Anti-Piracy Program Accused of Violating Citizens' Fundamental Rights In France 10
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: When the French government formed a new anti-piracy agency called Hadopi, the mission was to significantly disrupt BitTorrent and similar peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Hadopi was a pioneer of the so-called "graduated response" scheme which consists of monitoring a file-sharer's internet activities and following up with a warning notice to deter their behavior. Any future incidents attract escalating responses including fines and internet disconnections. Between 2010 and 2020, Hadopi issued 12.7 million warning notices at a cost to French taxpayers of 82 million euros. The program's effect on overall piracy rates remains up for debate but according to French internet rights groups, Hadopi doesn't just take citizens' money. When it monitors citizens' internet activities, retains huge amounts of data, and then links identities to IP addresses to prevent behavior that isn't a "serious crime," Hadopi violates fundamental rights.
Despite its authorization under the new law, the official launch of the Hadopi agency in 2009 met with significant opposition. File-sharers had issues with the program for obvious reasons but for digital rights group La Quadrature du Net, massive internet surveillance to protect copying rights had arrived at the expense of citizens' fundamental right to privacy. La Quadrature's opposition to the Hadopi anti-piracy program focuses on the law crafted to support it. One of the implementing decrees authorizes the creation of files containing internet users' IP addresses plus personal identification data obtained from their internet service providers. According to the digital rights group's interpretation of EU law, that is unlawful.
With support from the Federation of Associative Internet Service Providers, French Data Network, and Franciliens.net, in 2019 La Quadrature filed an appeal before the Council of State (Conseil d'Etat), requesting a repeal of the decree that authorizes the processing of personal information. The Council of State referred the matter to the Constitutional Council and its subsequent decision gave La Quadrature the impression that Hadopi's position was untenable. For their part, Hadopi and the government reached the opposite conclusion. The Council of State heard La Quadrature's appeal and then referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for interpretation under EU law. In CJEU Advocate General Szpunar's non-binding opinion issued last October, friction between privacy rights and the ability to enforce copyrights were on full display. [...] Faced with an opinion that recognizes difficulties faced by rightsholders but runs up against case-law, AG Szpunar proposed "readjustment of the case-law of the Court." This would ensure that rightsholders retain the ability to enforce their rights, when an IP address is the only means by which an infringer can be identified (CJEU, pdf). The first court hearing occurred on Tuesday, and a further legal opinion is expected in late September 2023. The ruling from the CJEU is expected before the end of the year.
Despite its authorization under the new law, the official launch of the Hadopi agency in 2009 met with significant opposition. File-sharers had issues with the program for obvious reasons but for digital rights group La Quadrature du Net, massive internet surveillance to protect copying rights had arrived at the expense of citizens' fundamental right to privacy. La Quadrature's opposition to the Hadopi anti-piracy program focuses on the law crafted to support it. One of the implementing decrees authorizes the creation of files containing internet users' IP addresses plus personal identification data obtained from their internet service providers. According to the digital rights group's interpretation of EU law, that is unlawful.
With support from the Federation of Associative Internet Service Providers, French Data Network, and Franciliens.net, in 2019 La Quadrature filed an appeal before the Council of State (Conseil d'Etat), requesting a repeal of the decree that authorizes the processing of personal information. The Council of State referred the matter to the Constitutional Council and its subsequent decision gave La Quadrature the impression that Hadopi's position was untenable. For their part, Hadopi and the government reached the opposite conclusion. The Council of State heard La Quadrature's appeal and then referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for interpretation under EU law. In CJEU Advocate General Szpunar's non-binding opinion issued last October, friction between privacy rights and the ability to enforce copyrights were on full display. [...] Faced with an opinion that recognizes difficulties faced by rightsholders but runs up against case-law, AG Szpunar proposed "readjustment of the case-law of the Court." This would ensure that rightsholders retain the ability to enforce their rights, when an IP address is the only means by which an infringer can be identified (CJEU, pdf). The first court hearing occurred on Tuesday, and a further legal opinion is expected in late September 2023. The ruling from the CJEU is expected before the end of the year.
it's really tough to get this right (Score:5, Funny)
It's difficult to weigh the rights of individuals and culture of personal liberty versus the plans of corporations and industry lobbyists.
Well, there are 2 ways of looking at this... (Score:3)
The other way of looking at it is that since the IP address can not be tied to a particular person who is using it, the data is not personal data in the first place, and thus not subject the the privacy laws.
They are combining IPs with personal data (Score:2)
Re: Well, there are 2 ways of looking at this... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
IP addresses are considered personal data under the GDPR.
They are. And with good reasons.
who is responsible for the IP? (Score:2)
Another shortcut -- instead of tying an IP to a person, they can just ask who is responsible for the IP and implement penalties against that entity. No need to identify a person to cut off services to a specific IP. ISP's can just claim it is up to the IP owner to secure their own network.
Re: (Score:2)
People in France have been convicted of child porn trafficking just because they ran a TOR node in France...
Infringement letters sent for d/l ".torrent" files (Score:3)
In the US, monitoring companies take shortcuts and send letters to those downloading ".torrent" files over the web instead of actually detecting if an IP is actually sharing content. I received an infringement letter for d/l'ing content from one of my ISPs (AT&T) where no actualy d/l'ing of content occurred through AT&T.
I have a split ISP where my web browsing is done over AT&T, but non-web traffic (like email, NTP, and possible torrent traffic goes out through a 2nd ISP (comcast). So when I got a letter from AT&T claiming infringement, I knew it had to be wrong.
So it's clear the infringement monitory companies no longer actually look to see if you are offering copyrighted content, but merely look to see if you downloaded meta information via http -- effectively sending infringement notices to those who BROWSE for information. Nice shortcut to sending out infringement letters.