22% of French downloaders states to have stopped because of Hadopi

Two months have passed since Hadopi started to send warning e-mails to alleged file-sharers. As a result, 22% of French downloaders indicates to have changed their behaviour. 43% feels that they should take more care in reducing the chances to get caught while 33% feels that there is such a slim chance they will be noticed that they see no reason to take action. The tally of sent mails read 70.000 last week.

ZDNet France had a telephonic survey carried out amongt 1016 French ‘internnautes’ to measure the effect of Hadopi enforcement. 80% of the respondents stated not to use file-sharing services ever. The figures above focus on the 19% that do.

When categorising the results of the survey by age, large differences emerge. The younger (the survey only includes people aged 15 or older), the larger the fraction that downloads. In the age bracket 15-17 years old, 47% indicated not to engage in file-sharing; a fraction that increases to 95% for people over 50. Respondents between 18 and 24 years of age are most susceptible to the threat emanating from Hadopi: 15% of respondents (translating to 31% of downloaders) has changed their behaviour.

Hadopi thus appears to be quite successful, right from the start. The law is only just starting to be enforced and may scale up the amount of sent warning letters considerably (the enforcement organisation has a capacity to send 10.000 letters a day.

The second round of warning letters has not been sent yet, but that will not take long. Impact analyses from similar measures in the United States reveal that 80% of recipients stop downloading. When a second letter lands on the doormat, this figure rises to 90%.