French website www.jaimelesartistes.fr (”I like artists”) was definitely closed in the middle of March. This site, aimed at a young audience, had been launched a few months before by the government in order to explain how illegal downloads work against the cultural industry and the artists themselves. The government intended to convince the evil constellation of pirates that its “graduated answer” reform (or so called “Hadopi law”) was the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, several dark lobbies opposed to any Internet regulation went into battle against this symbolic website. Many threats arose from different groups, to which the administrators self-confidently responded by “Go on guys, we’re bullet proof!”. A couple of hours after this unwise declaration, the site suffered a deadly Distributed Denial of Service attack and collapsed.
This extreme reaction illustrates the difficulties the government will encounter trying to prevent illegal download after years of quasi-impunity for pirates. For most people, the dark side of this behaviour has gradually disappeared under its generalization. Far from the usual stereotype of techno-geeks hidden in their basement, today’s pirates are to be found among children, executives, housewives, workers… and 37% of the French population according to a TNS Sofres/Logica survey. Change won’t come through education only, but will require persuasive means. On the same way that the extensive installation of speed cameras everywhere on French roads drastically lowered the number of killed, the threat of losing one’s beloved Internet connection may reduce the number of acts of piracy.
However, Internet’s pirates are more resourceful than road’s pirates: when it’s not possible to be invisible while driving, technical tricks will allow peer to peer exchanges to remain undetected. Swedish Pirate Bay, the biggest site of Bittorrents files’ trackers in Europe, is preparing a new service of secure communications between users through a VPN. This service will prevent anyone, including ISP, to detect the nature of data received or sent by its subscribers. Called “Ipredator”, it will cost 5€/month for unlimited content…that is the fixed rate proposed by supporters of the “global licence” in France.
There will always be means of overriding the control mechanisms. But it doesn’t really matter for content providers, as long as these means aren’t accessible to a large audience. I would be surprised if Ipredator (or one of its clones) were massively adopted by French households. First, people have to know about this “underground” service, which will be less popular than P2P softwares like Emule or Bittorrent. Secondly, they’ll need the ability to understand it and set it up properly; in case of mistake, they’ll expose themselves to prosecution. Last but not least, it won’t be free, and a lot of people will surely be reluctant to pay a monthly fee to a large “pirate” organization.
The struggle between pirates and the government is about to begin, that announces chaotic times on the French Internet world.
Related links:
- Le site “j’aime les artistes” ferme définitivement
- Know your Enemy: Tracking Botnets
- 37% des internautes ont déjà piraté
- Denial-of-service attack
- The Pirate Bay dégaine Ipredator contre la riposte graduée
written by Ludovic Bourdin.
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