6 ms·

2.6M Piracy Reports Against French Users Resulted in 234 Financial Penalties

78 points by isaacfrond 2y ago

overthemoon 2y ago
Do we have an idea of how hard they're working to ID people? Did the people accused of pirating media do anything to hide themselves? Would a VPN have been enough to make it too difficult or annoying to track them down? Edit, from TFA: "“This decrease results from a plurality of factors, such as the positive impact of the graduated response procedure, the transformation of practices regarding the consumption of cultural works on the internet, the acceleration of the dissemination of legal offers during the year, or even increasing use of workaround solutions (VPNs) by Internet users,” the regulator explains."
- ExoticPearTree 2y ago
  I have this feeling that they go after seeders that go above a certain threshold. Looking into 2.6M individuals, determining that the offense is real, figure out the possible loss to the copyright holder, identifying the user, send all this paperwork to all the public prosecutors around the country and have them prosecute people for $100-$200 loss to some company doesn't seem feasible.
  - luto 2y ago
    In Germany they also go after small fish. The process is highly automated, so there is very little cost to the copyright holder.
    - londons_explore 2y ago
      I would guess that if you can get payouts from some small chunk of users, you can then use those funds to 'reinvest' in tracking down and catching more. As soon as the process is sufficiently automated to be margin positive, you might as well scale it up to the whole population.
      - ExoticPearTree 2y ago
        I think it has to do with the fact the ISPs are responding to requests automatically and don't fight for user privacy.
      - shrimp_emoji 2y ago
        [flagged]
        NikolaNovak 2y ago
        Your point is degraded when you use the term autistic as a stereotyped insult. At risk of doing the same kind of generalization, I'd venture a lot of people of varying degrees of autism spectrum on these forums, would probably agree with you on your overall moral stand, if you didn't needlessly drag us into this.
        exe34 2y ago
        I'm diagnosed autistic and I approve of this usage. I would be grateful if normies would refrain from getting offended on my behalf, I'm plenty offended enough by other things.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        NikolaNovak 2y ago
        I 100% understand frustration of outsiders of a group being offended on some other groups behalf. I'm in a particularly progressive part of Canada so it happens a LOT! :=D If it helps at all, I was talking on behalf of myself, not yourself. That being said, the term "normies" also irks me, so clearly our differences have nothing to do with our position on spectrum :-> (neither "offends" me, but as per above, I automatically take less seriously the user of such words)
        exe34 2y ago
        no two autists are alike.
    - ssijak 2y ago
      what IP you get when you have starlink?
Rinzler89 2y ago
Curious how many in Germany since there if you torrent a MP3/movie you get a letter from some Munich law firm who bought your logs from your ISP, acting on behalf of movie studios and record labels, asking you to pay them a fine(cough protection racket cough) otherwise they threaten to take you to court on behalf of the IP owners to fully extort you.
- AnonCoward42 2y ago
  IANAL and not easy to generalize, but it seems they do not like to cooperate. They have an IP and tell you they act on that info, but that info is not necessarily enough i.e. you're not the only user of that network. You can probably flip a coin what the court's opinion is on that, but I would not sign their documents anyway. And they do not necessarily go to court.
  - kioleanu 2y ago
    watching the german law subreddit, they have started taking people to court now, as too many have caught on to the scheme. In court, like you said, the odds really are as good as tossing a coin.
    - olabyne 2y ago
      do you have links to that, even if it is in german ? Would like to know more
  - Faark 2y ago
    Well, they probably have an Unterlassungsanspruch if the file was shared from your network, so not signing the letter can make it worse. But my experience with Waldorf Frommer is from like 10 years ago, so best practices might have changed. Back then, for those interested: the monitor file sharing networks, download a tiny bit of data from you (uploading is the expensive part in Germany) to prove you upload, go to a judge who will force you ISP to give them the contact, send you an Abmahnung, requesting an Unterlassungserklärung and cash (500 damages, 500 lawyer cost). We just sent a modified "we are not doing damages" letter and ignored any future communication from them. There was more to scare us, but they did not follow through with a lawsuit. Oh and ofc I made sure that no further upload could be detected. Yes there were rulings back then holding the connection-owner legally responsible
WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
ARCOM seems like an outlier to me. Independent Public Authority are typically commissioned to secure the welfare of all French citizens by overseeing French corporations (ex:AMF for markets). Arcom is the reverse of this.
- orwin 2y ago
  Maistre was chosen to lead the ex-CSA, now ARCOM because he would absolutely accept to take CNIL's job of website blocking and pursuing 'pirates'. CNIL was too independent, refused too much to block specific websites, refused yo go further than sending a strongly worded letter to 'pirate'. Once Maistre accepted the job, the number of letter exploded, as well as the number of case (basically only huge, huge seeders were pursued by the CNIL, so like 5 people over a bit less than 10 years). Not surprising, he worked for the 'ministère de la culture', closely with Universal and friends.
sandworm101 2y ago
>> For the whole of 2023, a total of 3,844 subscribers were labeled 'grossly negligent' after receiving a third warning while 1,526 cases were sent to the public prosecutor. A relatively small number, just 234, received a financial penalty. Forgive me for siding with the like of the IRAA/MPAA, but I agree that these people are grossly negligent. If you get two complaints, invest a few euros into VPN. Or switch to a different means of getting what you want, something other than torrents. I remember the bad old days when they started to go after torrents. It was a great time. Those attacks forced filesharing to evolve. Torrents became encrypted. VPNs moved out of the shadows. Some would even say that Bitcoin really took off as people sought out a means to bypass limitations placed on credit card transactions. A dozen different censorship/blocking laws came and went (COICA, PROTECY IP). Remember internet blackout day? Or the Free Speech Flag? People were angry and demanded changes to protect their privacy. But in recent years the fight has stopped. Rightsholders have all but given up trying, and filesharing tech has stagnated. TPB remains online, as stable as ever. I cannot help but imagine what new tech we would have had the fighting continued.
- away271828 2y ago
  Years and years ago, I got a warning because I downloaded some new series or other there was a lot of hoopla about. It wasn't something I did regularly but it was definitely a wakeup call that if I was ever going to do something along those lines, I needed at least some minimum level of protections in place. Not 100% reliable I'm sure but almost certainly enough to protect against random torrent tracking.
- permo-w 2y ago
  perhaps we should start criminalising more things for the sake of tech innovation
- autoexec 2y ago
  Filesharing (for media anyway) has largely moved from torrents and direct downloads to streaming since it's easier to charge people money for accounts and/or push difficult to block ads at people that way. I'm not a big fan of filesharing for profit, but greed infects everything. Whatever the next innovation in filesharing is, it'll probably involve money
radicalbyte 2y ago
In The Netherlands they have a different tactic: they send letters to all registered companies demanding payment for "illegally" playing music. It's a scam, they have no evidence they're simply buying the names of companies from data-brokers then trying to see which low-end admin staff fall for it. That's how Stichting BREIN roll.
- _fat_santa 2y ago
  I wonder if they ever hit a company with a decent in house council / budget that decided to give them a hefty dose of FAFO (fuck around and find out).
  - lifestyleguru 2y ago
    ...and that would be what? Public shaming and lawyer license permanently revoked? Or something violent and discreet?
zahma 2y ago
I'm guessing this is all public tracker use, which is pretty low-hanging fruit.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

78 points by isaacfrond 2y ago

Do we have an idea of how hard they're working to ID people? Did the people accused of pirating media do anything to hide themselves? Would a VPN have been enough to make it too difficult or annoying to track them down? Edit, from TFA: "“This decrease results from a plurality of factors, such as the positive impact of the graduated response procedure, the transformation of practices regarding the consumption of cultural works on the internet, the acceleration of the dissemination of legal offers during the year, or even increasing use of workaround solutions (VPNs) by Internet users,” the regulator explains."

ExoticPearTree 2y ago
I have this feeling that they go after seeders that go above a certain threshold. Looking into 2.6M individuals, determining that the offense is real, figure out the possible loss to the copyright holder, identifying the user, send all this paperwork to all the public prosecutors around the country and have them prosecute people for $100-$200 loss to some company doesn't seem feasible.
- luto 2y ago
  In Germany they also go after small fish. The process is highly automated, so there is very little cost to the copyright holder.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    I would guess that if you can get payouts from some small chunk of users, you can then use those funds to 'reinvest' in tracking down and catching more. As soon as the process is sufficiently automated to be margin positive, you might as well scale it up to the whole population.
    - ExoticPearTree 2y ago
      I think it has to do with the fact the ISPs are responding to requests automatically and don't fight for user privacy.
    - shrimp_emoji 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - NikolaNovak 2y ago
        Your point is degraded when you use the term autistic as a stereotyped insult. At risk of doing the same kind of generalization, I'd venture a lot of people of varying degrees of autism spectrum on these forums, would probably agree with you on your overall moral stand, if you didn't needlessly drag us into this.
      - exe34 2y ago
        I'm diagnosed autistic and I approve of this usage. I would be grateful if normies would refrain from getting offended on my behalf, I'm plenty offended enough by other things.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        NikolaNovak 2y ago
        I 100% understand frustration of outsiders of a group being offended on some other groups behalf. I'm in a particularly progressive part of Canada so it happens a LOT! :=D If it helps at all, I was talking on behalf of myself, not yourself. That being said, the term "normies" also irks me, so clearly our differences have nothing to do with our position on spectrum :-> (neither "offends" me, but as per above, I automatically take less seriously the user of such words)
        exe34 2y ago
        no two autists are alike.
  - ssijak 2y ago
    what IP you get when you have starlink?

Rinzler89 2y ago

Curious how many in Germany since there if you torrent a MP3/movie you get a letter from some Munich law firm who bought your logs from your ISP, acting on behalf of movie studios and record labels, asking you to pay them a fine(cough protection racket cough) otherwise they threaten to take you to court on behalf of the IP owners to fully extort you.

AnonCoward42 2y ago
IANAL and not easy to generalize, but it seems they do not like to cooperate. They have an IP and tell you they act on that info, but that info is not necessarily enough i.e. you're not the only user of that network. You can probably flip a coin what the court's opinion is on that, but I would not sign their documents anyway. And they do not necessarily go to court.
- kioleanu 2y ago
  watching the german law subreddit, they have started taking people to court now, as too many have caught on to the scheme. In court, like you said, the odds really are as good as tossing a coin.
  - olabyne 2y ago
    do you have links to that, even if it is in german ? Would like to know more
- Faark 2y ago
  Well, they probably have an Unterlassungsanspruch if the file was shared from your network, so not signing the letter can make it worse. But my experience with Waldorf Frommer is from like 10 years ago, so best practices might have changed. Back then, for those interested: the monitor file sharing networks, download a tiny bit of data from you (uploading is the expensive part in Germany) to prove you upload, go to a judge who will force you ISP to give them the contact, send you an Abmahnung, requesting an Unterlassungserklärung and cash (500 damages, 500 lawyer cost). We just sent a modified "we are not doing damages" letter and ignored any future communication from them. There was more to scare us, but they did not follow through with a lawsuit. Oh and ofc I made sure that no further upload could be detected. Yes there were rulings back then holding the connection-owner legally responsible

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago

ARCOM seems like an outlier to me. Independent Public Authority are typically commissioned to secure the welfare of all French citizens by overseeing French corporations (ex:AMF for markets). Arcom is the reverse of this.

orwin 2y ago
Maistre was chosen to lead the ex-CSA, now ARCOM because he would absolutely accept to take CNIL's job of website blocking and pursuing 'pirates'. CNIL was too independent, refused too much to block specific websites, refused yo go further than sending a strongly worded letter to 'pirate'. Once Maistre accepted the job, the number of letter exploded, as well as the number of case (basically only huge, huge seeders were pursued by the CNIL, so like 5 people over a bit less than 10 years). Not surprising, he worked for the 'ministère de la culture', closely with Universal and friends.

sandworm101 2y ago

>> For the whole of 2023, a total of 3,844 subscribers were labeled 'grossly negligent' after receiving a third warning while 1,526 cases were sent to the public prosecutor. A relatively small number, just 234, received a financial penalty. Forgive me for siding with the like of the IRAA/MPAA, but I agree that these people are grossly negligent. If you get two complaints, invest a few euros into VPN. Or switch to a different means of getting what you want, something other than torrents. I remember the bad old days when they started to go after torrents. It was a great time. Those attacks forced filesharing to evolve. Torrents became encrypted. VPNs moved out of the shadows. Some would even say that Bitcoin really took off as people sought out a means to bypass limitations placed on credit card transactions. A dozen different censorship/blocking laws came and went (COICA, PROTECY IP). Remember internet blackout day? Or the Free Speech Flag? People were angry and demanded changes to protect their privacy. But in recent years the fight has stopped. Rightsholders have all but given up trying, and filesharing tech has stagnated. TPB remains online, as stable as ever. I cannot help but imagine what new tech we would have had the fighting continued.

away271828 2y ago
Years and years ago, I got a warning because I downloaded some new series or other there was a lot of hoopla about. It wasn't something I did regularly but it was definitely a wakeup call that if I was ever going to do something along those lines, I needed at least some minimum level of protections in place. Not 100% reliable I'm sure but almost certainly enough to protect against random torrent tracking.
permo-w 2y ago
perhaps we should start criminalising more things for the sake of tech innovation
autoexec 2y ago
Filesharing (for media anyway) has largely moved from torrents and direct downloads to streaming since it's easier to charge people money for accounts and/or push difficult to block ads at people that way. I'm not a big fan of filesharing for profit, but greed infects everything. Whatever the next innovation in filesharing is, it'll probably involve money

radicalbyte 2y ago

In The Netherlands they have a different tactic: they send letters to all registered companies demanding payment for "illegally" playing music. It's a scam, they have no evidence they're simply buying the names of companies from data-brokers then trying to see which low-end admin staff fall for it. That's how Stichting BREIN roll.

_fat_santa 2y ago
I wonder if they ever hit a company with a decent in house council / budget that decided to give them a hefty dose of FAFO (fuck around and find out).
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  ...and that would be what? Public shaming and lawyer license permanently revoked? Or something violent and discreet?

zahma 2y ago

I'm guessing this is all public tracker use, which is pretty low-hanging fruit.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]