France To Bust Downloaders
France’s new Internet piracy police has been scouring the Web for illegal downloaders of films and music, sending warning emails to suspected intellectual property thieves.
“The implementation of France’s new antipiracy law—which is one of the first in the world, along with similar legislation in South Korea, Taiwan and Britain—is considered a litmus test by other nations hoping to crack down on intellectual property theft. Responsible for implementing the law is ‘Hadopi,’ the acronym for an independent agency that reports to the French Ministry of Culture. Enforcement is meeting early resistance, underscoring how hard it will be to change the behavior of consumers accustomed to accessing pirated music and movies online.”
