France backs away from Hadopi
The French government is counting the cost of having copyright enforcement shifted from the corporate to the public sector – and it’s not pleased at what it sees.
Hadopi, the body charged with hunting down freetards under France’s three-strikes law, has sent a million warning e-mails and 99,000 registered letters. This seemingly-impressive pursuit of Internet evildoers has, however, resulted in a scant 134 cases being examined for prosecution – and so far, zero cases have been escalated to the point where an Internet user has been disconnected.
At a reported cost of 12 million Euros, which overs a payroll that inculdes 60 agents, the whole exercise has been described as “unwieldy, uneconomic and ultimately ineffective” and a failure by the French culture minister Aurélie Filippetti. It would appear that the agency is now standing on the trap-door in the minister’s office, waiting for someone to pull the lever.
