French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti
In a recent interviewwith Le Nouvel Observateur, French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti said that she will reduce funding HADOPI – the French agency that enforces online copyright through a graduated response: “Within the context of budget cutting, I’ll request operational funding to Hadopi be reduced… I’d rather reduce financing of things whose usefulness hasn’t been proven.”
Filippetti further said that “suspension of Internet access strikes me as disproportionate to the goal being sought. Hadopi has [also] failed in its mission to develop legal alternatives [to illegal downloading].”
In the U.S. press, Time Magazine interpretted her comments to indicate that she will underfund the agency rather than repealing the law that establishes it. This would be an attempt to retain the entertainment industry’s support of the Socialist Party. On the other hand, Ars Technica interpretted her comments to indicate that the agency will likely be shut down, noting that President Hollande campaigned against the law.
