French Torrent Site Launches VPN to Mask Filesharer’s Identity

France has been at the forefront of the ‘war on piracy’ since they introduced the Hadopi anti-piracy law, earlier this year.

Under the new legislation, file-sharers will have their IP address recorded and monitored, and account holders will receive warnings from their ISP. After three warnings, infringers risk a fine and having their internet connection terminated.

However, in a counter-move, France’s largest torrent site, Smartorrent has launched a VPN (virtual private network) service, which offers file-sharer’s anonymity.

TorrentFreak reports that 2,500 users of the site have already signed up for an account, which costs €5 (£4.37) a month.

Smartorrent co-founder Clever told TorrentFreak, “Since the adoption of this new Hadopi law we thought about starting a VPN service. We wanted to give our beloved users the ability to keep downloading safely by using our VPN servers that are located in Canada.”

Despite the tough new measures, the French don’t seem to be holding back on their downloading habits. Hadopi currently sends out 25,000 warning letters a day.