14 DAY TRIAL // One year ago, a French ISP released a device called Freebox Revolution which allows customers to perform a large number of entertainment-related tasks. What the media bosses don't like is the fact that the gadget incorporates BitTorrent and allows users to download illegal materials directly on to the device.
According to TorrentFreak, the device offered by Free is made of a hardware player and a server that besides offering what a regular media player offers, it also gives the opportunity to download games and software from the internet.
The fact that a torrent client is embedded into the machine is considered by some to be a license for piracy and answers are sought.
Pascal Rogard, CEO of the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers (SACD) revealed that it's not the first time they've had trouble with Free, but in the past all the issues were handled without much fuss.
“I’m sure Maxime Lombardini, chief executive of Iliad [Free's parent company], will be keen to address the [new] problem,” Rogard stated. “We can have experts from the music and film industry to look at the new box to see possible solutions. I am sure that the company will modify the software to stop this service.”
While SNEP (Syndicat National de l’Édition Phonographique) representatives claim that “this technology is not neutral” and “it clearly offers illegal downloading of content without a PC,” others believe that this has not been proven.
“For an offense to be proven it would need to be shown that Free has encouraged its customers to go to BitTorrent sites where pirated movies are indexed, or at the very least the company developed this tool with that in mind,” argued Guillaume Champeau from Numerama.
As I've stated in many cases, such issues are a delicate matter and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. However, as piracy is considered illegal you should always purchase media content from legitimate retailers especially as not seldom bootlegged variants come with malicious elements.