

French President’s Residence ‘Busted’ For BitTorrent Piracy - llambda
http://torrentfreak.com/french-presidents-residence-busted-for-bittorrent-piracy-111215/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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nextparadigms
Once again the laws that are pushed by the elite are only for the masses, not
for the elite itself. How can they propose laws with a straight face that they
themselves know they are constantly breaking?

I'm really starting to think we need to chip away at the politicians'
immunity. Too often they try to pass laws that they themselves wouldn't be
held accountable for breaking.

~~~
mattmanser
Do you honestly think this was Sarkozy himself? I'm surprised this is the
highest comment at the moment.

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DrJokepu
While it probably wasn't the president himself, that makes no difference at
all in the context of the French "three strikes" law that allows disconnecting
file sharers for up to 12 months without the possibility of judicial appeal. I
don't know how to express this, there's simply not a chance in hell, not even
in a million years, that the Élysée (the French equivalent of the White House)
will be disconnected from the Internet because of file sharing.

~~~
namdnay
I believe the three strikes only applies to homes, not offices.

~~~
DrJokepu
I am by no means an expert in French Law but after reading through the text of
the law on Legifrance I did not find an provisions that would limit the law to
private or home users only. Perhaps someone from France could confirm this?

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soult
Let's not forget that Sarkozy already has at least one strike. He used a song
from MGMT on multiple occasions without permission. And then he insulted them
further by offering 1 Euro (yes, 1 Euro!) as compensation.

~~~
bgentry
Why did they not sue him for millions in damages? Is that not an option in the
EU?

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soult
They did, and later reached some kind of settlement.

It should still count as a copyright strike under hadopi.

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pefavre
French gov is always prompt to make a fool of himself... Remember the EPIC
fail of france.fr launch: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/14/france-launches-
multi-lingu...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/14/france-launches-multi-
lingual-tourist-website-it-goes-down-and-stays-down/)

~~~
Silhouette
Don't forget their copyright enforcement agency, HADOPI, whose own logo ripped
off a commercial font: [http://fontfeed.com/archives/french-anti-piracy-
organisation...](http://fontfeed.com/archives/french-anti-piracy-organisation-
uses-pirated-font-in-ownlogo/)

~~~
pefavre
Hadn't seen this EPIC one... I'm speechless!

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wisty
The law is not just about enforcing property rights. It also needs to be
pragmatic. If almost everyone is doing it, it's wrong to try to outlaw it.

OK, you could use a similar argument about Greek taxes - everyone cheats the
system, and brings it down. But it's pointless blaming the people. Maybe the
system has to change.

~~~
pyre

      > OK, you could use a similar argument about Greek taxes
    

That just means they have to 'find another way.' They could raise sales taxes
or lower spending by reducing services provided.

~~~
anamax
> They could raise sales taxes

When transaction taxes become too high, they're evaded as well.

For example, post-prohibition bootlegging in the US lasted as long as the
booze tax was "high enough" relative to production cost.

We already have folks smuggling cigarettes in the US to evade taxes. And, in
high tax states, some merchants don't collect sales tax.

No, a VAT doesn't stop this - smuggling and off the books manufacture isn't
VAT-taxed. (Yes, you may get the VAT on the inputs, but not on any of the
downstream value.)

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canop_fr
The source of the article (<http://www.nikopik.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi>)
doesn't exist anymore. Is there some kind of confirmation somewhere ?

edit : fixed the link. sorry, bad copy-paste.

~~~
veyron
The article still works in the US: [http://torrentfreak.com/french-presidents-
residence-busted-f...](http://torrentfreak.com/french-presidents-residence-
busted-for-bittorrent-piracy-111215/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)

To verify the results: <http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/?q=62.160.71.75>

If you want I can post screenshots of both

~~~
canop_fr
I was referring to what the article said was its source :
<http://www.nikopik.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi>

I mean... Do we have to trust YouHaveDownloaded.com ? Evidence seems scarce...

~~~
ernesth
There is no evidence either that Trident Media Guard (the company that reports
IP infringers to the 3-strike authority) should be trusted more than
youhavedownloaded.

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BoppreH
The "YouHaveDownloaded" webiste had, until a few days ago, a list of
downloaded files for impossible addresses like 0.0.0.0 and 192.168.0.1.

Isn't this addresses easy to spoof? I thought they were only suited for
scaring friends, not basing investigative articles.

~~~
sg2342
It is known[1] that tracker sites insert random IP addresses.

[1] [http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-
deniabili...](http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-deniability/)

~~~
uxp
On clicking one of the random IP addresses it showed me that they had tracked,
the right sidebar Facebook comment column had a comment from a developer that
stated they tested the application locally, and then pushed the same database
live, so many of the 192.168.0.0/16 block (and I could assume other RFC 1918
blocks) are the actual developers traffic.

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umarmung
Fake IP poisoning from the tracker? Unless "YouHaveDownloaded.com" actually
connected to this IP as part of that torrent, this seems highly unlikely to be
real.

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gulbrandr
It is possible to access the source via Vtunnel [1]

[1] <https://vtunnel.com/>

~~~
xer0
I have flashblock turned on. vtunnel is full of flash, and does some sort of
not-a-popup popup at the beginning, with nothing but flash in it.

They could be angels for all I know, but a site that promotes anonymity and
loads up with flash makes me pass it by.

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billpatrianakos
Governments around the world have been given the excuse to create overreaching
and piracy laws because we let them. I'm not surprised this has happened but
we should be asking what is the bigger problem. Is it people pirating and
distributing copyrighted materials or is it us, the downloading public, that
should be punished for not being able to resist the lure of pirates.

I personally feel that if all of us as users realized that we're handing them
excuses to censor the web on a silver platter we would quit downloading
copyright materials. There is such a fine line between sharing and piracy that
it's hard to decide which side any person falls on. Now, a person who records
a movie in a theater and puts it online is guilty. No doubt about it. But what
about the person who buys a CD, rips it to his computer, then wants to share
it with some friends? If he sends a few copies to friends via email or other
non public way, is he doing wrong? I'd argue no. But that's what makes this
whole thing so scary. On the one hand there's a clear case we are the reason
these laws happen. Our inability to resist the lure of free, pirated media.
But then we also cannot restrict our right to share our own property with some
people.

So I'm wondering, when does it stop being sharing and turn into privacy. Never
is not the answer. Whether you support or think it shouldn't exist, the fact
is that copyright laws have been in effect for a long time. So considering
that, where does the line get drawn?

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MichaelGG
Again, copyright law (and patents, and trademarks) exist to help the public.
It takes the form of a monopoly to create an incentive for works to be
produced.

There's absolutely _zero_ proof that even with all this piracy going on, that
the amount of creative work has diminished. In fact, from my anecdotal
evidence, I'd say there's even more creative works available now than ever
before.

Thus, stronger copyright laws targeting non-commercial users are simply
unneeded. The public is already getting the benefit of having huge amounts of
art being generated (with no signs of slowdown), so there's no justifiable
argument for these stronger laws, despite piracy.

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nvictor
good :)

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cafard
And him married to Carla Bruni! She should slap him.

