French record companies are now legally entitled to track P2P users sharing more than 50 files within a 24 hour period, and, according to the country’s Council of State, “keep their records for further legal proceedings”.
The P2P Blog says on the subject: “The decision comes as a blow to the French National Commission for Data protection and the Liberties who rules in the fall of 2005 that automatic P2P networks violates local privacy laws”.
Does this news represent the end of heavy file sharing in France? Unlikely. French file sharers have launched 51 fichiers (51 files) in protest against the “systematic criminalisation of the Peer-to-peer networks and their users”. Those wishing to speak out against the ruling would “share at least 51 files that are freely distributable … and keep them on the P2P system until ’something happens’”.
The 51 files used should all be legally shareable and distributable, the group says. It also points out that P2P file sharing applications can easily be set to limit the number of shared files to only 49 – 1 below the legal ‘trigger level’.
The auto-monitoring would be based on a list of 10,000 files; this is a fairly limited sub-set of all the files that are shared – legally or otherwise – on the P2P networks, and industry commentators have noted that it is only the most popular files that are likely to be monitored with any diligence: “That means that, most probably, if you are fan of Johnny Halliday and that you download his music, you have more chance … than if you are fan of a dark regional group of rock’n’roll-garage”
There’s likely to be plenty more lively debate on this subject, so stay tuned.