France Cracks Down on File-Sharing

Condensed from "French Officials Enforce New Antipiracy Law," by Max Colchester, the Wall Street Journal, published in the Cambodia Daily, Oct. 28, 2010.  All text below is copyright Colchester/the Wall Street Journal.

PARIS -- France's new Internet piracy police have been scouring the Web this month for people illegally downloading films and music, sending hundreds of warning e-mails to suspected intellectual property thieves.
     The implementation of France's new antipiracy law -- which is one of the first in the world, along with similar legislation in South Korea, Taiwan and Britain -- is considered a litmus test by other nations hoping to crack down on intellectual property theft.
     To catch offenders, the government has hired a private company to monitor file-sharing websites, such as eMule and BitTorrent, to determine when a computer is illegally downloading music or video.  A computer's Internet Protocol address can be viewed freely by anyone using these sites.