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US Court of Appeals: An IP Address Isn't Enough To Identify a Pirate (techspot.com)
A judge has ruled that copyright trolls need more than just an IP address if they want to go after copyright infringement. An IP is not enough proof to tie a person to a crime. From a report: In a win for privacy advocates and pirates, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an IP address alone is not enough to go after someone for alleged copyright infringement. They ruled that being the registered subscriber of an infringing IP address does not create a reasonable inference that the subscriber is also the infringer. The case began back in 2016 and has been playing out in the legal system ever since. The creators of the film "The Cobbler" alleged that Thomas Gonzales had illegally downloaded their movie and sued him for it. Gonzales was a Comcast subscriber and had set up his network with an open Wi-Fi access point. At some point, someone had used his network to download the movie and the film creators captured Gonzales's IP address. The judge stated that in order for a proper case, the copyright owners would need more than just an IP address.
You figure that a MAC address is going to help ID the perp? Cute.
Also, how about the fact that MAC addresses are not usually part of the Layer 3 conversation? Just one layer 3 device and poof, the MAC address is something different. MAC doesn't survive past Layer 2.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If you ever buy a Khadas VIM or other Chinese-originated device (which are often set up as “torrent media centers”) they all share the same MAC address. Why: because the chipmakers didn’t want to shell out for a block of MAC addresses.
MAC addresses are only supposed to be unique on a single network. It’s not unheard of that smaller companies re-use MAC addresses in switches and other networking devices and simply make sure they don’t get sent out to the same customer or area of the country/world.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Unless your kids are adults, you're pretty much legally liable for what they do anyways. Yes, if your kid throws a rock through the neighbor's front window, YOU are going to be on the hook for repair costs....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
MAC addresses do NOT survive a Layer 3 translation. MAC is strictly a Layer 2 thing. So the first router that network packet hits will change the MAC address. They are even less useful to trace a packet to a person than IP's are as they are not used above Layer 2.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Actually, no. The overturned verdict rates are below:
6th Circuit - 87 percent;
11th Circuit - 85 percent;
9th Circuit - 79 percent;
3rd Circuit - 78 percent;
2nd Circuit and Federal Circuit - 68 percent;
8th Circuit - 67 percent;
5th Circuit - 66 percent;
7th Circuit - 48 percent;
DC Circuit - 45 percent;
1st Circuit and 4th Circuit - 43 percent;
10th Circuit - 42 percent.
As a really helpful AC stated, the Supreme Court doesn't take all cases, so 79% overturned is not 79% of all cases, but 79% of cases that make it to the Supreme Court. The ones that don't make it to the Supreme Court are implictly confirmed.
These are not the overall rates, but the rates of cases that get SCOTUS review. Cases only get a full blown review if 4 Justices vote for review (i.e. the arguments are eventually presented and ruled on). The Justices being pretty clever folk, the typical case that the SCOTUS hears arguments for are ones where both (1) 4 Justices are dissatisfied with the result from an Appellate Court, and (2) those 4 Justices believe they have a good chance of convincing a 5th Justice to go their way.
There are exceptions to the above. Sometimes two Appellate Courts have made perfectly reasonable rulings that happen to be in such conflict with each other that the SCOTUS feels obliged to get involved -- that federal law might be interpreted very differently state to state is a problem the SCOTUS was created to fix. Sometimes a case is sufficiently important that the SCOTUS feels obliged to rule in order to settle the matter with finality (e.g. Gore vs. Bush).