The Minister of Culture1 and the Hadopi itself2 have been prompt to announce the launch of the Hadopi's operations: here we are, the Hadopi is ready to send its first mail to Internet users who have been caught in Trident Media Gard's nets, the private society empowered by rights holders representatives3 to monitor file sharing on peer-to-peer networks. However, analysis of enacted laws and decrees calls for more caution on this potential threat. The Hadopi might be unable to impose penalties, but it could be that the Hadopi should not even be authorized to send any warning without prior judicial ruling.

• 1. During Council of Ministers of July 28th 2010, the minister of Culture and Communication has claimed that: “The Hadopi is now ready to start its action. As an independent public authority, it will fix the suitable time to send by mail the first warnings to offenders, based on referrals transmitted by rights owners.” – throughout this paper, translation of French quotes and French law and decrees is made by the author.
• 2. “The Hadopi is ready to kick off its action with regard to three-strikes measures”, has said Marie-Françoise Marais, president of the Hadopi, during a press conference on Monday June 28th 2010.
• 3. Civil Society of Phonographic Producers (SCPP), Civil Society of Phonograms in France (SPPF), Society of Music Authors Compositors and Editors (SACEM), Society for Managing Mechanical Reproduction Right (SDRM) and Association for Fighting Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA).

Brussels, January 29th, 2010 - The draft1 of the Gallo2 report on strengthening the enforcement of "intellectual property rights" (IPR) in the Internal Market has been presented in the JURI commission of the European Parliament. This initiative report3 is a response to a communication of the Commission on the same topic, which La Quadrature has already strongly condemned4. The document has only one merit: it provides a perfect example of the worst kind of IPR dogmatism.

• 1. http://www.laquadrature.net/files/GalloReport-20100128.pdf
• 2. Marielle Gallo, rapporteur of this "IPR enforcement" report, is a French EPP Member of the European Parliament.
• 3. A non-legislative position of the European Parliament preparing or encouraging legislative initiative
• 4. http://www.laquadrature.net/en/dogmatic-ipr-enforcement-fails-to-address...

Everybody agrees that European Union suffers from a democratic deficit which deepens the gap between European institutions and their citizens. What is more unknown is that one of main reasons for this is that Member States often use European Union to achieve what can be spelled as “political laundering”. The “Telecoms Package” gives a perfect example of such a deceptive maneuver, aimed at legalizing an european-wide "graduated response" against citizens, and stretching it even deeper as usual. How does it work?

Brussels, July 1st, 2008 - updated : July 2nd, 2008

One week before a key vote in the reform of European law on electronic communications ("Telecoms Package"), La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net) denounces a series of amendments aimed at closing the open architecture of the Internet for more control and surveillance of users.