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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.
n/t
That's how I give myself plausable deniability too
Someone should tell lawyers what MAC addresses are.
No, wait. Don't.
... who ever did download and watch it has already been punished enough.
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Because of the open WiFi.
But what about a regular household with many different users including minors and a WPA2 protected network? Who are they going to sue?
Is it really reasonable to sue the account owner in such a case? Should the account owner have to keep internal logs in order to identify which kid did the copyright violation?
An IP isn't enough to identify a pirate?
An "I" Patch?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I had a (stupid) friend who ran an open wifi that got raided for the police for child porn because they tied it to his IP address. Never found any evidence on his PCs (after they sent drive copies to the FBI) or hidden stashes in his house, never arrested and the case was quietly dropped a year later.
As an IT admin you'd think he'd have known better -
I expect the various copyright groups will now begin lobbying for a law requiring ISPs to use the device cameras to take a photo of whoever is at the terminal before allowing any sizeable file to be downloaded. Or perhaps just continuous video surveillance while you're connected to the ISP. As we've seen many times, anything that provides plausible deniability to copyright infringement becomes a major target of legislation by the major content providers.
The MPAA / RIAA already know this and they know litigation ( especially beyond this ruling ) is likely going to cost them more than they're going to bring in.
Thus, my guess as to why they want to shift the burden onto the ISP's to play Copyright Cop.
Why waste your money and time when you can waste someone else's money and time instead ?
Having said that, however, are the ISP's going to follow the same rules about an IP address != a subscriber before throttling or disconnecting your service completely when they " detect " copyright infringement ?
Going slightly offtopic:
As an afterthought, ( especially if the Automation Doomsayers are right ) I wonder if the Fat Cat types who run these companies selling $services or $goods realize that as folks have less and less disposable income, the fewer goods and services they're going to sell. The demand will certainly be there, just not the means to pay for it. Guess where that leads ? ( Insert your best "Yarrr Matey" voice here )
So, the way I see it, it would be in Big Corps best interests to start trying to reduce that income inequality gap if they plan on having enough folks with money to sell their goods to in the future. Or, they can continue to waste their time trying to figure out how to solve the problem through litigation against folks who don't have any money to begin with.
Most overturned court in history. Flaming libtard judges. Certain doom when it gets appealed.
Corporatism != Free Market
I expect the various copyright groups will now begin lobbying for a law requiring ISPs to use the device cameras to take a photo of whoever is at the terminal before allowing any sizeable file to be downloaded. Or perhaps just continuous video surveillance while you're connected to the ISP. As we've seen many times, anything that provides plausible deniability to copyright infringement becomes a major target of legislation by the major content providers.
No, easier - expect the ISPs (many of whom are also cable providers and copyright holders) to start inserting a line in the ToS that the subscriber accepts all liability for any acts of infringement on their internal network, regardless of whether it's a third party using their open WiFi.
I don't care if they guy did download the film, he's suffered enough. Hell, he should sue _them_.
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criminal liability does not work that way and the ISP will need to prove that it's logs are good and based on there cap meters that are off that can be used in court to say that there logs are not usable in court.
This is similar to just because you were at a store when it was robbed, doesn't mean you robbed it. Also, given the metaphor it you wouldn't expect the store to go after you to recoup some of the loss because you were there and might have been involved.
Now if you want to make the case that I was complicit because I didn't stop it; well then why didn't the ISP stop it, why didn't the backbone providers stop it, why didn't the other guy(s) ISP stop it.
No, the real problem is that content holders have the expectation that their product should cost a certain sum of money; now the consumer of that product doesn't see the same value and is unwilling to pay that. They then look for alternatives and if they are persistent will eventual find it for free, at which point the content holder cries foul that they didn't their cost point.
There is a saying in the housing market, if you house doesn't sell in 30 days, it's over priced.
The device camera? Well, I worked it loose from the laptop frame and pointed it at the TV - framing random people . . .
criminal liability does not work that way and the ISP will need to prove that it's logs are good and based on there cap meters that are off that can be used in court to say that there logs are not usable in court.
I never mentioned criminal liability, and this case was not about criminal liability, but civil liability for copyright infringement. Civil liability most certainly can work that way.
And yes, the ISP will need to prove that its logs are good that this subscriber had that IP address at said time, but that's not hard at all - in fact, it's a necessary function of being a service provider: you can't receive packets if the ISP has the wrong address for you. It's like the phone company sending calls to a different phone number than yours - your calls simply won't go through. Cap metering is an entirely different issue.
No, they didn't get it right.
This is about the pleading stage, not the evidence, not the verdict, not the judgement. It's a civil case at that, where defendants are entitled to fewer protections and presumptions than in a criminal trial. Now ask yourself, if the cops said my car ran someone over, would any criminal judge or appeals panel in their right minds believe that "the bare allegation that defendant owns the car is insufficient to support criminal charges"? No, it'd go to trial, and a jury would decide whether I was driving.
Awarding Gonzalez his attorney fees was appropriate, though.
Was this the case of torrenting or streaming?
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idiot Russia Hacked Narrative...
This is a good ruling, but don't rely on that alone to protect your privacy. Use TOR and/or a VPN.
Well poor logs of Cap metering is an reasonable doubt issue more so in an criminal setting.
position it strategically so that it covers any gaps that you may have a use for, set it open, rate limit it.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
he's in your network now!
Headline says "need more than just an IP address"
Obviously, like the Bible says, they need two or three. So in addition to the one they have, they can provide, 192.168.1.1 and 127.0.0.1
Taking control of the webcam whilst the ones and zeroes are being downloaded?
Requiem for the American Dream
Well poor logs of Cap metering is an reasonable doubt issue more so in an criminal setting.
In civil litigation, the standard is "more likely than not", not "beyond a reasonable doubt."
And ISPs can certainly show that your modem had a certain IP and received packets to that IP. Otherwise, they wouldn't be ISPs.