cm of shelf width somewhere in that house

            • I live in Paris (i.e. square meters cost a lot), there is no way I will pile up DVDs in the house.

              Are you serious?!? Rationalize much?

              Actually, yes, I am serious. But then you should not take me too literally. I meant to say, I have no basement or a big flat with spare rooms. Flat area is relatively small.

              I live in Manhattan where square meters also cost a lot. I have 100 DVDs sitting in front of me. They are on a spool which is a huge 7 inches tall. Given DVDs have a diameter of 12cm and there's a bit under half an inch of spool base sticking out all round, we have a box 14.5 cm x 14.5cm x 18cm.

              You don't have room for such a "pile"? You could hang it from the ceiling, taking up no square meters. I'm sure you have 15cm of shelf width somewhere in that house

              The point is that I don't want to have more "stuff" in the flat. I don't want to have boxes full books that don't fit the shelves, nor stacks of DVDs, or stacks of paper. I live here ;-) I'd rather have an emptier home (*looks around*: boxes of all sorts of stuff, books piled on top of the IKEA shelve, cables running around the table). (

              • The media industry doesn't have to provide you with what you want. They'll do what they think will make them more money. They certainly don't want people downloading their stuff (and them not acting as gatekeepers). Maybe they would rather the TV stations pay them more money for broadcast rights than dealing with downloads - it doesn't matter how dumb you might think they are being it's their stuff to do what they want with.

                You can buy a DVD watch it and then throw it in the garbage if you don't want the in

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Zebedeu ( 739988 )

                  The media industry doesn't have to provide you with what you want. They'll do what they think will make them more money.

                  Usually companies make more money by supplying their customers with what they want.

                  At least that's what happens in healthy industries.

                  • Not really.

                    I want to fly first class whenever I fly from New York to Los Angeles, but I only want to pay $50. I doubt any airlines are going to make more money by supplying what I want.

                    Ah, but they do offer such a ticket it is just price you say?

                    I want to watch on DVD format in the comfort of my living room whatever the new movie is on the day it is released in the cinemas. I doubt the movie studios are going to make more money supplying such a thing given the revenue they'll lose on the cinema release side

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Zebedeu ( 739988 )

                      My point is that in healthy industries (i.e., where there is actual competition and they don't depend on government lobbying to conduct their business) companies risk more and try out different business strategies in order to be able to supply what their customers need while sustaining their business.

                      Media companies, on the other hand, are being dragged kicking and screaming into the digital era. Hell, they've been dragged almost every time there was any kind of format shift (radio, cassettes, recordable CD

            • You realize that in Paris, they rent rooms that are 10 square meters? I.e., about 100 square feet? Nobody has a house in Paris, unless they are part of the old aristocracy or managed to get filthy rich through legal or less legal means. Which means that discussions about how much space a DVD spindle takes up is quite real.

    • Serious questions about this law: is it connection based, or account holder based? How's the disconnection work?

      In case of the first: how about you're disconnected, a month later move out, then new tenant/owner of the place remains disconnected?

      In case of the second: you're landlord and account holder of the Internet connection of the flat you let out, tenant downloads stuff, gets three strikes, and gets disconnected, will they also disconnect your personal connection?

      Also these disconnections, how long

      • Serious questions about this law: is it connection based, or account holder based?

        Subscriber based -- the disconnection is linked to the real-world identity of the subscriber. (In France, you cannot even buy a pre-paid telephone SIM without showing id.)

        In case of the second: you're landlord and account holder of the Internet connection of the flat you let out, tenant downloads stuff, gets three strikes, and gets disconnected, will they also disconnect your personal connection?

        In principle, yes.

        You may want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI [wikipedia.org] .

        --jch

      • From the translation of the Hadopi law (provided here: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/HADOPI_full_translation [laquadrature.net]

        "Art. L. 331-27. - When it is held that the subscriber has failed to recognize the obligation defined in article L 336-3 during the year following the reception of an injunction sent by the committee for protection of rights and accompanied by a receipted letter or any other method needed to establish proof of the date that the injunction was sent and that when the subscriber received it, the committee may, after a hearing, pronounce, as a result of the gravity of the violations and the use of access, one of the following sanctions:

        "1 The suspension of access to service for a duration of two months to one year accompanied by making it impossible for the subscriber to subscribe during that period to another contract giving access to a public on line communication service with any operator;

        "2 A warning to take, within a time it determines, measures to prevent the renewal of the accused violation, particularly a method of security found on the list defined in the second paragraph of article L. 331-32, and to inform the High Authority, if necessary under duress.

        I heard somewhere that Item 2 hints at the possibility of putting some "Approved Software" on the subscribers' PC(s) which will monitor activity and stop the PC(s) infringing copyright. No doubt it would only run on Windows. However it is very hard to find any real information about this. The referenced article 331-32 looks like it might have some meat in it but alas no...

        "Art. L. 331-32. - After consultating the creators of means of security intended to prevent illicit use of access to a public on line communication service, entities whose activity is to offer access to such a service, as well as companies governed by title II of this book and duly constituted professional societies, the High Authority makes public the functionally pertinent specifications presented by these means considered, in its view, as exonerating from responsibility the owners of such access under the conditions of article L. 336-3.

        "In the course of a procedure of certified evaluation of their conformity to the specifications set forth in the first paragraph and their effectiveness, the High Authority establishes a list characterizing the methods of security whose use exonerates the owner of access of his responsibility with respect to article L. 336-3. This characterization is periodically reviewed.

        "A decree of the Council of State specifies the evaluation procedure to characterize these methods of security.

        Maybe the ref

    • Re:Angry Voters (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Coeurderoy ( 717228 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @05:28AM (#37623606)

      Unfortunatelly no, that is about 550 000 people who didn't see the first letter (was sent to the wrong email address)
      90 000 who didn't read it (many people bellow 20 only use IM)
      5 000 who do not care and would not vote anyway
      2500 who would not have voted Sarcosy anyway
      2000 who would vote for sarcosy despite this because they consider it little more than a parking fine..
      500 might change their vote maybe if they can bother about it...

      Moreover the "socialist" (about as socialist as the US democrats are democratic or the republican are republican, that is very little)
      did not really fight the HADOPI, they did some populist show about a "global licence" from their "left wing" (that would be an ISP tax that would give a licence to copy, but only music not movies, so would have solved about nothing), but in reality they are thick in bed with UNIVERSAL...

      When we did a "demonstration" against DADVSI only 400 people came, for HADOPI we didn't even bother...
      We are living in a situation where government make laws that criminalize people but in a way that enforcement can be completelly arbitrary, it's very convenient, "everybody is guilty of something" we can arrest them whenever we want to... what fun...

    • 600,000 is ~1% of the population. If the election is going to hinge on whether or not 1% of the population got their hands slapped for theft, then the whiney little entitlement Eurobrats are far more out of control that I'd thought. Only .1% are actually in danger of being punished.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nikker ( 749551 )
      Maybe some one can clear this up for me. Lets just say in a month or two 200K or so people get knocked off the internet. Doesn't this mean the ISP will start to lose money in quite large proportions? Will each customer still have to pay their monthly fee regardless of being denied service?

      This looks like either economic or political suicide all balanced on the idea that the people will react the way the ISP/Politicians will want them to just by cutting a few off. Does this sound risky to anyone else

    • 650,000 people so far who are very unlikely to vote for Scarsleezy who snuck the law in with no public review. Guess who is going to lose the next election big time and what law will be changed by the next incoming President to ensure an extended political career.

      Sure, that would be great, but I am not that naive. See also: "Microsoft's last mistake is going to be the one to put them under for good" and: "This is the year of Linux on the desktop" for other bold predictions that didn't pan out.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nyder ( 754090 )

      I think that the ISP will lobby the gov to change the bill after the number crunchers get done.

      Currtently they will be losing 60 less monthly subscription fees. If they had to cut off all the 650k people, that's a large chunk of monthly subscription money they are NOT getting anymore. For example, here in the states it cost roughly $65 for internet (both cable & dsl charges that for 6-12mbs Internet only subscription here in Seattle), $3900 less just for the 60, but $42,250,000 USD is how much mon

  • MPAA's Three Strikes (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sasayaki ( 1096761 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @03:26AM (#37623120)

    Strike 1: http://gizmodo.com/329648/mpaas-university-toolkit-taken-down-for-violating-copyright [gizmodo.com]
    Strike 2: http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-steals-code-violates-linkware-license/ [torrentfreak.com]
    Strike 3: http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=95638 [amdzone.com]

    BOOM!

    No more MPAA! They're offline forever! After all, the law is just and equal and fair and blind, right? And the MPAA -- the people who, let's face it, basically *wrote* this law -- should be held to the highest standard themselves. They, more than anyone else, cannot call it a youthful mistake, or a silly error in judgement, or ignorance or anything else... they have zero excuse and so accordingly they will be punished for their obvious and flagrant transgressions!

    Right? ... right?

  • Surely you get a friend or relative to sign up for the connection. Also what happens if you work from home ? What Internet on your phone? Pay as you go etc.. Then I can see a human rights problem, if a cat gets you to say in the UK surely the Internet and connectivity in general will be an abuse of human rights :) Then there is open wifi etc.. Community wifi for banned people :)

    • Anonymous pre-paid Internet. Hard to send account owner a notice; even harder to have them disconnected let alone keep them disconnected (the latter of course being the actual punishment).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by __Paul__ ( 1570 )

        If I remember correctly, you can't get an anonymous pre-paid card in France - you need to provide a passport or other ID when you buy it.

        And that said - France's prepaid plans are utterly shite. Possibly the worst in Europe. The only card that is even vaguely worth the money is one from Orange, and they have very onerous conditions attached, including blocking SMTP/POP and disallowing tethering - with the possibility that they'll null all your credit if they catch you doing it (not sure how they can tell, t

  • Let's face it - this is France we're talking about, so some significant percentage of these people adore Jerry Lewis. That, in and of itself, is worthy of a lifetime ban from all internet activity. Heck, those people should be required never to interact with another human being again.

  • Myself, I generally don't bother to pirate things much... but if anyone pulled that sort of nonsense, I'd be seriously tempted to start downloading crap left and right, and encourage all of my friends to do so as well.

    Let's see them kick -everybody- off the internet, and see how that works, hmmm?

  • Oi, French, civil disobedience! Now! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hazel Bergeron ( 2015538 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @04:11AM (#37623304) Journal

    All 650,000 people on your first strike, please proceed to your second. The 44,000 on your second, proceed to your third. The rest of you, endeavour to earn your first over the coming weeks.

    Come on, France. You still understand the effectiveness of collective withdrawal of labour. So call the government on its own foolishness by forcing the law to take steps which withdraws you from effective contribution to the country. Do not stop until you can proudly call yourself the nation with the most people individually forbidden from using the Internet.

    First, other countries will laugh at you. Then your businessmen will realise what they've just done to their chances to make money. Then your government will listen to that whispering, gold-plated voice in their ear and the law will be repealed. Foreign governments and business will realise what will happen if this sort of law is enacted in their own precious fiefdoms and global attitudes will start to change.

    But you have to start yourselves by taking a risk and standing up.

    Thank you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Syberz ( 1170343 )

      Your suggestion is just like the "boycott " emails that we routinely get. Sounds awesome on paper, but it'll never get the required momentum to actually achieve anything.

      However, the French are pretty good at taking over the streets for strikes and such though... perhaps if these 650 000 showed up at the front steps of parliament, the message would go through?

    • So you want to start a movement encouraging people to knowingly break the law in order to protest a law that punishes people for taking that which is not their own and contributing nothing in return....

      It is frighteningly sad that there are any people that actually see logic in this train-wreck of an idea, let alone enough to mod this up and post in support.
  • Wasn't the enforcement of this law put on hold due to some irregularities with the company collecting the data to base these things on?
  • I everyone connected to the internet in France were to willingly violate 3 times as a form of protest, would the suddenly bankrupt ISP's in France look at reversing the law?

    • They will not go bankrupt because they also do phone and TV on the link. They will cut the Internet transfert but not the 2 others and thus keep some revenue stream. And to be checked: They could keep all their revenue stream as they still provide TV and phone on the link saying the internet is gratis if the customers take the phone and the TV...

    • From the translation of the Hadopi law (provided here: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/HADOPI_full_translation [laquadrature.net] )

      "Art. L. 331-30. - The suspension of access mentioned in articles L. 331-27 and L. 331-28 does not, in itself, affect paying the price of subscription to the service provider. Article L. 121-84 of the consumer code does not apply during the period of suspension.

      "The costs of a possible closure of the subscription during the period of suspension are born by the subscriber.

      "The suspension applies o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gknoy ( 899301 )

        They're covered unless their now-disconnected customers say, "well, if I can't get the internet from you, why am I paying you?", and cancel their service.

    • People disconnected will still continue to pay their ISP contract.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pla ( 258480 )
        People disconnected will still continue to pay their ISP contract.

        Or what? They'll threaten to reconnect them just so they can disconnect them again?

  • RE: Tools (Score:3)

    by Archon-X ( 264195 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @05:22AM (#37623594)

    I know a few people who have received their first strikes. For what it's worth, they were using eMule to get themselves nabbed.

  • The only thing laws like this will do is force I2P and Freenet to become more popular.

    Which — ironically — is a blessing for those that use both of those services as it would make both of those networks more robust and viable.

  • The info about the 60 people at 3rd signaling is a week old. Latest news is that François Hollande, a Socialist (main opposition party) primary candidate leading the polls, has announced in a film industry lobby meeting that he will keep the HADOPI including the repressive part [numerama.com], just "adapting" it. That's contrary to his party programme and we will see how that fares in the primary and later.

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