Hadopi: France's anti-piracy law is in danger?

After the release of a mid-term report by a French Ministry of Culture commission on digital content and cultural policy led by Pierre Lescure, there have been hints at a possible cancellation of Hadopi - the anti-piracy law implemented in 2009 under France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The commission's full report won't be released until March, but an initial study (based on 60 interviews circa with consumers' organizations, companies and key individuals from entertainment industry) gathered mainly critics toward Hadopi. Moreover "The efficiency of Hadopi is hard to evaluate precisely," according to the report - which praised the fall of P2P usage but stressed the drop may have been driven by new forms of illegal access to content through direct download or streaming, which are not monitored by Hadopi.
The report also suggested viable solutions to improve the law, like reorienting the punishment towards services financially benefitting from online piracy (illegal streamers, download services, torrent sites) rather than consumers. It also recommends increasing the responsibility of ISPs and host sites, reducing the visibility of illegal content in search engines and limiting the financial resources of illegal services.

By the way, Billboard contacted a source close to Lescure who dismissed any intention of getting rid of Hadopi, stressing the mid-term report was only intended to summarize the ideas gathered by the mission so far.

Until now Hadopi brought only one Internet user to be convicted and forced to pay a €150 fine (about $200) - the final stage of the graduated penalties.