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Judge Orders Piracy Trial To Test IP Address Evidence

Posted by Soulskill on from the your-computer-is-broadcasting-an-ip-address dept.

another random user sends word of a case in Pennsylvania District Court in which Judge Michael Baylson has ordered a trial to resolve the issue of whether an IP address can identify a particular person. The plaintiff, Malibu Media, has filed 349 lawsuits against groups of alleged infringers, arguing that getting subscriber information from an ISP based on an IP address that participated in file-sharing was suitable for identification purposes. A motion filed by the defendants in this case explains "how computer-based technology would allow non-subscribers to access a particular IP address," leading Judge Baylson to rule that a trial is "necessary to find the truth." "The Bellwether trial will be the first time that actual evidence against alleged BitTorrent infringers is tested in court. This is relevant because the main piece of evidence the copyright holders have is an IP-address, which by itself doesn't identify a person but merely a connection. ... Considering what's at stake, it would be no surprise if parties such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are willing to join in. They are known to get involved in crucial copyright troll cases, siding with the defendants. We asked the group for a comment, but have yet to receive a response. On the other side, Malibu Media may get help from other copyright holders who are engaged in mass-BitTorrent lawsuits. A ruling against the copyright holder may severely obstruct the thus far lucrative settlement business model, meaning that millions of dollars are at stake for these companies. Without a doubt, the trial is expected to set an important precedent for the future of mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the U.S. One to watch for sure."

9 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Responsibility? by i_ate_god · · Score: 4, Insightful

    An IP address will identify a connection, that someone is responsible for.

    There is plenty of cases of Person A committing a crime or getting into an accident, using something from Person B, and Person B getting into trouble as a result.

    --
    I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
    1. Re:Responsibility? by Riceballsan · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Really when it comes to cars, generally the way they cover themselves, is by knowing who is using their cars at all times. Lets say hypothetically a rental car was used in a crime, anything from a getaway car for a bank robbery, to running a red light with cameras. The police contact the rental car company and ask who was driving the car with the license plate at 7:30PM on monday. The rental car company shows their copy of the ID, the form of payment they took, etc... and the police move on to look for the actual crook. Forced entry into a car, the police will likely look at as a stolen car and whatever the crime is. A loaned car, they will probably ask you who you loaned it to and analyze it. Of course open wifi, is more akin to leaving the car on the street, door open keys in the ignition, that could be negligence. IMO it's a grey area depending on how the wifi was breached, but that's where it opens up the can of worms, wifi cracking usually leaves no trace. Distinguishing, open wifi, secured wifi used by authorized users, and broken secure wifi, is where the case lies, and IMO should be required to file the suit. IMO the RIAA should have to send a goon to the location, determine if there is wifi, if there is then determine if it is open. If the location has no or closed wifi, have to work with local police and have the police obtain a search warrent, and actually prove the files are on a machine in said house. The batch lawsuits of gathering 10,000+ IPs at a time and suing them all requiring the defendants to prove their innocence is an abomination to due process.

      Now whether the laws should even exist in the first place, is a whole other matter. IMO no, but that is off the subject, the discussion isn't on whether the law is right or not, but on whether just sniffing trackers for IP addresses, is enough to fairly judge someone guilty. My view on that is absofrickinlutely not.

    2. Re:Responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The Internet is meant to be open and free. You clearly oppose that because you believe that it's easier to adopt a Tough On Crime mentality than to do some actual police work. It's much easier to just throw your arms up and say "I don't know who did this, so we're punishing you!" than to accept that you can't get all the 'bad guys'.

      If you intentionally leave your wifi open, and someone uses that connection to commit a real crime with real consequences, then why should you, the owner of the router, not take some responsibility for it?

      If normal people can't get away with it, businesses shouldn't be able to, either.

  2. Re:IPs parallel the discoverable world by eqisow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People can share IP addresses, but only twins share DNA?

  3. Re:IPs parallel the discoverable world by bonehead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the comfort of my living room I can connect to no fewer than 6 access points that don't belong to me. 2 more if I wanted to take 5 minutes to crack a few WEP passwords. If I had a mind to I could use them to download movies, music. If I really wanted to cause trouble there are plenty of worse things I could do.

    There would be absolutely no way to trace that activity back to me, and the people taking the blame would be guilty of no other crime than not understanding how networks operate.

    Spoofing another person's DNA would be *slightly* more challenging.

  4. Re:IPs parallel the discoverable world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your DNA can get nearly anywhere very easily. If you get unlucky, you could be framed for a crime or at least it will appear that you did the crime.

    DNA isn't as accurate as some make it out to be.

  5. It can help. by TheLink · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An IP address can _help_ positively identify a person.
    It can definitely negatively identify a person - if the public IP is different it wasn't you doing it (assuming you weren't using that public IP :) ).

    If the download was made by the IP of your internet connection at that time, then it's evidence that something using your connection was doing the downloading. If they find other corroborating evidence that it's you - e.g. the downloaded file is on your computer, in your personal folders, shows up in your download history, the computer is not normally shared, there's no malware or remote control software, then it's likely to be downloaded by you.

    But an IP sure isn't sufficient alone in itself. The **AA probably want it to be like a car license plate in certain countries - where if a camera takes a picture of a car breaking a traffic speed limit, that has the same plate as your car, looks like your car, then they expect you to either pay the (usually smaller) fine or identify the person responsible so that they can do it. Or challenge it in court and pay the full fine.

    However in this case they want huge fines and the fines to go to them ;).

    --
  6. Re:IPs parallel the discoverable world by neonmonk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes you can. You can easily 'hijack' DNA from someone and plant it at the scene of your crime. Hair clippings, skin flakes, spit. You could even use it to commit the crime if you so desired, but you'll need a fair bit of hair to choke a full grown man. Could be fun though.

  7. Re:IPs parallel the discoverable world by Sun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The DNA tests are fine. The problem is that too many people watch CSI and don't know what statistics mean.

    While 100% accurate, the problem is that part of these "too many people" are the police, the judges and jury.

    What private company? And nobody has asserted that it matches a unique person,

    Ahem ahem ahem.

    I'm sorry, I was caught by a sudden cough. Do continue...

    but that it's a 99.something% match. Run that through a database containing everyone on the planet, and you get a few million positive hits, all but one an error. But that's great reliability. If you run it against the top 10 suspects, then you have better than a 99% chance it's the one that you got the match on. That's enough for a conviction, in most cases.

    Yes, I completely agree. Unfortunately, while you show much clue in the field of statistics, you show very little clue in the field of human behavior.

    DNA is routinely used, not to narrow down the suspects pool, but in order to find the suspect to begin with. That is why DNA databases are so lucrative for law enforcement. Quite often, a finger gets pointed at someone because police already had his DNA for an unrelated reason. As I'm sure you understand, this kind of use is precisely the kind where GP's concerns are justified.

    Shachar