French ISPs Identify File-Sharers, “Three-Strikes” Letters Imminent

[p2p rules]

Yesterday I mentioned  how the French govt had already sent out more than 800 notices to ISPs requesting the identities of people suspected of illegally downloading copyrighted material.

Now, according to reports, ISPs have already responded to some of those requests, and the country’s Commission on Human Rights Protection for Internet Piracy has decided that the first warning letters – or “strikes” – should be sent out early next week, shortly after opening the official website Hadopi.fr.

However, the govt is experiencing one interesting snag in the process thanks to an oversight concerning how ISPs are expected to respond. Though suspected file-sharers will receive e-mail warnings of their transgressions, ISPs are not required to submit their identities electronically. ISPs must simply “disclose personal data and information…within eight days following the submission by the commission to protect the rights of technical data necessary to identification of the subscriber.” How it’s submitted isn’t specified, and several names have reportedly been submitted on printed sheets of paper.

The effort is part of the country’s “Creation and Internet” law, the controversial “three-strikes” measure to fight P2P in that country first proposed first proposed back in June of 2008. It was formally passed last September, but not after first before being ruled unconstitutional over the fact that an agency (HADOPI), and not a judge, was allowed to disconnect people from the Internet.

Now with the names in hand, the French govt is sure to begin sending out “strikes” sometime early next week.

Let the “three-strikes” experiment begin.

Zeropaid