In what must surely be the least surprising news of 2010, a study by a French university found that piracy increased after France's enactment of a 'Three Strikes Law'. Under the bill, which went into power in July 2009, repeat offenders can be cut off from the Internet. If being cut off is deemed not suitable for the villain's heinous crimes, the judge can instead levy a 300,000 Euro fine or send the megalomaniac pirate to prison for two years. As it turns out, though, the law has a loophole: streaming services and file-storage sites like Rapidshare. While BitTorrent's share of the piracy dropped from 17.1% to 14.6% between September and December 2009, total piracy rose by 3%. Shut down or outlaw one service and its users flee to another -- where have I seen this before? Oh, right, Napster, Kazaa, Suprnova... zZzzZzz...
Instead of outlawing pirates, why not take a leaf out of the Netherlands' lawmaking books and make stuff easy to obtain? Piracy exists because there is demand. We don't pillage food trucks on the way to supermarkets because there is no need. Why, after more than 15 years of broadband Internet connections, do we still have to pirate things? It's almost as if government agencies and assorted associations want us to continue breaking the law.
"As you show no sign of relenting from your nefarious, terrorist-funding ways, you leave us no choice but to remove your, your son's, and your son's son's access TO THE INTERNETS!!"
New legislation to prevent piracy in France fails dismally; piracy continues to rise originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
No comments:
Post a Comment