New French group monitors p2p
p2pnet.net News:- In April, the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) authorized SELL (Syndicat des Editeurs de Logiciels de Loisi) to both track and monitor p2p downloads.
Now SELL’s sister organisation for copyrightsholders, SACEM, “is likely to obtain the same permission,” says Rik Lambers on his blog
“It will use the company Advestigo, which has asked CNIL for an authorization to collect IP addresses and send anti-piracy messages to file-sharers,” he says, going on:
SACEM’s action would consist of three phases:
1. Up- and downloaders will be located and receive an automatic message to inform them of the illegal character of their acts (that’s illegal in SACEM’S view when it comes to downloading)
2. If these users continue their infringing activities, SACEM may ask a judge to order their ISP to terminate their subscriptions
3. After that, SACEM may file a complaint against the file-sharers with the authorities, which could lead to a criminal investigation and prosecution
However, none of this is very surprising, as Lambers points out.
“In France SELL provides a precedent for SACEM,” he says. “In Sweden the Data Protection Board ruled that the national anti-piracy organisation broke data protection laws by collecting IP addresses, but it also made clear that private organisations can apply for an exemption to the data act.
“Dutch anti-piracy organisation BREIN already collects IP addresses and sends warning messages to file-sharers. Authorization of these activities is taking the first privacy hurdle in the longer run to the second: obtaining the identities behind the IP addresses. It now seems like the first hurdle gets lower and lower to the benefit of the second. In the end there may be little privacy protection to jump over before reaching the finish line: a lawsuit for copyright infringement.”
Interestingly, Advestigo lists both SELL and SACEM references on its site.
" … we are very excited about the highly innovative solutions Advestigo is bringing to this market," says SACEM’s David El-Sayegh and, "We chose Advestigo as an independent company who could give us an objective analysis of peer-to-peer activity," says SACEM.
All pals together.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
monitor p2p downloads – French group to monitor p2p, p2pnet, April 13, 2005
blog – P2P Monitoring by French Rights Organisaton, June 29, 2005
June 30th, 2005 at 6:13 pm
SELL sucks, SACEM has always sucked, I remember buying some underground vinyl records, and they didn’t have the SACEM logo (which is very very rare in France) because they didn’t wanna these morons to _steal_ their earnings
Btw SACEM is known to be run by crypto-fascists anyway.
I don’t understand how a country like France just keeps on imitating the P.S.A while we have a better system for long.
November 3rd, 2005 at 9:55 am
The authorisation given to the sell by the CNIL does not concern advestigo but copeerright agency.
For your information, the cnil did not give the authorisation at sacem because the service offered to the sacem by advestigo are not respectful of the rights of people !
Advestigo does not seem to be what it wants to show us.