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Government responds to complaints by copyright holders that it’s warning far fewer suspected file-sharers than promised. Commission for Protection of the Rights of Internet Piracy says it’s not a “speed camera” and reminds them it’s mission is qualitative, “not quantitative.”France’s “Creation and Internet” law, the the controversial “three-strikes” measure passed last September, has been officially operational for several months now, and though the govt has already admitted it isn’t warning as many file-sharers as planned, it’s now telling copyright holders that accuracy and not numbers is what’s most important.The High Authority for the Protection of works on the Internet (HADOPI), the govt agency tasked with forwarding IP addresses suspected of copyright infringement to ISPs on behalf of copyright holders, already revealed a few weeks ago that it’s only sent ISPs 100,000 IP addresses to date, and that the number of people that have actually been warned is likely much lower.The Ministry of Culture had said early on that it hopes to warn at least 10,000 people per day, and its actual rate of 2,000 IP addresses per day is far below its projected target.French labels trade body director general David El Sayegh has said the music industry has been identifying and submitting more than 25,000 IP addresses per day, and recently raised their daily submission to 50,000, an amount the govt is currently nowhere near capable of handling.In an open letter published on the French publication Le Monde, the three-judge panel of the Commission for Protection of Rights (CPD), the agency tasked with verifying claims of suspected file-sharing, Mireille Imbert Quaretta, Jean-Yves Monfort and Jacques Bille, have chosen to defend themselves against attacks of “inertia to the mass of offenders.”They can’t believe the CPD, accused on the hand of being “draconian” and “blindly chasing every Internet user who had downloaded a song, movie or an episode of television series,” is now being “attacked from behind.”“The Commission for Protection of the Rights of Internet Piracy is not a speed camera,” they write. “She is captured by the beneficiaries – collecting societies – whose sworn officers put to the minutes of finding possible violations. Provided, of course, these documents do not automatically send back a warning to the user.”It’s mission will not be done on “autopilot” they warn, and vows to maintain “control at all stages of the proceedings.”They make a good point about the worthlessness of ratios between IP addresses submitted by copyright holders for suspected infringement, and the actual number the CPD decides to forward to ISPs for identification.“Our mission is not quantitative, it clearly and it is futile to try to measure the effectiveness of the protection of rights on the Internet by the number of ‘offenders’ pinned,” they add.It’s reassuring news, particularly since next phase – “second strikes” – begin early next year. If the govt is going to disconnect people from the Internet then it has a duty to make sure the process isn’t rushed simply to assuage copyright holders at the expense of the rights of the accused.
