Andre Yoskowitz
4 Aug 2012 22:16
During an interview this week, French minister of culture Aurélie Filippetti made some very interesting comments that imply the country will be shutting down the useless anti-piracy agency Hadopi.
Hadopi was launched by former President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration and was in charge of sending out warning letters to alleged pirates. The agency also would have been in charge of the three-strikes law in which a third warning gets you banned from the Internet (for a time). Hadopi never got even close to that point, however.
Says Filippetti (via Ars): "I do not know what will become of [Hadopi], but one thing is clear: Hadopi has not fulfilled its mission of developing legal content offerings. In financial terms, [spending] €12 million euros ($14.86 million) and 60 agents--that's expensive [just] to send a million e-mails.
"Finally, the suspension of Internet access seems to be a disproportionate penalty given the intended goal. But this will all be examined by the Lescure Commission. In the meantime, with respect to budgetary efforts, I'm going to ask that Hadopi's funds be significantly reduced for the rest of 2012. I prefer to reduce the finances of [agencies] whose utility is not proven. In September, I will announce the details of these budgetary decisions."
For its part, Hadopi released a report in May claiming it had been very successful in reducing French traffic to P2P file sharing sites.