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ISP To Court: BitTorrent Usage Doesn't Equal Piracy (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The music industry has long argued that evidence of BitTorrent is evidence of piracy, and ISPs have generally gone along with them. But now, ISP Cox Communications is pushing back against that claim. They have been sued by publishers for failing to halt service for users alleged to have pirated music. Not only has Cox argued that the piracy evidence is invalid, they're also contesting the idea that BitTorrent is only used for piracy (PDF). "Instead of generalizing BitTorrent traffic as copyright infringement, the music companies should offer direct proof that Cox subscribers pirated their work. Any other allegations are inappropriate and misleading according to Cox." The company says, "the Court should preclude Plaintiffs from relying on mere innuendo that BitTorrent inherently allows individuals to infringe Plaintiffs' copyrights."

1 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Programs using BitTorrent by phishybongwaters · · Score: 4, Informative

    I really hope the mindless morons follow your advice and get themselves fined and knocked offline because bittorrent in NO WAY provides a method to pirate and not get caught. In fact, out of ALL the methods you have at your disposal to pirate content, bittorrent is the WORST option. simply joining a swarm without even sending or receiving blasts your IP to anyone who bothers to listen. Even with DHT, you still have to connect to nodes. Without DHT you are at the behest of whatever torrent tracker(s) are in use. Most of which are extremely easy to eavesdrop on. Why would the "feds" want to shut down a major source of idiots for them to harass? I get your post was in jest, but it's so off base I feel the need to warn the morons who might actually think you were being serious.