Court Allows Unmasking of P2P Downloaders

bricko writes "A federal appeals court says copyright-infringing downloaders can now be outed. If you use or have used P2P, this may interest you. From Wired: 'The RIAA detected what it claimed to be infringing activity on an IP address the university linked to the student. The unidentified student moved to quash a federal judge’s order that the university forward the student’s identity to the RIAA. The student asserted a First Amendment right of privacy on the Internet, in addition to a fair-use right to the six music tracks in question. The appeals court ruled in the RIAA’s favor (PDF) after balancing a constitutional right to remain anonymous against a copyright owner’s right to disclosure of the identity of a possible “trespasser of its intellectual property interest."'"

Comments

Yes, well ...

[ScrewMaster]

That judge better keep track of what his (or her, I didn't RTFA yet) kids are doing online. This is the kind of ruling that can come back to haunt them. Of course, once the RIAA discovers that it has nailed a Federal judge's kid, they'd drop the case like a hot potato.

Ooooh 'trespassing intellectual property'

[unity100]

now thats a first.

i wonder how low u.s. judicial system will sink under the weight of the money of riaa.

Re:How can he claim a right to privacy?

[The Hatchet]

He does commit great fallacies, but an improper argument does not imply its results are wrong.

The fact is that our online interactions can be as private as husband/wife interactions, doctor/patient interactions, or lawyer/client interactions (which are all protected heavily by law). And if you are snooping a connection, you get it all, and violate that privacy regardless of how little you are searching for. We have the right to peaceful assembly, and last time I checked that didn't come with a clause saying "monitored by the government" after it.

And we do live in a damn police state (USA) whether you want to believe it or not. Children can be sent to prison at the whim of the school principle. Curfews. Drug war. Internet monitoring. Reduction of probable cause to reasonable suspicion to 'he looked funny'. Hell, in middle school I was bullied, and because of 0 tolerance policy they told me for being bullied 5 times I was involved in 5 events and could either go to juvenile detention or anger management. Virtually everything we do is controlled too far.

Have you ever actually tried to walk around and find a place where you could not be seen by cameras? They are incredibly rare. Traffic cams, if you are within 15ft. of a schools property you can easily be seen, any atm, any commercial building. This has been true whether I was in Fascist NY state, hicktown PA, Nowhere OH, Illinois or Missouri. Try just living at home. Want to walk from the shower to the bedroom naked? Don't, someone could be looking in your windows and press charges, and you could be classified as a sexual predator and the rest of your life is ruined. The standards for searches are practically non-existent, illegally obtained evidence is always used, and your local municipality can tell you what brand of toothpaste you are allowed to buy. We are living in this RIGHT NOW. No slippery slope to the future, no appeal to fear, no false dichotomy. I can walk out my door or IM a friend and this is happening. No two ways about it.