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: three strikes
TIGA, the UK game developer trade body has released a new study today which shows that many of the members of the group believe piracy is a problem, but nowhere near a threat to their business survival.
90 percent of the developers called piracy a “constant or increasing,” problem but only 10 percent said the threat level was “high.” Over 60 percent said the threat level was “low.”
50 percent of the developers were against the government’s “three strikes” plans to cut users off the Internet for multiple piracy offenses.
Also notably, only 30 percent of the developers believe DRM is a smart solution, while 70 percent think it is part of the problem or an “irrelevance.”
“The results of the TIGA piracy survey clearly demonstrate that UK developers are taking the initiative when dealing with the issue of piracy, and looking for new ways of delivering content and communicating directly with their consumers,” says TIGA CEO Richard Wilson, via Gamasutra.
“Developers are not complacent in dealing with this problem and are mostly seeking to find solutions for themselves rather than simply relying on the Government to solve the problem of piracy.”
Result for: three strikes
Lord Mandelson has announced this week that the UK will in fact be adopting the highly controversial ‘three strikes’ Internet piracy law, disconnecting multiple time offenders from the Internet while levying heavy fines.
The government added that first time offenders will likely be given a warning, then have their bandwidth restricted after a second offense. Third strike means being disconnected from the Internet, or at least “considered” for disconnection given the crime.
The law will come into effect April 2010, says the Department for Business, Skills and Innovation. Ofcom will be in charge of monitoring the file-sharing of UK citizens.
UK ISP TalkTalk, a strong critic of the bill, came out swinging after the announcement: “What is being proposed is wrong in principle and won’t work in practice. In the event we are instructed to impose extra judicial technical measures we will challenge the instruction in the courts.”
When asked about the material losses for ISPs given disconnection from the Internet for their subscribers, Mandelson added: “I have no expectation of mass suspensions. People will receive two notifications and if it reaches the point [of cutting them off] they will have the opportunity to appeal.”
Another staunch critic of the plan, the Internet Service Providers’ Association believes that copyright holders should be in charge of all costs related to the system, and that ISPs should be reimbursed for all lost customers.
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