Slashdot Mirror
Judge Rules IP Addresses Not "Personally Identifiable"
yuna49 writes "Online Media Daily reports that a federal judge in Seattle has held that IP addresses are not personal information. 'In order for "personally identifiable information" to be personally identifiable, it must identify a person. But an IP address identifies a computer,' US District Court Judge Richard Jones said in a written decision. Jones issued the ruling in the context of a class-action lawsuit brought by consumers against Microsoft stemming from an update that automatically installed new anti-piracy software. In that case, which dates back to 2006, consumers alleged that Microsoft violated its user agreement by collecting IP addresses in the course of the updates. This ruling flatly contradicts a recent EU decision to the contrary, as well as other cases in the US. Its potential relevance to the RIAA suits should be obvious to anyone who reads Slashdot."
Could this decision be referenced to disqualify the IP as evidence when the MAFIAA goes after someone based on IP addresses they got from WhateverMediaSentryIsCalledNow?
It is true that an ip address identifies a computer or possibly, as another poster pointed out, a router behind which could be many computers, but that fact is largely irrelevant to file sharing litigation. The plaintiffs in those cases do not have to have ironclad evidence that it was the defendant sitting at the computer sharing the files. Instead, the plaintiffs merely have to show that it is more likely than not (aka preponderance of the evidence, 50% + 1) that it was the defendant.
Thus, if the defendant lives at home and only rarely has guests that use his or her computer, it's very likely that a jury will accept that it is more likely than not that the defendant was the one who shared the files, not a guest or an unauthorized user of the wireless network, especially if the files are found on the defendant's hard drive. More complex situations come closer to the line, of course, but in most cases it's fairly clear who the most likely culprit was.
But, even if the defendants live in an apartment with a communal computer or network shared equally by multiple long-term residents, all of whom use the same file-sharing user account, it is not necessarily up to the plaintiff to prove which specific defendant shared the files. A long standing rule in tort law from the case Summers v. Tice, 33 Cal.2d 80 (1948) establishes that where the plaintiff can prove that multiple defendants were negligent, the burden shifts to the defendants to prove which one actually committed the injury. It is quite possible that the file sharing case plaintiffs will be able to successfully argue that it is up to the various users of a computer to prove who actually shared the files or else they will all be jointly liable. This is especially likely if it can be shown that all of the defendants were aware of the file sharing program and the infringing nature of the files.