The French government may have passed an anti-piracy law, but illegal file sharing has reportedly increased 3% since late 2009.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) piracy has been met with strong resistance from copyright groups, especially with users still downloading and sharing music and other copyrighted material.
Late last year, the country approved a new three-strikes law, but file sharers are already finding ways to circumvent the strict rules. Furthermore, the French law still isn't being widely enforced, with critics of the bill saying it ultimately won't matter - and won't stifle Internet-based music piracy.
The law, dubbed Hadopi after the group responsible for monitoring Web connections, is the first step of a longer-term battle against P2P piracy. Since P2P became available, there has been a drastic decline in music CD sales, though digital music distribution has drastically increased as well.
The University of Rennes Marsouin unit conducted the file-sharing study, asking 2,000 Web users about their current file sharing choices. As much as 27% of Internet users are Hadopi pirates, with another 20% admitting to streaming piracy.
Copyright holders have been unable to find a reasonable, effective way to reduce piracy, as disconnecting or suing file sharers has been rather ineffective. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) plans to pressure ISPs into enforcing compliance on their own users, which would help reduce such a strong anti-RIAA stance among many PC users.
The European Union wants an anti-piracy law drafted so ISPs are properly informed about their responsibilities and their subscribers.
I think all of this trouble might be avoided if ISPs, copyright groups and PC users were able to openly communicate about the matter. When was the last time a copyright group surveyed the public on how they think media should be consumed and then adjusted their distribution methods based on feedback? Oh yeah, never.
