The French high authority HADOPI, which was put in place to oversee the country’s recently passed “three strikes” anti-piracy laws has a new problem on its hands; phishers and scammers using the authority’s name to trick people into giving up personal information.
The group is allowed to issue sanctions and fines to Internet users accused of piracy, with a “third strike” meaning disconnection from the Web, and a blacklisting.
E-mails, purportedly being sent from HADOPI, have been hitting thousands of inboxes this week, all claiming that the recipient has been accused of copyright violations.
The accused are then pushed to a website to pay off their fine, which leads to phishers stealing their personal info along with the money.
“As expected, this is classic Internet,” says HADOPI’s Secretary General Éric Walter (via Ars).
HADOPI says it will begin sending out the first real violation letters in the coming months.
Result for: third strike
Just as it has been in the UK and around Europe, the proposed ‘three strikes’ law for Internet pirates has been shut down in Germany.
The three strikes law would force ISPs to give two warnings to suspected unauthorized file sharers and then shut down their Internet connection on the ‘third strike.’
The German Department of Justice has met with German ISPs and one clear conclusion was made: Three Strikes laws are “incompatible with German pirvacy and telecommunications laws.”
In response, the IFPI said Germany would possibly face a competitive disadvantage against other countries that are still debating enacting the laws.
Germany’s Secretary of Justice Brigitte Zypries added:
“I don’t think that (Three Strikes) is a fitting model for Germany or even Europe. Preventing someone from accessing the Internet seems like a completely unreasonable punishment to me. It would be highly problematic due to both constitutional and political aspects. I’m sure that once the first disconnects are going to happen in France, we will be hearing the outcry all the way to Berlin.”
Result for: third strike
New Zealand has become the first country to adopt a ‘3-strikes’ law for Internet pirates after signing the Copyright Amendment Act 2008 this year. The bill will go into effect on March 1st 2009.
The three strikes law, as previously discussed in France and the UK, would give pirates two warnings before kicking them off the Internet for good on a “third strike.” The EU recently struck down a bill calling for the three strikes rule and it appears that opposition is growing in New Zealand as well despite the fact the bill has already been signed.
The section of the act signed into law, 92A reads as follows:
Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers
(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.
Six industry bodies have already voiced opposition to the law however and it appears that the law may be moving towards a rewording. The law would not be repealed however.
