Piracy in France has increased 3% since the country passed its controversial “three strikes” law, a team of university researchers has found.
The law was designed to stamp out piracy in France, but has resulted in users sourcing material from alternative sites that aren’t covered by the legislation, the BBC said.
A survey conducted by researchers at the Marsouin unit of the University of Rennes, suggests that pirates have merely switched to streaming services and download sites that aren’t covered by the law, to circumvent punishment.
The Three Strikes law only applies to P2P file sharing, and has resulted in a 17.1% drop in use of those sites for illegal file sharing. However, the decline is offset by a 27% rise in the use of download and streaming sites.
Pirates are also increasingly using closed forums and virtual servers, which are harder to detect
Around 70% of survey respondents indicated that they did not engage in piracy at all.
The Hadopi “three strikes” law was passed late last year, despite significant opposition from French socialists.
It calls for users caught repeatedly engaging in piracy to be disconnected from the internet for up to a year. Pirates may also be fined or given a prison sentence.