It is apparently first world: a Net surfer was condemned yesterday to 3 months of firm prison with Hong Kong to have placed at the disposal three Hollywood films via the Internet by using the very popular software of exchange of files BitTorrent (BT). If the continuations against users of such systems are from now on current, they are balanced in general by fines or prison with deferment. It is the case in France where, for example, a teacher was condemned in February to 15.000 euros of damages and court expenses.

The judge of Hong Kong Colin Makintosh, quoted by the Agency France Presses, did not want to show leniency. "justice must send the message that the distribution of fraudulent copies, in particular by essaimant films on the Internet, will not be treated in a lenient way", it declared in waited judgement. If no proof were brought that Chang Nai-ming, 38 years, had sought to benefit financial or set up an unspecified trade with these films, the judge refused to make the difference between this case and those of the professionals of the resale of CD or pirated DVD. Evoking the "gigantic" damage caused with industry, it considered "imperative" a judgment at prison.

The majority of the legislations do not establish a difference between the exchange of files protected by the royalty non-profit-making and the counterfeit on a commercial scale. In Hong Kong, the Net surfer, who called itself "Large Swindler", risked up to 4 years of prison. In France, the incurred maximum sorrow is 3 years of prison and 300.000 euros of fine. "the prison is a severe sorrow (...) If the users of BT think that they can go in prison by downloading films on the Internet without permission, nobody will not dare to start again", underlined Woody Tsung, general manager of Motion Picture Industry Association, the lobby of the cinema with Hong Kong.

In France, the secretary-general of the civil company of the author-realizer-producers of films, Michel Gomez, sees in this heavy sanction "revealing of the panic of some" in cultural industries. But according to him, "the legal answer is not bearable a long time vis-a-vis the phenomenon of mass of people who exchange films", that it distinguishes from the pirates "on a commercial scale". With the instar of the majority of the professionals of the French die of the cinema, it would prefer a "approach graduated", with the sending of warnings by e-mail before considering a legal reaction. A negotiation is in hand with the government to define the legislative evolutions which would be necessary to such a project. In Hong Kong, Chan Nai-ming appealed.