Judge: An IP Address Is NOT A Person

[aaron88_7]

[citation][nom]zachary k[/nom]That's not right, an IP address represents you like a name. Lets hope a higher court corrects this.[/citation]
Riiiiiiight, because it is impossible to steal someone else's internet and use their IP address.......

 

[aaron88_7]

[citation][nom]bardia[/nom]why can't Tom's deal with this spam? It's ridiculous.[/citation]
And they are probably sending that spam with someone else's IP address lol

 

[mstang1988]

[citation][nom]slothy89[/nom]This is not true, as was stated in the article:[citation[nom]Article[/nom]"The infringer might be the subscriber, someone in the subscriber’s household, a visitor with her laptop, a neighbor, or someone parked on the street at any given moment,” Judge Baker wrote in his ruling last Friday.[/citation]Add in the fact that many ISP's give standard residential customers Dynamic IPs, meaning that today you might have 123.45.67.89, but tomorrow you'll have 200.30.40.50, and someone else totally unrelated now has 123.45.67.89.I think this ruling is fair. In order to pin someone as the culprit you need more than just an IP. MAC address would be a good start, as that should be unique.[/citation]

MAC should be unique per NIC in theory but this is only visible to the next hop. In NAT that means anything behind the router is will only be visible to the router. This means we have no more but actually less information then an IP because all history MAC address history is lost. Again, a MAC != person. Multiple people using one computer, a hacked computer, etc are all examples against this.

 

[gigabyter64]

Just a thought, what about IPv6 comin very soon, doesn't that give every network device it's own IP address even in your own network eventually, so it will tell exactly which device download the file?

 

[rantoc]

I'm happy the case got a judge who understand the technology involved and how it works and came up to the right conclusion. Pirates sure is a thorn in the side of the gaming/movie/music industry and needs to be checked.

But not with methods that looks like the 1400 "witch hunts" where woman who were suspected of witchcraft were dumped in lakes. If they were floating their were guilty of witch crafting and if they drowned they were innocent - What a nice "trial". May be that is what Mpaa/Riaa wants to get back to... making the inquisition days look like "the good ol'days".

Innocent until proven otherwise - Not the other way around!

 

[eddieroolz]

About time this landmark ruling has happened. Yes, this ruling is nothing short of a major landmark. If this had came 5-6 years earlier, we could have stopped the RIAA/MPAA from ruining thousands of lives with mere allegations.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]zachary k[/nom]That's not right, an IP address represents you like a name. Lets hope a higher court corrects this.[/citation]
Did you even read the article?
Does your house personally represent you even if 5 people live there?
How about if the IP address points to an office where there are 1000 people working?

Grow up.

 

[kartu]

Great.
But too bad MAFIAA won't let it stay like that, appeals coming soon.

 

[pixellator]

[citation][nom]zachary k[/nom]That's not right, an IP address represents you like a name. Lets hope a higher court corrects this.[/citation]
Let's hope that you shut up

 

[potatolord]

This just goes to show that anyone convicted of proxying and leeching without the network owner's consent should get lots and lots of jail time. Potentially their getting the victim into further diffculty.

Lock up the leechers.

 

[hoofhearted]

[citation][nom]zachary k[/nom]That's not right, an IP address represents you like a name. Lets hope a higher court corrects this.[/citation]

To all who responded to this. Please don't feed the trolls.

 

[macewrox]

Brb downloading the internet.

 

[brianfulcher15]

torrent users dont always use it to download illegal files... and alot of companies dont really care if they do... eg. you download pirated windows for home... microsoft doesent care becuase you are going to likely buy games for windows games which they make more money off of than selling you an OS.

I guess with PRON its a bigger deal though.


and also... at this time siting at home... i can access almost 12 differnt wireless networks which are unsecured....

 

[happyballz]

Epic judge right there. Finally some one has a brain and some common sence.

101% I agree that IP address ≠ a person. And anyone who messed with uncapping modems and spoofing MAC's and their IP's or anyone moderately technologically inclined will know this.

 

[COLGeek]

Common sense prevails! News at 11!!

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]mister g[/nom]I suddenly had hope for the US Justice System! This has got to be one of the smarter rulings in recent years, Cheers![/citation]
Don't worry the supreme court will surely overturn it and restore the status quo of SNAFU justice.

 

[fuzzyplankton]

You cant sue a registered owner of a a car just because you only seen the license plate on the car and the not the driver. Any one could have been the driver and been responsible for the act not the owner. Now the police can investigate to find who was driving but the judge said it not his problem or his domain to find out.

 

[fuzzyplankton]

And for the rest of the people that take the stance that you should be legally reasonable (aka music and Film company's) for you own ip address and its security for it like encrypting it or the people who use it. Are you responsible if you car is driven by a friend or family (or stolen) and the driver kills some one. Do you go to jail for murder?

 

[gokanis]

[citation][nom]aaron88_7[/nom]Riiiiiiight, because it is impossible to steal someone else's internet and use their IP address.......[/citation]


And add to that, I though it was also possible to spoof MAC addresses.

 

[scuba dave]

[citation][nom]zachary k[/nom]That's not right, an IP address represents you like a name. Lets hope a higher court corrects this.[/citation]

Bad troll, bad! No biscuit!

[citation][nom]bardia[/nom][citation][nom]NuclearShadow[/nom]Blah blah, over the top blah.[/citation]

Um, of course the courts are biased against the common man. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise. The courts, yes, have to act impartial, and uphold the law as it is written/intended(or at least, as far as they can perceive it..) However, when the laws are written in such a way that it screws the common man, or when a company with vast amounts of resources can levee those resources to twist the law to their own agenda..(ie like GE paying NO taxes.. Loop holes and abuse of the law exists, and companies have more power to abuse it.. Most often at the common mans expense.) ..it creates bias. And when the judge is is standing upon a tilted foundation.. The judge is gonna roll down hill. And that's where the rest of us are.

So yeah.. Your opinion, has likely convinced no one. May I suggest you go live a low end blue collar life, and then go back to law school and tell me the same thing. I'm willing to wager you wouldn't be able to. So move along. Oh, quick question.. You wouldn't happen to work for the RIAA would you? Or in some way benefit from them financially? Because that would totally explain your questionable opinion.

[citation][nom]NuclearShadow[/nom]Sadly.. ..soap-box.[/citation]

Correct. +1