Hadopi report says nothing about decreases in sales

By EDRi · April 11, 2012

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Deutsch: [Hadopi: Bericht verschweigt Rückgang bei den Verkaufszahlen | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.7_Hadopi_Bericht_verschweigt_Rueckgang_bei_den_Verkaufszahlen?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20120411]

Although French Hadopi authority has issued its new report to show how
effective the three-strikes law was in 2010 cutting Internet piracy to
half, the reality is that the system has brought no increase in the
revenues for the culture industry as expected by the law promoters.

“Benchmarking studies covering all of the sources available shows a
clear downward trend in illegal P2P downloads. There is no indication
that there has been a massive transfer in forms of use to streaming
technologies or direct downloads,” says the new Hadopi report which
gives a series of statistics showing a 29% decrease in visits to
“pirate” sites in 2011 or a 66% drop in illegal file-sharing traffic.

One of the main arguments of the copyright holders, in favour of the
three-strikes law, has been for years that piracy was the main cause of
the revenue losses. Therefore, according to this argument, a significant
cut down of piracy in France should consequently lead to an increase in
revenues. Yet, in 2011, the French music industry experienced a decrease
in the overall revenues by 3.9 percent and the French movie industry has
had a drop in revenues by 2.7 percent.

This only proves what specialists have said time and again – chasing
illegal downloading is not the solution that would support the
entertainment industries in increasing their revenues. Moreover, the
Hadopi report shows the decrease in illegal downloading on P2P platforms
(BitTorrent, µTorrent, eMule and Limewire). What it does not shown is
that French users have shifted from P2P to direct downloading and
streaming which have marked a significant increase in 2011.

According to Médiamétrie, since October 2010 (when the first Hadopi
warnings were sent), streaming and direct downloading have turned from
6.5 to 8.3 million unique visitors in France, which means a 29% increase.

The issue here is that this new Hadopi report which focuses entirely on
P2P piracy drop, ignoring all the other aspects, will be used by
anti-piracy lobbyists to show how effective anti-piracy laws can be so
that they may promote them all over the world.

The results of the French presidential elections may have some impact
upon the Hadopi law which is presently supported only by the present
President Sarkozy. Only one other candidate, François Hollande,
expressed the opinion that the law should be revised while all the other
candidates appear to be in favour of the suppression of the law altogether.

French ‘Three Strikes’ Law Slashes Piracy, But Fails to Boost Sales
(30.03.2012)

French ‘Three Strikes’ Law Slashes Piracy, But Fails to Boost Sales

Hadopi, 1 and ½ years after the launch (only in French, 27.03.2012)
http://hadopi.fr/actualites/agenda/hadopi-1-apres-son-lancement

The compressed Hadopi action report (only in French, 28.03.2012)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/hightech/2012/03/27/01007-20120327ARTFIG00670-le-bilan-contrastee-de-l-action-de-l-hadopi.php

EDRi-gram: French Internet users on the verge of being disconnected
(5.10.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.19/hadopi-report-france-18-months