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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
The ToS is a form of contract, and no contract between two parties can modify the rights of third parties. The contract only indemnifies the ISP if the customer violates a law/commits a tort. The ToS may place some blame on the customer who manages the router, but only for being an irresponsible network admin.
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.
I tell ya, if the RIAA comes after me, I might have to close down my Wifi. I dont legally have to monitor my neighborhood Wifi, so I dont. Logs are for a police state.
If my ISP lets me have open Wifi, so I do.
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...
If you make a back-up copy of a CD, and someone steals it, is that copyright infringement? No.
If you make a copy of a CD and deliberately pass it on to a random stranger, is that copyright infringment? Probably.
If you make copies of a CD, and pass them on to anonymous members of a group you know will make probably hundreds more copies, is that copyright infringement? Probably.
Now, if you unintentionally leave open an SMB share, does anyone have a right to access it? Not really. Slashdot's army of Internet libertarians will probably disagree, but an SMB share is not, by itself, an invitation, any more than an unlocked door is an invitation - the intent behind leaving the port open is ultimately what would determine whether the share was public, or private with poor security.
The case you describe is close to the "You make a back-up copy of a CD and someone steals it" rather than "You make a copy of a CD and deliberately pass it on to a random stranger." The latter would describe IRC sharing relatively well, and the last of those real world examples describes Kazaa and their ilk.
Incidentally, may I pre-emptively call the AC who replies to this complaining that filesharing isn't stealing a dumbass? Go back and read the argument, your comment is irrelevent.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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?
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.
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.