French Anti-Piracy Law To Expand Focus, Lose 23% Of Funding

Perhaps you remember our post from last month, about France’s controversial ‘Hadopi’ law, under which a (clearly innocent) 40 year old man was convicted and fined for illegal downloading over peer-2-peer networks. We mentioned at the time that it looked like Hadopi was already on its way out – after one “successful” conviction – but there’s news today that the law will be continuing into 2013; in fact, it’ll expand to cover video game piracy as well as music. But (or in French, mais), here’s the interesting part: the funding being set aside for Hadopi enforcement is actually being reduced by 23%. From Ars Technica:

The French government report also notes that the agency will add six employees, despite a budgetary reduction, and says that the new agents will allow for an expansion of the total number of three-strikes warnings, from around 800,000 to 1,100,000. The three levels of warnings, most controversially, can end with an offender being cut off from the Internet for a month, although that penalty has yet to be enforced.

Despite the law’s unpopularity and questionable-at-best effectiveness, the U.S. equivalent is set to begin within the coming weeks. Look out for a more detailed post about that system, which will allow users six-strikes, later today.