The at times controversial Hadopi laws, so named after the agency responsible for managing the system, has been scrapped by the French government after an unsuccessful 4 years.
The law, which promised to ban individuals from being able to connect to the Internet if they are caught downloading pirated content three times, was introduced in 2009 by then President Sarkozy.
But since then, Hadopi has cost the government millions and recouped only €150 in fines from one individual, whose Internet was disconnected for 15 days. That individual, a 40-year old artisan from rural France, backed up his claims that he was not the individual that actually made the download with evidence, but the court still ruled against him.
A new copyright system will now only fine users instead of disconnecting them, with fines starting from €60 and increasing as the number of infractions increase.
The French government will now also focus their attentions on commercial piracy and websites that act as clearinghouses for pirated content, instead of punishment for individual users.
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