

French 3 Strikes: Court Fines First File-Sharer, Even Though He’s Innocent - mtgx
http://torrentfreak.com/french-3-strikes-court-fines-first-file-sharer-even-though-hes-innocent-120813/

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cleverjake
It doesn't sound like he is innocent.

"“By saying he knew [his ex-wife] was downloading infringing content, but
didn't prevent her from doing so, he self-incriminated,” he told
TorrentFreak."

Innocent has a specific meaning - and in this situation it is implied he did
not break Hadopi. He broke the law. However ridiculous, shortsighted and just
plain wrong the letter (and intent) of that law is - he seems most certainly
guilty of it.

~~~
babarock
I don't think it's about his "innocence" or lack thereof.

The problem is that authorities are sending me, and thousand of other computer
literate people like me across France, a very clear message:

It's okay to download music illegally as long as you don't do it from your own
connection. Couple that with the fact that most home routers are still running
on default WEP (?!) encrypted connections, and we're virtually outside the
reach of this law.

This law is a terrible one, I really hope the government will do something
about it. Thankfully, it looks like the victim is "only" going to be fined for
150euros. But what if the next scapegoat won't be as lucky? (In all honesty,
the madness going on in US courts give me the creeps...)

~~~
cleverjake
I am 100% in agreement with you. This law is ridiculous and should be struck
down as soon as possible. However he seems guilty of infringing this insane
law - just because the law is wrong doesn't mean the person is not guilty of
the crime it covers.

Did he do anything wrong? In my opinion, no. Did he do anything wrong
according to the Hadopi law? Yes.

My statement was purely semantic.

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talmand
If the law does say that you are responsible for what happens over your
connection to the Internet then he is not innocent. Normally this would result
in an abetting charge of some sort but in this case the law seems to say it's
as if you committed the act yourself.

I totally disagree with that idea because it's basically telling everyone that
you should be doing your illegal downloading over someone else's connection
since they'll at least share the blame with you, or at worst take the brunt of
the blame. This will eventually result in all those nice businesses shutting
off their free wifi. Heck, if I ran a business there I wouldn't offer wifi at
all since there's the obvious liability.

But I did notice that the result is a somewhat reasonable fine as opposed to
an outrageous gouging of money that will potentially ruin a person's life that
serves as RIAA justice here in the U.S.

~~~
s_henry_paulson
Free WiFi? Dig deeper.

WEP connections can be breached in minutes, WPA connections are also easy to
break if you use a dictionary word.

Everyone who is even on a "secure" network would have a right to be afraid of
laws like this.

~~~
luriel
Even more afraid than those of us that keep our networks open.

If you 'close' your network, and somebody does something nasty over it, you
have to prove it wasn't you, while if you leave your network open it is
obvious that it could have been anyone.

Closing WiFi networks is some of the worst kind of security through obscurity,
and from the legal point of view of defending yourself from accusations based
on what others do over your network, leaving it open is by far the best
option.

It is also much better from a practical point of view, for example, now I hate
traveling to Germany because of dumb laws like this and how sheepeshly Germans
follow them, the whole country has become a WiFi wasteland, while in Poland
you can find open WiFi networks basically anywhere.

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sp332
In the US, you are contractually responsible for whatever is done with your
connection. But that's not a legal distinction. You might be throttled or
disconnected, but you won't get a criminal record.

Edit: in some ways it's worse because there are no courts involved, so there
is not always any reasonable way to defend yourself.

~~~
RobAley
Two interesting news stories today related to this in the US:

A judge showing surprising common sense that, even in civil cases, you are not
necessarily responsible for someone else using your connection.[1]

The RIAA continuing their campaign of ruining peoples lives over a few shared
music files [2]

[1] [http://gizmodo.com/5943025/you-are-officially-not-
responsibl...](http://gizmodo.com/5943025/you-are-officially-not-responsible-
for-porn-stolen-with-your-unsecured-wi+f)

[2]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/11/thomas_rasset_loses_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/11/thomas_rasset_loses_filesharing_appeal/)

~~~
Karunamon
JTR is a bit of a special case though.. she willfully and knowingly infringed
copyrights (and this has been affirmed through at least 4 appeals that I know
of).

The MafiAA knows they'll never get that judgement.. it's just to make a point.
Besides that, any decent court will allow you to work out a payment plan. (I
say this as someone who has been sued for absurd amounts of money before!)

It's annoying, unethical, disgusting, and a lot of other mean things, but
hardly life ruining.

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fafner
> According to the Hadopi law it doesn’t matter that the man didn’t carry out
> the infringements himself – as the owner of the Internet connection in
> question he is responsible for what happens on it.

That's ridiculous. Imagine you get charged with drunk driving because
unknowingly to your wife was driving your car while being drunk... How are
such ridiculous laws possible.

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ZoFreX
TorrentFreak is the Daily Mail of IP law news - take everything they say with
a very large dose of salt, as they definitely have an agenda to push.

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arrrg
150€ sounds very reasonable. If this always were the punishment for file
sharing I would have no problem at all with this.

~~~
nitrogen
Would you say the same thing if they hadn't moved the Overton Window[0] by
getting very large judgments against Jamie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum?
Keep in mind that those songs would normally cost $2.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Overton_window...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Overton_window&oldid=501043565)

~~~
arrrg
100x the original price as punishment for very low cost products where
infringement is hard to catch doesn't seem unreasonable to me, no.

Staying too long in my parking space costs me about ten times what I would
have to pay otherwise, and that's an offense that's easy to catch.

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malandrew
I would love to see people find all the people responsible for this law,
repeatedly break into their wifi networks and download infringing content
until they themselves get dragged into court. Only when that happens will they
realize what a terrible law hadopi is.

