Bittorrent Judge Rules: You Are Not Your IP Address

[spartan231490]

Hm. That's definitely interesting.

I can see where the judge is coming from, and he definitely has a point there. I'm just a bit concerned that this will make pirates feel safer. But it's not worth suing regular people just to catch criminals, and I'm not sure if there's a better solution.

He kinda has a point, but at the same time, I would say that you are responsible for your ISP. If you choose not to secure your wireless, then you should have to live with the consequences. This is just another way to take away responsibility from individuals.

 

[westx207]

Hm. That's definitely interesting.

I can see where the judge is coming from, and he definitely has a point there. I'm just a bit concerned that this will make pirates feel safer. But it's not worth suing regular people just to catch criminals, and I'm not sure if there's a better solution.

He kinda has a point, but at the same time, I would say that you are responsible for your ISP. If you choose not to secure your wireless, then you should have to live with the consequences. This is just another way to take away responsibility from individuals.

If someone hot-wires your car and goes all vehicular homicide on everybody, should you be held accountable for that?

 

[skorpion352]

A judge with common sense? UNPOSSIBLE.

I may not agree with rampant piracy, but allowing copyright holders to throw lawsuits at IP addresses instead of people is a bad idea. Yes, it's the easiest way to get the massive settlements they're looking for (it's all for profit - if they wanted to stop piracy, they'd go after distributors more aggressively instead of just whoever they can get their hands on), but a person can't always be held responsible for what gets piped through their intertubes. With almost absolutely everything WiFi-capable these days, one tech-unsavvy person could find themselves in a world of trouble for things they didn't even do. THIS IS NOT OKAY. Glad the judge agrees.

exactly. if they really wanted to stop piracy, they would go after the distributors and those providing the distributors with copyrighted material

 

[Ashendarei]

two thumbs up for this judge's decision!

 

[BlackWidower]

While this decision does indeed set precedence for anti-Bittorrent cases to come, the fact that the case in question dealt with adult material may mean that other judges may be less inclined to hold it up as gospel truth.

They kind of have to unless a higher court says otherwise.

But that kind of bugs me. They're going to be of the opinion that it should be more difficult to prosecute those who illegally download porn instead of...anything else? That is certainly odd.

 

[Baldr]

I think this may be a bad thing, it would put more pressure on ISP to keep track of unique computers connected to the IP so they can specifically identify which computer did what on the internet.

Either that or ISP are going to start dropping innocent customers because they don't want to be held reliable either.

 

[spartan231490]

Hm. That's definitely interesting.

I can see where the judge is coming from, and he definitely has a point there. I'm just a bit concerned that this will make pirates feel safer. But it's not worth suing regular people just to catch criminals, and I'm not sure if there's a better solution.

He kinda has a point, but at the same time, I would say that you are responsible for your ISP. If you choose not to secure your wireless, then you should have to live with the consequences. This is just another way to take away responsibility from individuals.

If someone hot-wires your car and goes all vehicular homicide on everybody, should you be held accountable for that?

Not if they hot-wire it, but we aren't talking about hacking your router here, he cited an unsecured router as part of his main point. That would be more like leaving the keys in it and having someone go all vehicular homicide on everyone. and if that happened, yes I believe the car owner should be held responsible, at least partially. And I didn't mean that the ISP owners should take full blame for the crime, more that they should have their hard-drives searched and if pirated content is found, prosecuted/sued.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Great job!

It's nice to see a smart judge once in a while.

Because if they want to stop piracy, it would literally require the complete shutdown of the World Wide Web.

As long as the net exists, people will use it to download things. Plain and simple.

 

[icame]

This is good and bad. Good because of exactly what is explained in the article, and bad because it will probably let many, many people get away with theft. Even more then already do.

 

[BabyRaptor]

Did this strike anyone else as a "Well, duh?" decision?

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Hm. That's definitely interesting.

I can see where the judge is coming from, and he definitely has a point there. I'm just a bit concerned that this will make pirates feel safer. But it's not worth suing regular people just to catch criminals, and I'm not sure if there's a better solution.

He kinda has a point, but at the same time, I would say that you are responsible for your ISP. If you choose not to secure your wireless, then you should have to live with the consequences. This is just another way to take away responsibility from individuals.

This is one of the worst arguments I have ever read. How or why should someone be liable for a crime committed that they had no knowledge of and, in many cases, no baseline of knowledge necessary to prevent a misuse of their property? More importantly, a huge number of supposedly secured wireless connections are, in fact, easily exploited so even if someone were to take the approach of securing their device it might be tantamount to closing the front door but leaving the window open and they would never know.

In cases like this the guilt should not rest with people who unknowingly facilitated criminal activity but rather with those who actually committed the crime. This principle has been held in court time and again. When a murder is committed using a Springfield firearm the culpable party is the person who pulled the trigger. Not the company that manufactured the weapon, not the company that manufactured the bullets, not the man that sold the bullets or the store that sold the weapon (assuming the store followed proper protocol).

 

[Kurokami]

this is going to be interesting. with the new copyright law that was passed here in new zealand last month, this case coudl potentially make that law useless, as under the new law content owners (read: multination corps ownign rights to music/movies) only need an ip address and after 3 warnings your internet connection can be cut. and if an ip address on its own isnt evidence of infringement, then that law is useless

It's also up to the providers discretion, isn't it? Which has them with a conflict of interest since their customers, at least for the more expensive plans, are pirates, and cutting them off or even discouraging them lowers their own profits.

Granted I'm not too familiar with the law, I don't really see it affecting me or even working out.

 

[spartan231490]

Hm. That's definitely interesting.

I can see where the judge is coming from, and he definitely has a point there. I'm just a bit concerned that this will make pirates feel safer. But it's not worth suing regular people just to catch criminals, and I'm not sure if there's a better solution.

He kinda has a point, but at the same time, I would say that you are responsible for your ISP. If you choose not to secure your wireless, then you should have to live with the consequences. This is just another way to take away responsibility from individuals.

This is one of the worst arguments I have ever read. How or why should someone be liable for a crime committed that they had no knowledge of and, in many cases, no baseline of knowledge necessary to prevent a misuse of their property? More importantly, a huge number of supposedly secured wireless connections are, in fact, easily exploited so even if someone were to take the approach of securing their device it might be tantamount to closing the front door but leaving the window open and they would never know.

In cases like this the guilt should not rest with people who unknowingly facilitated criminal activity but rather with those who actually committed the crime. This principle has been held in court time and again. When a murder is committed using a Springfield firearm the culpable party is the person who pulled the trigger. Not the company that manufactured the weapon, not the company that manufactured the bullets, not the man that sold the bullets or the store that sold the weapon (assuming the store followed proper protocol).

Hm. That's definitely interesting.

I can see where the judge is coming from, and he definitely has a point there. I'm just a bit concerned that this will make pirates feel safer. But it's not worth suing regular people just to catch criminals, and I'm not sure if there's a better solution.

He kinda has a point, but at the same time, I would say that you are responsible for your ISP. If you choose not to secure your wireless, then you should have to live with the consequences. This is just another way to take away responsibility from individuals.

If someone hot-wires your car and goes all vehicular homicide on everybody, should you be held accountable for that?

Not if they hot-wire it, but we aren't talking about hacking your router here, he cited an unsecured router as part of his main point. That would be more like leaving the keys in it and having someone go all vehicular homicide on everyone. and if that happened, yes I believe the car owner should be held responsible, at least partially. And I didn't mean that the ISP owners should take full blame for the crime, more that they should have their hard-drives searched and if pirated content is found, prosecuted/sued.

Glad the court system doesn't see it this way with automobiles, but in favor of its application to loaded guns.

to clarify, again, I don't think the ISP owner should be responsible for all the activity on their ISP, but they should at least be held partially responsible. What would you say if a parent left a loaded gun within reach of a child and there was an accident? Let's go less extreme, they leave a knife in the kids reach, or a pot handle hanging over the stove so the kid can pull it down on themselves? There has to be some amount of accountability for allowing your possessions to be used in an illegal activity.Note: allowing them to be used. I'm not saying if your router gets hacked, but if you take no precautions at all to prevent others from using your internet, then why shouldn't you be held accountable for that act. The act of not taking steps to prevent illegal or irresponsible behavior using your property. Not having accountability for these crimes of negligence, or pretty much anything else, while we're at it, is one of the greatest problems with society today.

 

[Popido]

Victory for a better, less aggressive, DRM system.

 

[spartan231490]

snip

You're really going to use an act of violence in this comparison? And telling people to be the watchful parent to anyone who uses their items is quite hilarious since it ends up with "blame the victim."

That's not blaming a victim. I'm not saying the owner should be liable for the piracy that takes place on their ISP. I'm saying they should be responsible for not securing their router, just a small fine. $50 would be more than enough. They made a choice. They decided not to secure the router. If that decision leads, in part, to illegal activity, why shouldn't they be held responsible? Not for the illegal activity in general, but simply for their conscious act not to make any effort to prevent it. A world where people are no longer held accountable for the decisions they make is not a world I want to live in.

 

[spartan231490]

snip

You're really going to use an act of violence in this comparison? And telling people to be the watchful parent to anyone who uses their items is quite hilarious since it ends up with "blame the victim."

That's not blaming a victim. I'm not saying the owner should be liable for the piracy that takes place on their ISP. I'm saying they should be responsible for not securing their router, just a small fine. $50 would be more than enough. They made a choice. They decided not to secure the router. If that decision leads, in part, to illegal activity, why shouldn't they be held responsible? Not for the illegal activity in general, but simply for their conscious act not to make any effort to prevent it. A world where people are no longer held accountable for the decisions they make is not a world I want to live in.

You are punishing the victim. You are saying "hold the person accountable for not securing their router" because someone random person committed a crime. Why not sue universities whose students were file sharing music. Sure, the students were expelled or disciplined, but what does that matter when the university let those criminals online?

I'm not punishing the victim because, and I really can't stress this enough: I'm not punishing them for what someone else did to them! I'm punishing them for their own conscious decision. You may want to live in a world where it is perfectly acceptable for a human being to act like a brain-dead puppet, but I like living in a world where people use god's greatest gift, their own mind. "Your life is yours alone. Rise up and live it." That means you have to accept responsibility for the results of your actions, not just do wtf-ever you want with 0 accountability. I've wasted enough of my life saying the same thing over and over again to wall, so don't expect me to answer another troll's post of: "But you're punishing the victim."

 

[Baresark]

I agree with this court ruling. Would we rather have 100 fair-free people and 400 hoodlums pirating stuff out of jail...or would we want 500 people in jail no matter what they did or did not do?

John Locke said a similar thing. It's better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man goes to jail.

It's a pity false conviction statistics suggest about 5-10% of all people in prison are innocent of any crime...

Haha, I can't help but question that statistic. I mean, they would have to know for sure that innocent people are in jail. And if they know they are innocent, they shouldn't be there.

America has the largest prison population in the world. That same percentage means there are between 360k and 720k people in jail here, that are innocent.