Can justice exist on the Internet?

Résumé du document

The Internet has changed fundamentally our ways of living. Research director at Inria Gérard Berry tells the story of how he used to organize a party: he had to call all of his friends one by one and tell them to call their own friends, and so on. Nowadays, one Facebook message is enough ! The possibility to have immediate access to the virtual resources available on the Internet has also altered our perception of property. It seems normal to download without paying because everything is dematerialized, and thus the sense of ownership and uniqueness that is linked to the possession of a material object disappears with the dematerialization of some goods.

This has led some governments to try and make some new laws to contain the illegal downloading of goods. An example of such a law is the Hadopi law in France. This law, passed by the French Parliament in May 2009, aims to protect the property rights on the Internet thanks to the process of “gradual response” to the illegal action: if an illegal downloading is detected, the user will receive three warning letters from Hadopi, asking the user to stop. After the third warning, the user's Internet connection is cut, and he is not able to change his Internet Service Provider (the company that gives him Internet access, such as Free or SFR).

This law has been heavily contested: even though protecting the ownership rights on the Internet is a laudable goal, the way the law proceeds may not be the best, and may not be just. Moreover, one may wonder if it is just to try and protect the Internet goods from unlimited downloading. Through the study of the Hadopi case, based on the analysis of a concrete situation of the application of the Hadopi law, we will thus wonder if justice can exist on the Internet.

Extraits

[...] Our analysis will be based on the case of Mr. Robert Thollot, as described in an article published in the newspaper Le Monde on the October 3rd Mr. Thollot, an economical science teacher, has received the three Hadopi letters, warning him that his internet connection would be stopped if he went on downloading illegally films and music. Eventually, the sanction fell: Mr. Thollot was convoked by Hadopi in order to receive his sentence for the illegal downloading he had committed it is normally a fine and the suspension of his Internet connection. [...]

[...] It is possible that Mr. Thollot's FreeWifi account has been hacked, allowing the hacker to download with someone else's Internet connection to avoid getting caught personally by Hadopi. However, Mr. Thollot himself still risks condemnation for it is said that it was his responsibility to secure his FreeWifi account. This however requires a good knowledge of the administration of one's ISP, and also a good knowledge of how the Internet works to work out a secure password. Mr. Thollot is thus charged for not having the correct abilities. [...]

[...] We have thus seen that if a condemnation can be just in principle, the sentence accompanying it may not. Justice here is not only a matter of defining property and guaranteeing property rights, but it is also intimately linked with Human rights and fundamental liberties. It is interesting to see that, in our globalized world, the States are trying to control the Internet, which is law-less, but that this goal faces the concern of judiciary and supranational organizations with respect to the fundamental rights. [...]

[...] Indeed, the notion of justice is opposed to the notion of theft. However, can one define sharing a piece of music on the Internet as theft? This is the first issue raised by this case, and this question can be broadened to the question of redefining or not the notion of property on the Internet. It is possible to argue that the day-to-day rules do not apply to the Internet, which is another world entirely. Moreover, we can wonder if the method used by the Hadopi law is just. [...]

[...] Indeed, no matter what the law is, justice can only exist if all the details of the particular case are taken into account. This is why the Hadopi has delayed the judgment of Mr. Thollot's case, for further investigation to assess the extenuating circumstances. It is obvious that, if it is proven that Mr. Thollot was hacked, he will receive a weaker sentence than the hacker or no sentence at all. This small analysis had the goal to emphasize on the necessity of taking into account the particularity of each case, and to remind that justice is intimately linked to particularity. [...]