700 ''Hurt Locker'' IP-addresses Goes to Court

[Djhg2000]

I hate it when they refer to IP addresses as evidence, it doesn't prove anything!

It's like saying "The guy who did it had place 3765 in the queue to the counters sometime during the 10th of June". You can't possibly say you can track down a specific person with that information, even if it was true.

Queues are moving, much like IP addresses.
You can also give up your place and start over, just like in a queue.
There is one major difference though; IP addresses are not assigned in a sequence.

They should need the end MAC address (which is close to impossible to get) and a way to prove it wasn't spoofed.

 

[V8VENOM]

[citation][nom]carlosspicywiener[/nom]I will pay the fine if I get it when they can prove I was the one sitting at the computer downloading their property. I got roommates. An IP address will only tell them what house downloaded it. Do they have a list of mac addresses to go along with it, so they can at least say what device it came from? And to anyone who says "its your computer you should be responsible for it", I say this: If I loan my car to someone and they wreck it, should they say I'm responsible for that persons error? I don't want to hear about "oh it could have been mechanical failure" or something like that. I work on cars for a living. Try telling me my car has a mechanical issue with it. Why would anybody take this series of lawsuits serious? If i get one of these, I will wipe my ass with it and post the video on youtube.[/citation]

Errr, yes! Wow, this current crop of younger generation seems to think they aren't responsible for anything ... life will hit you hard if you keep thinking like that. Seeing as you have roommates, I'm going to assume you can't afford to live on your own. There is this life lesson called, "if you can't afford it, you can't have it" ... yes I know it's harsh, but hey, I can't afford a Bugatti Veyron, so I don't have one -- life is so cruel.

 

[joebob2000]

[citation][nom]djhg2000[/nom]I hate it when they refer to IP addresses as evidence, it doesn't prove anything!It's like saying "The guy who did it had place 3765 in the queue to the counters sometime during the 10th of June". You can't possibly say you can track down a specific person with that information, even if it was true.Queues are moving, much like IP addresses.You can also give up your place and start over, just like in a queue.There is one major difference though; IP addresses are not assigned in a sequence.They should need the end MAC address (which is close to impossible to get) and a way to prove it wasn't spoofed.[/citation]

It's only a matter of time before someone deploys (or hires) a botnet to do nothing but subscribe to random trackers for popular movies. All of a sudden the number of 'infringers' will be in the hundreds of thousands. Or, maybe a studio will decide that their movie didn't gross enough and hire a botnet to subscribe 5,000 people to their suckfest movie and then have their completely objective "p2p analysis" contractor find all those infringers and hand them over to the lawyers to be summarily ball-busted in an unconstitutional but apparently acceptable way. Presto! You have a way to recover another 5 to 10 million in revenue! As scary as this hypothesis is; it's perfectly plausible (and impossible to prove that it's not already happening). The only thing we can rely on is the justice system to actually require (gasp!) proof of infringement before allowing any sort of prosecution or even settlement bullying.

But no, "if you don't download you have nothing to worry about"!

 

[antilycus]

maybe when the industry stop raping consumers with 12 dollar movie tickets and new technology (blu-ray) every few years alogn with new TV technology, DVI, HDMI, HDMI ver 2,3,etc, HDCP, PLASMA, LCD, LED, OLED, DLP, ,etc every year piracy might slow down. Until that, the industry can suck its own making...

 

[antilycus]

btw, when you get an IP address from your ISP, you MAC ADDRESS is sent to the ISP. In fact, every packet of information is sent via Mac Address. if you use a packet sniffer, you can see every mac address of every server you connect to. Spoofing your Mac ADDRESS is the best thing to do, just make sure to throw the NIC card away cause if its in your residence when they get a subpena, which they will, you will be screwed.

 

[antilycus]

and for those of you who don't have experience with the U.S. Legal/ Justice system, its about as trust worthy as the police department. Regardless if you have roomates, YOU Can still get the fine as your are the owner of the computer and it is YOUR responsibility, as the owner, to make sure it isn't being used for anything illegal. Its the risk you take in leaving it open for anyone in the house to use. While it may sound stupid, it is ExACTLY how the legal system works. As for the axe in your front yard example, yes if you left an axe in your front yard and a neighbor grabbed to kill his/her wife/husand you are partly responsible for the actions. For an example, (i forget the court name) look at the burgler that fell through a skylight onto a knife. The burglar sued the owner of the house under the premises that it wasn't a safe environment and he won the lawsuit and her insurance had to pay the burglar because the knife shouldn't have been where it was in the position that it was.

So as I started, the legal system on PAPER is great. The legal system in real life is just out to screw over U.S. Citizens. If you've ever tried to defend yourself against a speeding ticket, you'd see that just about every police officer lies on the stand because they know the judge will take the officers word over the defendants. It's happened to me 3 times. Every time the cop has lied and every time the judged used "why would the cop lie on the stand and possible loose his/her job" defense. GUILTY.

 

[joebob2000]

[citation][nom]Antilycus[/nom]btw, when you get an IP address from your ISP, you MAC ADDRESS is sent to the ISP. In fact, every packet of information is sent via Mac Address. if you use a packet sniffer, you can see every mac address of every server you connect to. Spoofing your Mac ADDRESS is the best thing to do, just make sure to throw the NIC card away cause if its in your residence when they get a subpena, which they will, you will be screwed.[/citation]

OK that's about enough of that. This is pretty much devoid of factual information. You can only "see" the MAC address of a station on your side of the router. If you use a home router to connect to the internet, the MAC of the router is given to the ISP and they record it, along with your address, but MAC addresses on your side of that router is completely hidden to them. Subsequently, when you do a packet capture and look at the MAC addresses, for any IP address not on your side of the router you will see the MAC address of that router show up; not the actual MAC address of the station. Lastly, you can not spoof a MAC address, only clone/randomize it, since it's absolutely essential to your connectivity. Not that any of this is germane to this conversation, but it may be useful for you to have your facts straight.

 

[potatolord]

[citation][nom]hanrak[/nom]Mate it wont be exciting at all, if you actually READ what people like joebob and myself are saying. You deny it end of story. The evidence of an IP address alone is not good enough and take it from me, iv been through this process so have a very good insight into it. For example i live in a house with 4 family members and we share on PC. You tell me how in a court of law you can prove which one of us downloaded illegal files? And thats without even going into weather or not my Wi-Fi is secure,somebody hijacked my IP address,or the company that tracked my IP has its software audited and is proven to be fail safe. You cant do it, end of story.[/citation]

But wasn't your case based in the UK and this one is based in the US? Does the US have the same case law and legislation as the UK?

It seems like the media industry is starting to take a harder line. They'll either succeed or fail. Whatever happens is going to be interesting.

On this subject, the new (and very horrible) Digital Economy Act comes into force tomorrow- that's going to make some big changes to the way internet piracy is viewed and policed in the UK.

Tom's UK should probably have a news article on that.

 

[Guest]

"Simple defense - have an "expert" survey your house and note you have an unsecured wifi. The expert then works out how many of your neighbors can receive the signal. The prosecution can no longer prove beyond reasonable doubt who downloaded the torrent. End of case. No need to hire lawyers. You are untouchable for any prosecution until the day they make a law requiring you to secure your wifi!"

WPA, WEP, and WPA2 can all be cracked. Securing your WIFI will not stop me from gaining access to your wireless network. Don't get me wrong, I don't do this even though I can... Well, one time I did b/c a neighbors SSID was very crude, and there are children in the neighborhood... So, I changed it and locked him out of his router, and removed the gateway...

 

[potatolord]

[citation][nom]tkrl2[/nom]"Simple defense - have an "expert" survey your house and note you have an unsecured wifi. The expert then works out how many of your neighbors can receive the signal. The prosecution can no longer prove beyond reasonable doubt who downloaded the torrent. End of case. No need to hire lawyers. You are untouchable for any prosecution until the day they make a law requiring you to secure your wifi!"WPA, WEP, and WPA2 can all be cracked. Securing your WIFI will not stop me from gaining access to your wireless network. Don't get me wrong, I don't do this even though I can... Well, one time I did b/c a neighbors SSID was very crude, and there are children in the neighborhood... So, I changed it and locked him out of his router, and removed the gateway...[/citation]

Hmm.

I'm not trying to troll here, but you all really need to read the new Digital Economy Act (for the UK). Here's a link:
http/www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2010/ukpga_20100024_en_1#pb2-l1g3

This is from section 3:
"(1) This section applies if it appears to a copyright owner that—

(a) a subscriber to an internet access service has infringed the owner’s copyright by means of the service; or

(b) a subscriber to an internet access service has allowed another person to use the service, and that other person has infringed the owner’s copyright by means of the service. "

I guess it'll depend on what the courts view as "allowed". If they go down the route that it is a subscribers duty to secure their connection that defense will go right out of the window. Section 13 deals with appeals and is also worth a look- it seems to impose a duty to secure your connection, unless I'm misreading it.

It will be interesting to see how the courts view liability in this.

And before you kick off on me, you should note that this is on the statute book in the UK now.

 

[Guest]

this is all bullshit