Legislation has compelled many ISPs to participate in such programs. In 2009, South Korean ISPs became the first in the world to implement a so-called graduated response scheme and 2011′s Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act brought the mechanism to New Zealand. The HADOPI legislation introduced a similar program to the French.

However, not all participation has been forced by law. The United States’ “six-strikes” program was introduced voluntarily last year but by that time the Irish had already gained several years’ experience of a self-imposed regime.

In 2009, Eircom, the country’s largest ISP, prepared its own three-strikes program following a deal with the major recording labels, a package which allowed Eircom to disconnect persistent infringers. So now, four years since its introduction in 2010, how many people has Eircom disconnected? A hundred? One thousand? Five?

According to the ISP – not even one.

“We are continuing to implement the graduated response process,” a spokesman said today. “We haven’t, as yet, disconnected anyone.”

Eircom’s system allows the user two notices of infringement before a third notice triggers a seven-day disconnection. A further notice means disconnection for a year. Considering the cries of rampant piracy from the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA), the notion that not a single subscriber from Eircom’s 700,000 customer pool has been caught file-sharing more than twice is certainly going to raise eyebrows.

Several years ago the ISP said it was sending out at least 1,000 notices per week, but now the company apparently doesn’t want anyone to know how many are going out.

“We don’t share details on the number of letters issued,” a spokesman said.

Independent.ie cites a source close to Eircom who states that many of those who received letters are “believed to have desisted from suspected filesharing” but with no figures being released on the number of warnings being sent, it’s impossible to draw any conclusions. Of course, it’s also just as easily said that those who were caught originally simply went underground with their downloading habits.

For their part, IRMA clearly thinks that the Eircom program is working. The music group is currently taking legal action to force ISP UPC to Eircom in promising to disconnect pirating customers.

If UPC loses and then follows Eircom’s example, that will presumably amount to zero subscribers by 2018.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In France, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea strikes schemes are baked into law, a similar policy is in place in Ireland, and last year the United States rolled out its voluntary “alert” system commonly known as six-strikes.

The goal of these policies is to track down copyright infringers and warn them that their behavior is not acceptable. After repeat warnings, these accused file-sharers then face a penalty ranging from a fine to prolonged Internet disconnection.

But are these programs the anti-piracy silver bullet copyright holders believe them to be? A new paper published by researchers from the U.S. and France suggests they’re not.

Based on a large survey among 2,000 French Internet users, the study finds that the local three strikes law didn’t stop or even reduce piracy.

“Consistent with theoretical predictions, our econometric results indicate that the Hadopi law has not deterred individuals from engaging in digital piracy and that it did not reduce the intensity of illegal activity of those who did engage in piracy,” the researchers write in their paper.

“While several factors affect the perceived probability of detection under the law, our results show that the propensity to engage in illegal file-sharing is independent of these beliefs,” they add.

In other words, threatening to punish people for online piracy does nothing to reduce copyright infringement. A result that’s independent of people’s perceived chance of getting caught.

One weakness of the “strikes” systems is that they only cover P2P file-sharing, and not any of the alternative ways people use to download pirated material. This leaves the option open for Internet users to switch to these unmonitored services, but the researchers don’t find any evidence that this is happening across the board.

The results do suggest that those who have more pirates in their social networks switch to alternatives, such as direct download sites and newsgroups.

“There is evidence that the law encourages Internet users who better understand the law and alternative piracy channels (those with many digital pirates in their social network) to substitute away from the monitored P2P channel and to obtain content through unmonitored illegal channels,” the researchers write.

Overall the searchers conclude that the three-strikes law failed to curb piracy, suggesting that similar initiatives such as the U.S. six-strikes scheme are not very effective either.

Previously the French government sanctioned a panel to investigate the effectiveness of their three strikes law. This panel concluded that the law had failed to benefit authorized services as promised. It also recommended that the ultimate sanction of Internet disconnections for infringers should be dumped, which happened soon after.

While disconnections are now off the table, the graduated response scheme lives on in France for now. But according to this new research, it is unlikely to achieve much in the fight against piracy.

Update: We initially linked to the wrong paper, the article was updated with the right link.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

After the realization that it had not been effective, one of the report’s recommendations was to scrap the Hadopi agency, the body that currently administers the so-called “Three Strikes” anti-piracy system.

The conclusion was that although a reduction in illicit file-sharing on P2P networks such as BitTorrent had been achieved, there had also been an increase in use of other services, including streaming, over which Hadopi has no control. More importantly – crucially, one might argue, the panel concluded that the three strikes mechanism had failed to benefit authorized services as promised.

Syndicat National de l’édition Phonographique (SNEP), an industry anti-piracy group that championed the uptake of three strikes, has just produced its first quarter results for 2013 and they seem to back up the panel’s findings. Somewhat predictably they show no halt to the slide in music sales.

In the first three months of the year the wholesale market for recorded music was worth 107.9 million euros in France, down 6.7% on the same period last year. Overall in 2012, sales fell 4.4%

In Q1 2013, physical sales (CDs etc) fell by 7.3% and for the first time ever digital sales (iTunes etc) were also hit – down 5.2%.

SNEP lays the blame for the decline in digital revenues at the feet of a label deal that expired in 2012 and a YouTube agreement with rights group SACEM that was suspended until the second quarter of 2013. Without these “unusual” issues digital revenues would have been stable, SNEP says, but stability will be disappointing when compared to the 12% growth enjoyed in 2012.

Stats on actual downloads show that the boom predicted by the industry once French Internet users began receiving their first, second and third strikes, has simply failed to appear.

While downloads of albums demonstrated a little growth – 1.9 million albums were bought in Q1 2013 compared to 1.8 million in Q1 2012 – the singles market is suffering. During the first quarter of 2013 the number of downloaded singles was down 21% on the same period last year – 10.7 million tracks versus 13.7 million in 2012.

Overall market share for digital content remained stable at 29%, versus a worldwide average of 35%.

So, with the market still in decline, what next for France? Well, evidently “three strikes” won’t be missed. As highlighted by Numerama, France has actually experienced a greater reduction in sales than Germany (- 4.6%), Italy ( – 1.8%), the Netherlands (- 4.7%) and Great Britain (- 5.6%), none of which have a three strikes scheme.

Hopes are now being pinned on a series of automated fines of 60 euros each for those sharing content without permission, with increases applied to those who don’t get the message. Why fines should be anymore successful than strikes is anyone’s guess, but SNEP like the idea – as long as the fines are more punishing.

“Music producers clearly want the educational component but it must be accompanied by a sufficiently dissuasive sanction. A fine of 60 euros seems too low, it should be at least double!” says SNEP chairman, Guillaume Leblanc.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In some countries rightsholders are now permitted to inform Internet users via their ISPs that their illicit habits are being noted, allowing users to maintain a theoretical level of privacy while an educational message is imposed.

The result are so-called “strikes” schemes like the one launched in the United States at the end of last month. The project is similar in nature to the one pioneered in France, so keeping an eye on what’s happening there should prove of interest in any subsequent stateside comparison.

Yesterday the French government’s Hadopi agency released the latest stats from their scheme and they reveal a huge increase in the effort.

In January 2012, Hadopi sent 41,396 so-called “first strike” warnings to Internet users. During January 2013 the agency sent 82,000, a 98% increase.

The following month saw a similar trend. In February Hadopi sent out 80,000 initial warnings versus 51,621 in the same period last year.

To find months with a greater output we have to go all the way back to May and June 2011, where 103,989 and 82,795 first warnings were issued respectively.

The trend looks like it will continue. In January this year Hadopi announced it would step up its game and for the last five consecutive months the number of warnings sent has not dipped below 61,000, which has never happened in Hadopi’s history.

The chart below shows first-strike warnings issued to the end of February 2013, with the red line representing the cumulative amount, a total of 1,599,847.

While first strikes are indeed important, the instances of subsequent strikes are perhaps more indicative of how well the system is performing when it comes to its educational aims.

Taking the last two months as examples and comparing them to the same periods last year, we see that the huge increase in first strike warnings sent does not proportionately affect the totals of second strike warnings.

In January 2012 a total of 6,450 second warnings were issued, versus 7,350 in January 2013. That’s just a 14% uplift despite 98% more initial warnings delivered.

In February 2012 a total of 7,350 second strikes went out, versus 8,550 this year. That represents just a 16.3% increase in second strikes in 2013 even though around 55% more initial warnings went out.

The chart below shows second-strike warnings issued to the end of February 2013, with the red line representing the cumulative amount, a total of 138,953.

But perhaps of most interest is the numbers of Internet account holders who despite first and second warnings still go on to a third. Perhaps surprisingly, despite the large increase in warnings sent, roughly the same amount of people are receiving their final strike each month.

January 2012 saw 38 individuals received their third warning, versus 36 in the same month this year. A total of 41 people had their final strike in February 2012 compared to 33 in February 2013. No matter how many first or second warnings were sent out, in no month since the scheme began have more than 43 people received a third.

The chart below shows third-strike warnings issued to the end of February 2013, with the red line representing the cumulative amount, a total of 488.

Despite the stats detailed above, it remains difficult to assess the street-level success of the scheme. The numbers of first strike warnings sent versus the constant level of thirds could suggest that people are indeed heeding the warnings, but it could also mean that they’re shifting to other file-sharing systems that are more difficult to monitor. On the other hand it may be that Hadopi only has the stomach or capacity to deal with the amount being passed to judges so far.

The truth is there can only ever be one real barometer of success – a large uplift in the revenues of entertainment companies. As far as we can see, that reward is yet to be observed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Some ISPs choose to ignore these letters, and others simply forward them to the appropriate subscriber and then that’s that. At least, for most Internet providers.

Mediacom has a unique interpretation of their perceived obligations under the DMCA and they include cracking down on those who are accused of sharing files. Effectively, Mediacom has adopted the most rigorous three-strikes policy that we’ve ever encountered.

It works as follows.

Strike 1: After the first DMCA notice the account is flagged and the subscriber receives a letter informing him or her about the alleged violation.

Strike 2: The second DMCA notice is more serious and results in an account suspension. Internet access can only be reinstated if the subscriber fills out some paperwork.

Strike 3: After the third DMCA notice it is game over for the subscriber. The account holder in question will lose Internet access and he or she is banned for life.

Customers who argue that someone else must have used their connection to share infringing material will also lose their Internet access. Mediacom argues that the account holder is responsible for whoever uses the connection, without exceptions. In some cases the the ISP adds to the injury by charging an early termination fee.

Mediacom’s three-strikes policy goes much further than the upcoming six-strikes anti-piracy scheme in which permanent disconnections are a no-go. Needless to say it raises eyebrows at digital rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) who heavily criticize Mediacom’s termination policy.

“Given the importance of connectivity these days, it’s extremely unfortunate that any ISP would terminate after three DMCA notices,” EFF’s Corynne McSherry told TorentFreak.

“DMCA notices are merely accusations — they are not proof of wrongdoing, and ISPs should not treat them as such. Where possible, I would urge customers of any ISP that has a strict three-strikes policy to vote with their feet and find an ISP that puts its customers first,” she adds.

Subscribers should indeed move away from ISPs that ignore their rights, but the real problem is that customers don’t always have a choice. Those who live in an area where Mediacom is the only provider are in serious trouble.

In all fairness, Mediacom does give subscribers the chance to dispute allegations of copyright infringement. However, Mediacom’s description of the counterclaim process is rather negative and is likely to scare the average subscriber.

“Once this [counter notification] paperwork is returned, Mediacom turns it over to the copyright holder, who pursues action as they choose. This may include legal action such as lawsuits between the copyright holder and the customer,” Mediacom explains.

The prospect of getting involved in a legal battle with Hollywood or the major music labels is not really encouraging, to say the least. Even those who know that the evidence used for DMCA notices is often shoddy and inaccurate will probably hesitate to file a counterclaim.

It’s clear that Mediacom’s policy favors copyright holders over consumers. This is worrisome, not least because the United Nations declared Internet access a human right last year, something President Obama seems to agree on.

Human right or not, for now that’s not going to do much for all those former Mediacom customers who are banned from using the Internet for life.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Although pushed for heavily by rightsholders, the so-called “letter model” in which errant internet subscribers are sent a series of warnings informing them that their habits are illegal, is now officially off the table.

According to a Ministry of Culture document seen by TorrentFreak, the government will today announce its “Pirate Package”, an anti-piracy initiative that moves the emphasis away from punishing end users and towards the development and creation of better legal offerings. It consists of a number of components.

The first is the ‘Innovation Forum’ which will provide a platform for “dialog and innovation” for those looking to create and develop digital business models in various creative fields.

“The ambition is that the innovation forum will help to create a foundation for future collaboration across industries and backgrounds with the common goal to ensure that consumers have equal and easy access to as much creative content as possible,” the government writes.

The common theme raised in a number of the initiative’s components is the education of consumers. The Ministry of Culture says it will team up with the telecoms industry, rightsholders and the Consumer Council to launch a joint awareness project later this year to inform consumers which services are legal and which are not.

Additionally, the Ministry believes that one of the problems with the consumption of infringing music and movies is that the public does not understand its “significance and consequences.” It appears that rightsholders will step in to educate the masses on this issue.

“Rightsholders have stated that they will take the initiative to create an information task force that will pro-actively target and communicate with Internet users on relevant sites and forums,” the Ministry writes.

The rightsholders will reportedly seek to change Internet users’ attitudes by various methods, including contacting and initiating dialog with individuals on file-sharing sites “who upload and use illegal material.”

Another effort in the education of consumers will relate to securing existing open WiFi networks and having manufacturers build automatic technical solutions into hardware of the future.

On the ISPs end, outgoing customer bills will include notices warning users to secure their connections and stressing the importance of choosing legal media consumption offers over pirate networks.

The Ministry document also notes that there will be increased effort to remove infringing material from the Internet but perhaps a more controversial element of the Pirate Package relates to the ISP-level blocking of websites such as The Pirate Bay. The initiative hopes to pave the way for a smoother blocking process.

According to the Ministry, Denmark’s ISPs and rightsholders have reached an agreement on censoring sites which will be formalized into a written Code of Conduct.

In practice what this means is that if rightsholders want a site blocked they will only have to take legal action against a single ISP. Once a court decides the outcome (to block or not to block) that ISP agrees to be bound by “the final decision of the court.” Whether this means they agree not to launch an appeal as many ISPs have done in the past remains unclear.

“This is an automated process where the rights holders need only contact one organization / one telephone company, which will then make sure to communicate this decision to the other telcos,” the Ministry writes.

While rightsholders will be pleased at the formalization of the site-blocking procedures, they will be universally unhappy at the lack of any kind of end-user punishment, such as the provisions currently available in France or those forthcoming in watered-down form in the US.

However, opponents of 3 strikes-style regimes are cautiously happy with the outcome.

“We are all very happy that the letter model has been pronounced dead by the Ministry of Culture. It is a huge victory for the internet and for the users,” says Troels Møller, co-founder of Internet-political think tank and digital rights group Bitbureauet.

“The anti-piracy outfits and copyright organizations didn’t get their way this time. I think it’s a brave decision by the politicians,” Møller told TorrentFreak.

“It is a good idea to focus on operating legal services in ways that ensure users actually want to use them, and to facilitate forums to work out new business models.”

Early indications are that rightsholders still want more, with suggestions that they will now lobby for the police to become more active in pursuing uploaders of copyright material.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The entertainment industries claim that the threat of losing one’s Internet connection will deter a large group of copyright infringers. Thus far, however, no research has backed up this prediction. On the contrary, the results of a recent survey conducted by the British Internet provider BE Broadband reveals that the impact might be far less than expected.

BE Broadband surveyed a few hundred customers and asked them whether they are aware of the Digital Economy Act, and how they think their file-sharing habits would change under the new law. The results are intriguing.

Of all the respondents who use file-sharing networks (85% of the total sample) more than 94 percent say they will not share less when the Digital Economy Act gets into full swing. Instead, the majority of the file-sharers say they will simply take measures to hide their IP-address, by using VPN and proxy services for example.

Roughly 1 percent of the people who share files now say they will stop doing so and about 5 percent claim they will reduce their use of file-sharing software. Needless to say, the survey results suggest that three-strikes measures can hardly be called effective.

Taking into account that the survey may not be representative of the general population in the UK (judging from the high percentage of file-sharers), it does appear that many of the people who now use file-sharing networks won’t be deterred from doing so under the new law. Instead, many of them will simply take measures to ensure that they’re not caught.

This raises some serious concerns.

Although the entertainment industries may argue that even a few percent less copyright infringers is a victory, the question of costs remain. Implementing the three strikes procedures will cost ISPs millions of pounds a year, money that will be eventually clawed back from consumers.

In addition, the three strikes scheme puts tens of thousands of innocent Internet users at risk of being wrongfully accused and disconnected by mistake. This has been demonstrated several times in the ACS:Law debacle, and was even reported on in the British mainstream media.

Last but not least, even if the right person is targeted then there’s still the human rights issue. A UN report published last month labeled the three strikes provision in the Digital Economy Act a breach of human rights. Disconnecting users from the Internet is a disproportionate penalty, the report concluded.

Perhaps it’s time for the copyright lobby and legislators to look at the alternatives. Preferably measures that improve the legal offerings and take away the incentive for people to pirate, rather than radically enforcing copyright infringement without knowing that it will have any effect at all.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Across the pond in the United States, there is an Internet provider that has single-handedly implemented a similar scheme. Suddenlink, one of the top 10 cable companies in the country, disconnects subscribers for six months after they have received three DMCA notices. According to a company representative, Suddenlink is required to take this action under the DMCA.

TorrentFreak has been in contact with one of the customers who had his Internet connection disconnected for three alleged copyright violations. The affected subscriber provided detailed chatlogs with Suddenlink where the following explanation for the drastic measure is given.

Customer: I want to reconnect my internet service. They said I got 3 DMCA letters and they said that by law I had to be disconnected. Is that true?

Suddenlink rep: Yes, your internet was disconnected due to DMCA. When the internet is disconnected due to DMCA, it can not be reconnected for a minimum of 6 months.

Customer: The DMCA makes that requirement?

Suddenlink rep: Yes.

Customer: So you’re stating, for the record, that by law, the DMCA law, that you have to disconnect users for receiving 3 DMCA letters?

Suddenlink rep: You have no choice in the matter.

Suddenlink rep: It is the DMCA policy that it can not be reconnected for 6 months.

Suddenlink rep: It may be the DMCA policy or it may be the way we go about following the DMCA guidelines.

Customer: The law states that?

Suddenlink rep: Once the 3rd offense occurs, it can not be reconnected for 6 months.

Suddenlink Rep: The information I have on the DMCA states: This law was enacted in 1998 to protect against illegal downloading of copyrighted material like movies, music, etc. As an Internet Service Provider (ISP), Suddenlink , and other ISPs, must implement a policy of terminating internet service of customers who repeatedly share copyrighted files.

The explanation given above is pure nonsense of course. The DMCA does not and never has required ISPs to disconnect users. For some reason Suddenlink customer support was told to communicate this lie to its users. What is true, however, is that Suddenlink will disconnect subscribers after three alleged warnings.

TorrentFreak contacted the company and we were told that this measure is hidden in their Terms of Service. Although there is no word about a three-strikes policy, we did find the following sentence that could be used to justify the disconnections.

“If you continue to transfer Copyrighted Material illegally, you are violating Suddenlink’s policies and Suddenlink may take further action, including limiting your Internet download capacity, suspending or terminating your account, or a range of other measures.”

In reality, this means that subscribers will be disconnected from the Internet for 6 months without a refund. The subscriber we talked to was informed about the penalty over the phone and never received any documents to back it up.

Although Suddenlink’s three-strikes policy is the most extreme, the company is not the only US Internet provider that has implemented it. Cox is using a similar scheme, but with the major difference that the disconnection is limited to a few hours, not six months.

Disconnecting users based on claims of copyright holders and without any form of trial seems to be an extreme measure for a company that provides such an essential service as Internet access. Suddenlink told TorrentFreak that they are within their rights, just like Comcast said two years ago when they started blocking BitTorrent traffic.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Thus far the United States Government has kept relatively quiet on this issue, but that doesn’t mean that such plans are not being discussed behind close doors.

According to Ari Emanuel, a famous Hollywood talent agent and the model for the character Ari Gold in the hit series Entourage, Hollywood lobbyists are working hard to convince President Obama and others to ram through similar legislation in the United States.

“We are in the midst of talking to the president and some attorney generals and [we are] trying to implement a three strikes and you’re out rule,” Emanuel said, while adding that this issue would most likely result in a “fight with ISPs”.

At this point it is impossible to assess the exact nature of these talks, but since Ari Emanuel is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, there is no doubt that these talks are taken seriously. President Obama, who vouched to decrease the power of lobbyists in Washington, is not turning a deaf ear to this one for now.

Before even considering the implementation of a three-strikes model, United States lawmakers might want to take a good look at what’s happening in France. Unlike earlier projections that up to 95% of the file-sharers could stop downloading copyrighted content, the piracy rate has actually increased in the face of the new law.

The entertainment industry, nevertheless, continues to push legislation as the solution to online piracy, while ignoring their own role in the creation of the problem.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The media attention led to widespread protests. Most noticeable was ‘Operation Blackout’, where hundreds of thousands ‘blacked out’ their profile images on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and not without success. The objections eventually caused the government to scrap the law and go back to the drawing board. Not for long though.

Fast forward a few months and the government already has a new and ‘improved’ version of the anti-piracy legislation ready. The new plan no longer includes the ‘guilty upon accusation” section where consumers had little options to appeal a potential disconnection. However, the new text also includes the option for copyright holders to demand $15,000 in damages from repeated copyright infringers.

“I want to stress that account holders will have the opportunity during each of these processes to defend claims by right holders,” Commerce Minister Simon Power said in a comment.

Under the new law, ISPs would no longer be obliged to simply disconnect every user accused of repeatedly downloading copyrighted material, without solid proof. Instead, all account holders can request a hearing at the Copyright Tribunal if they don’t agree with the proposed penalty or the evidence presented against them.

From current reports it is not clear how the copyright holders will collect evidence on alleged copyright infringers. The past has shown that their data gathering techniques are not always the most accurate, to say the least. If this is the case, we can expect to see many appeals once the new proposals become law in the coming year.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.