hadopi in france

How to bypass French Anti-piracy law HADOPI in 2022 and beyond?

HADOPI, or “Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet“, was created in France in 2009. It is an organization that aims to protect rights holders and works closely with all Internet service providers without exception to fight online piracy. 

If you do not know how to bypass HADOPI, you will not be able to avoid the control of your Internet service provider and could end up getting fined while traveling France. if you are currently living in France, you should know that as soon as your ISP finds out that you are downloading P2P torrents, it will forward the information to HADOPI, who will send you a friendly email asking you to stop. 

Note that, at the moment, only downloading and sharing torrents (not royalty-free) are against the HADOPI laws. If you are doing DDL or streaming in 2019, you will not need a VPN. 

UPDATE 2022: A new law to regulate and protect access to cultural works in the digital age has been passed lately in France. It has been published in the Official Gazette, this Monday, October 25. This one evokes the appearance of a new regulatory authority: the Arcom. Indeed, the Parliament has adopted this law in September, to create a new independent body. Thus, the Regulatory Authority of the audiovisual communication must be born on January 1st, 2022, from the fusion between Hadopi and CSA.

What are the risks if I am caught downloading torrents in France?

 

Many people say that HADOPI is safe to deal with and that it is a “myth” used to frighten torrent or streaming users… This is unfortunately a false statement that could land you in trouble land. Indeed, HADOPI does sanction torrents users, and it is by no means dying, quite the contrary! Criminal sanctions have never been more important than in 2019. 

In this case, here are the possible sanctions: 

  • Shut down of your internet connection for at least 6 months
  • Fines of up to several tens of thousands of euros 
  • Prison sentence 

The 3 sanctions listed above are obviously cumulative. 

If you want to download safely and bypass HADOPI in 2019, you will need to protect yourself, and for that, you will need to use a paid VPN. 

How to bypass HADOPI and avoid problems? Use a VPN when downloading torrents!

 

To protect yourself from HADOPI while in France and avoid receiving a warning email, you will need to choose a quality VPN. Keep in mind that not all VPNs are created equal, and you will need to check some points to be safe before making a purchase. 

Note right away that the 5 VPN providers to download torrents presented by French website opportunites digitales are all ideal for downloading torrents and will allow you to avoid HADOPI and bypass ISP’s monitoring. 

 

Here are the points you need to check when picking a VPN for torrenting:

 

– No log storage

Avoid a VPN provider who keeps the logs if your goal is to bypass HADOPI in 2019. 

Indeed, if it keeps the logs, it means that it records your online activities. 

– It must have the Kill Switch

Another essential point when you are looking for a VPN to download and bypass HADOPI safely is that it must have the Kill Switch feature. 

If not, move on right away. Indeed, without a Kill Switch, you could potentially be exposed if your VPN protection ever abandons you for a few seconds. 

– It must accept P2P downloads

To bypass HADOPI with a VPN, the latter must allow the download of P2P torrents. 

That is not the case for all suppliers in the market, and that is why it is crucial to check it. 

– It must protect against DNS leaks

Finally, the last essential point to offer you the best level of security to download without risk and bypass HADOPI is the protection against DNS leaks. 

A DNS leak is could trap you if you choose a poor quality VPN provider to bypass HADOPI. 

 

We hope that this guide made for readers traveling France will help you stay safe while visiting the beautiful country of “Fromage” and Wine!