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Can RIAA Lawsuits be Blocked by Routers?
Chris Frank asks: "With the RIAA stepping up its pressure on internet sharers, what is the legal status of people behind apartment routers? With no logging of who is moving what who can the RIAA prosecute when it tracks a shared file back to that specific shared internet account? I would imagine that many Slashdot readers are behind routers that hold all of their internal IPs private to the outside world. Is the bill payer responsible for all of the users of that router? How can a person be held accountable for the actions of others, especially when there is no proof of who did what?"
Read your AUP for your ISP. That should tell you.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Everytime you download an MP3 the RIAA kills a kitten.
Most ISPs Terms of Service agree that the payer is responsible for any data sent over the service. Many home ISPs also stipulate that the service is only for the use of the customer, and they cannot resell or give away the service.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
...I know who use DSL routers/firewalls only share it with their family/roommate.
:)
If I were running a neighborhood wireless LAN, I would make sure that everyone knew the risks of file sharing. Then again, it would be much easier to just make one of your neighbors sign up for the service and pay them IN CASH.
More than enough BS
If you are being litigated, it may be time to see a lawyer instead of asking on Slashdot.
It may sound like a broken record, but WE ARE NOT LAWYERS, WE CANNOT HELP YOU WITH YOUR LEGAL PROBLEMS.
... and thus the "NAT defense" was invented.
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How can a person be held accountable for the actions of others, especially when there is no proof of who did what?
I'm not sure. Perhaps you should ask the people that crafted the RAVE Act.
.. is the RIAA would sue whoever pays the bills, and that person would look over the router logs and sue who got him sued.
Sorry, this won't work. The best way I can think of right now to twhart the RIAA is to force people to upload if they're downloading. That way, the RIAA has to provide its own content in order to find ppl doing it.
Well that's not the greatest way ever, but it would be damned amusing.
You won't get far with that defence. The judge will pick someone to sue, and it will be the guy who owns the line and who is responsible for what comes in and out.
The terms on the line probably don't allow other people using it, anyway.
So you're screwed, twice.
You're guilty! ;>
I know of one ISP whose primary business is providing service to apartment buildings. Individuals are kept track of by their MAC addresses. The approach wasn't implemented until it became necessary to do something to throttle the very few who were consuming 99% of the bandwidth with kazaa.
More than likely, as has been said many times before, is that the person who's name is on the account would be held accountable for the data downloaded...an even more interesting question is what if more than one person is on that account... My roommate and I both have our names on the ISP account (cable internet). They charge $5 for each additional IP address, but the AUP allows the use of a router running NAT, as long as you're only allowing access within your house/apt/etc... And yet still another complication in the matter is if you're a technologically inept user (but how many /.ers are) and you decide to run wireless in your house/apt instead of 10baseT...And since you're (theoretically) a technologically inept user, you leave the default SSID, and no WEP or anything...what if your neighbor starts using your connection over that wireless without your knowledge...hmmmmmmmm....something to ask one of my law professors about....
--- I'm just rambling...
I'm not sure if that will get you in hot water with the RIAA. Yes, you may be violating your user agreement with the ISP. Worst case, they drop you. But it still leaves open the question of who was doing the file trading. You may wind up without your broadband connection, but, without proof of who did the downloading, an RIAA suit wouldn't have much to go on.
In fact, it is possible that everyone behind the router could be file-sharing. As long as the cloud of doubt remains, though (and the router logs remain non-existant), the router owner shouldn't be on the hook for anything beyond violating the terms of service with their provider.
Of course, IANAL, so ignore all of that and buy all of your music for full price at Best Buy. Rat out your friends. Run Win XP. Choose a starter home. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage...
"How can a person be held accountable for the actions of others, especially when there is no proof of who did what?"
Use lawyers to financialy threaten and intimidate anyone suspected of being involved.
If you apply the right amount of pressure even innocent people will settle out of court rather then go through a lengthy and costly battle to proove their innocence.
DMCA Section 202.512.(a)
A variation of this concept could be used to create a largely anonymous, secure network.
A - B - C - D
Assume that you are host B, and you VPN to host C, who happens to be in France (with you in the Canada). Host D also VPNs to the guy in france, but he never tells you who that guy is (he is careful to not even give any hints of that).
You allow host A to VPN to you, and A is someone you thought you could trust, in the USA. But he is only an RIAA narc. He connects to your network, and discovers that host D runs a large mp3 ftp server. But the narc on host A only knows your own public IP (which might as well be your identity, it will lead to it easily enough). You however, are outside of the jurisdiction of the USA. The RIAA won't be able to sic criminal prosecution on you, and even if they tried, you have a good chance of beating extradition "Your Honor, I only participate in an experimental hobbyist network". Besides which, they don't want you, but rather your computer or ISP's logs. The RIAA is big enough to try to prosecute this in civil court... but how can they force you to reveal the identity of host D, when you don't know it yourself?
And, the network could be made even larger, so that they might have to hop from host to host, forcing the revelation of the next hop's identity. How much would that cost them, and could host D vanish before they got close? Imagine not a chain of hosts, but a square mesh. Now, instead of just the 2 routes, you have 4 or 6... they can't even tell which of your routes is C, which is G or Z. So, at that point, even your ISP's logs aren't enough, they have to confiscate your computer.
I think the scheme is rather strong, but I'd happily take suggestions. Anyone(not in the USA) want to help me build it?
If you're sharing amongst yourselves behind closed doors (or a router, in this case) then then how would the RIAA know? A university's campuswide intranet would be a great place to set up a massive file sharing network. Especially since a number of universities are protective of internal users/data. (beware of the loose-lipped campus, though!) With a little organization amongst students this could be quite successful.
/.</disclaimer>
The problem comes when these files are made available to people outside the intranet... which is probably the scenario that you are proposing in your question. Once the RIAA has targeted a specific user as being an "excessive" offender, problems arise. As mentioned above, *someone* will probably be served... and that *someone* could very possibly be you, even if it is by blame shifting.
<disclaimer>I'm not a lawyer, and if I were I probably wouldn't post on
The RIAA is starting to go after the people who have files available for "sharing". However, making a file available for "sharing" isn't really distributing it, is it? The person who downloaded it has made the copy, not the person who made it available.
If I had all my (legit) music files on an SMB share and somebody left the port on the firewall open so that SMB was enabled, have I committed a copyright infringement?
I've wondered the same thing but with wireless routers instead. With WEP as insecure as it is, even if I set the router up to be as secure as possible, who's to say someone in my apartment building hasn't cracked my WEP and is using my broadband connection to download mp3's?
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
>> How can a person be held accountable for the actions of others, especially when there is no proof of who did what?"
Wrong question. The courts would ask:
"Why should a person not be held responsible for knowingly operating a facility by which he knowingly allowed users to engage in illegal acts?"
If you had reason to believe your users were illegal copying files, and you took no action to stop them, then you, it seems to me, can be held accountable.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Could the person paying for the internet account and offering the routing capabilities not simply argue that he's as much a common carrier as the ISP's? In that case, he'd be asked to hand over the logs of who transferred what etc. Oh, logs you say? Never keep em, uses too much disk space.
IANAL however so I may be way off base here.
I am NaN
How about: Every time you masturbate, God kills a sheep. Please think of the sheep.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
under the RAVE act glowsticks are drug paraphanalia
So hayrides are now illegal? During the Halloween season, "haunted hayrides" are popular. Most of them sell glowsticks to little kids. I don't think all of these toddlers are on X.
But some very good ISP like Speakeasy.net encourage community networks and broadband sharing. Hence our outbound connection is shared through our neighborhood and building with wifi. We have experienced no bothersome abuse, but could the RIAA sue or hold us reponsible if it can not be known for sure who behind our firewall was sharing or downloading music?
I am a monkey. This is slashdot.
Perhaps this will result in a router tax, similar to the CD-R tax... because, everyone knows, CD-Rs are only used to burn illegally copied music.
Of course they can sue you, it was your internet connection that was used. You take responsibility for what happens with your internet connection when you decide to allow the world at-large to use it. The burden of proof would be on you to show that you personally weren't responsible for it.
Likewise, when someone decides to spam over your open wireless network, Speakeasy will quite likely cancel your service for allowing it to happen, whether you personally were the one spamming or not.
I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
Showing that a particular computer downloaded or shared copyrighted material is easy but proving who used that computer to do so is another thing entirely, especially in light of the fact that insecure computers can be taken over by others.
Also, many home computers on the Internet have a single account and are shared by multiple people. Say three people all use the same PC and when sued, all three say they didn't know about the problem. What then?
Ignorance is usually not a defense to illegal activity. Go ask your lawyer what he thinks of hiding behind a router to avoid legal action from the RIAA and he'll probably laugh. I wouldn't even bother asking him what he thinks about getting legal advice on Slashdot.
If I leave a relay that I am responsible for open, but don't actually do the spamming, why should I be held responsible? I didn't spam anyone, why are you blocking me?
Oh, collateral damage is acceptable and good?
If I leave a network that I am responsible for open for content sharing, but don't actually share anything personally, why should I be held responsible? I didn't share anything, why are you suing me?
Oh, collateral damage is acceptable and good?
Damn, some people want it both ways. Seems to me, if you back SPEWS you should back the RIAA in this case. Conversely, if you don't believe in this kind of accountability, you shouldn't be backing SPEWS. Same damn thing, except the RIAA might actually let you negotiate.
Thank God somebody has some sense here.
Don't you think that 'rational' should be a mod comment?
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. (Wilde)
I have no idea who accidentally put up a WiFi in our neighborhood, but whoever did it left his router's wireless network named as "default."
Thus frequently when I turn on my powerbook's airport, my notebook automatically connects to this mysterious neighborhood WiFi. I have to look and make a few extra mouse clicks if I want to reconnect to my own network, (which is NOT also called "default.") This accidental neighborhood WiFi is not always active, so I don't always remember to check for an accidental connection to it.
Sometimes after hours of surfing, I have discovered that perhaps the entire session had been via this neighborhood WiFi. It seems that I have even specifically connected to my own network (which is a somewhat flaky Airport base station) only to later discover that I've been automatically reconnected to this "default" network when perhaps my own network either went off the air, or was out of range briefly.
Thus I can't see how liability for IP traffic can possibly be determined in real world situations like this. I can't fully control whose IP I use, and some neighbor of mine obviously can't control who uses theirs.
I would imagine the same rules taht apply to ISP's would apply to the router owner. That is, ISP's can be held blameless for the actions of their users IF they keep proper logs and audits. If you don't know who is doing what behind your router, you can PROBABLY be held responsible for it.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Peter: Why did all the dinosaurs die?
Museum Guide: Because you touch yourself at night.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Playstation sucks
Should a WAN provider be served by the RIAA for the actions of it's users, the blame would fall to them. The RIAA in this cased would have several options: 1 They could leave it an internal matter for the provider to disclose the perpitrator. 2 They could seive all computers on the network. 3 They could revoke the providers ability to provide network access. As far as the idea that someone used my machine, but you can't prove I did it. The mentality would be: the machine belongs to you, you have access, it is in your sole posession. You're to blame! This isn't about piracy or money lost. It's about the music industry not getting in on the action. Had they come out and charged a buck a song, would this happen? Doubt it. Had they thought of P2P, would we be here now? Doubt it. This seems to reak of the Salem witch hunts. "We are losing money, quik sue a 12 year old file sharer." "Examples, aren't we all?"
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