HADOPI is an acronym for the French government agency established to operate the HADOPI law: an established graduated response (better known as ‘three strikes’) law against online piracy in France. In a new report detailing the effect of 17 months in operation following the issue of its first graduated response letter, HADOPI claims a clear downward trend in illegal P2P downloads. For example, data taken from the French Rights Protection Commission’s information system – based on 755,015 records of subscribers – show that 95% of users receiving a first-time notice require no further action. And 98% of those who received a third notice required no further action.
An inherent efficiency in graduated response is also implied. Six percent of first-time notice receivers responded by contacting HADOPI, rising to 71% of those who received a third notice. Most of these, says the report, “state that they commit to taking action to secure their access to the Internet or to putting an end to all illegal consumption via peer-to-peer networks.”
The overall effect is a clear downward trend in illegal downloads in France. In January 2011, France accounted for approximately 6.2% of the total number of files illegally made available on P2P networks at the global level. Now it accounts for just 4.5% of illegal downloads. “Benchmarking studies covering all of the sources available shows a clear downward trend in illegal P2P downloads,” concluded the report.
TorrentFreak, commenting on this study, raises separate concerns. Anti-piracy lobbyists will undoubtedly “use the report to show how immensely effective anti-piracy laws can be, lobbying for similarly draconian laws all over the world,” it says. But TorrentFreak points to separate statistics showing that overall revenues in the French music industry were down by 3.7% in 2011, and that French movie industry revenues were down by 2.7% in 2011.
Despite online piracy being cut by more than a half, the music and movie industries still generated less revenue than in the year preceding HADOPI. “If we follow the logic employed by the anti-piracy lobby during the past decade,” says TorrentFreak, “this means that piracy is actually boosting sales.”