Ordinary subscribers are no longer being left alone.
Illegal IPTV subscribers in France now in the crosshairs
The net is tightening around French customers of illegal IPTV services. As Les Numériques reports, and for the first time in France, around 20 internet users in Pas-de-Calais have been summoned by the courts. Last March, prosecutors in Arras identified 19 people subscribed to a pirate service and issued fines of €300 and €400 each.
Legal basis and penalties in France
As our colleagues rightly point out, the authorities have historically focused their efforts on resellers and providers of pirate IPTV. Even so, under French law, taking out a subscription to an illegal service is treated as handling counterfeit goods, punishable by five years in prison and a €375,000 fine.
In practice, it is understood that the justice system does not apply that maximum penalty, especially given estimates that several million illegal IPTV subscriptions may be in circulation in the country. In other words, enforcing the law to the letter would mean putting a very large number of French people behind bars. For now, the approach appears to be deterrence, targeting only an extremely small fraction of users.
Why illegal IPTV can harm users
That said, piracy is not risk-free for internet users either. They often end up dealing with criminal operators who can expose them to viruses or spyware. Services can also cut out without warning, and pirate offerings do not provide the safeguards associated with legal platforms.
France’s new anti-piracy measures
As a reminder, real-time blocking of the IP addresses used for pirate broadcasts has been in place during the Roland-Garros tennis tournament. In practical terms, illegal IPTV servers and pirate streaming sites can be taken down immediately.
More specifically, the French Tennis Federation, broadcasters, internet service providers and the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) have tested this new tool, which is also used during the Football World Cup.
Rights holders are keeping a close watch by identifying pirate services, after which ISPs must block the relevant IP addresses at their request. Arcom then oversees the entire system.
What do you think about these fines and the initiatives being rolled out in France? Feel free to share your view (calmly) in the comments.
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