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Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#51

Post by jerf »

larrys wrote: post #40
jerf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're trying to convince a human judge, not a computer program.

But you're assuming it would even get to a trier of fact. That is a mistake that lawyers make many timese that I've seen. They will settle a case with another lawyer as if the other side will actually go through and file a lawsuit and even has the money to litigate. McDonalds regularly settles slip and fall lawsuits that are merit less. It is cheaper in certain cases to just pay off the tort lawyer with $10,000 then…

No, I'm implying the exact same mentality that shows how to hack computer programs isn't the one you use for the law. For all people mock the law, humans are involved, and the sort of transparent excuses that would easily fool a computer probably won't fool a judge for a second any more than it would fool a guy on the street. There are ways to hack the law, but it looks different.

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#52

Post by jasonkolb »

rbanffy wrote: post #44
jasonkolb wrote: post #5

I've often thought that if you really wanted to pirate something, just start an S-corp for ~$200 and put your cable account in its name. If you get sued, tell them to litigate until they're blue, the company is going under.

If you make the ownership graph sufficiently complicated (as in enough companies crossing enough international jurisdictions through enough shared-ownership layers) you'll be: 1) invulnerable to lawsuits 2) the coolest person in the whole internet

You should see what the ownership graphs of most multinationals look like. I did an analysis of JP Morgan at one point and I kid you not the list of companies in small type with no formatting took 10 pages to print out.

For all the people who are saying that this is hacking the legal system you are correct. This is routinely done and I recommend you spend some time reading up on it, because it is fascinating.

For example, did you know that most cities are corporations?

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#53

Post by jasonkolb »

jerf wrote: post #16
jasonkolb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the business's purpose is to provide an open suburban hotspot?

You're trying to convince a human judge, not a computer program.

It is not a matter of convincing anyone, it is a matter of interpreting the law. I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but you have to consider this within the bounds of the legal system, not what you find to be tasteful or convincing.

There are of course ways to address this via legislation--but that will never happen as it goes to the very core of the corporate personhood issue.

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#54

Post by acak »

This may make mass lawsuits difficult but I wonder if this means anything from an individual harassment perspective. I guess the next question is this (if someone can shed light on this from a legal perspective):

Is detection of copyright infringement through or from an IP address enough to get a warrant issued that allows searching of the devices belonging to the individual using that IP address (or happens to be connected to the internet through that IP address)?

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#55

Post by brudgers »

This may be a two edged sword.

It also means that collecting data based on your IP is not an invasion of privacy. With IPv6 there is the potential for much finer grained assignment of IP addresses to such an extent that an IP address could become uniquely identified with an individual more readily than today.

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#56

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jerf wrote: post #51
larrys wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're assuming it would even get to a trier of fact. That is a mistake that lawyers make many timese that I've seen. They will settle a case with another lawyer as if the other side will actually go through and file a lawsuit and even has the money to litigate. McDonalds regularly settles slip and fall lawsuits that are merit less. It is cheaper in certain cases to just pay off the tort lawyer with $10,000 then…

No, I'm implying the exact same mentality that shows how to hack computer programs isn't the one you use for the law. For all people mock the law, humans are involved, and the sort of transparent excuses that would easily fool a computer probably won't fool a judge for a second any more than it would fool a guy on the street. There are ways to hack the law, but it looks different.

Sounds like you're saying judges are corrupt and dont care if they have proof or not?

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#57

Post by larrys »

jerf wrote: post #51
larrys wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're assuming it would even get to a trier of fact. That is a mistake that lawyers make many timese that I've seen. They will settle a case with another lawyer as if the other side will actually go through and file a lawsuit and even has the money to litigate. McDonalds regularly settles slip and fall lawsuits that are merit less. It is cheaper in certain cases to just pay off the tort lawyer with $10,000 then…

No, I'm implying the exact same mentality that shows how to hack computer programs isn't the one you use for the law. For all people mock the law, humans are involved, and the sort of transparent excuses that would easily fool a computer probably won't fool a judge for a second any more than it would fool a guy on the street. There are ways to hack the law, but it looks different.

Parent says "What if the business's purpose is to provide an open suburban hotspot?"

You say: "excuses that would easily fool a computer probably won't fool a judge for a second any more than it would fool a guy on the street."

I don't think it comes across as an excuse although prosecution would of course present it that way.

There is certainly instances where someone would provide an open hotspot for neighbors. (My neighbor at one building did this.) I don't think it would be difficult at all for this to be shown by any defense attorney after some research with examples of kind people doing the same. I don't think this is as open and shut as you are presenting it. And that is the job of a defense attorney to try to make things appear possible by presenting evidence of the practice (which doesn't have to be widespread either.)

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#58

Post by strictfp »

A better analogy: a router is like a phone switch. A router allows several computers to share external IP just like a phone switch allows several phones to share an external phone number. If you get a call from a switch number you don't actually know which specific person behind the switch is calling.

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#59

Post by rprospero »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #56
jerf wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm implying the exact same mentality that shows how to hack computer programs isn't the one you use for the law. For all people mock the law, humans are involved, and the sort of transparent excuses that would easily fool a computer probably won't fool a judge for a second any more than it would fool a guy on the street. There are ways to hack the law, but it looks different.

Sounds like you're saying judges are corrupt and dont care if they have proof or not?

No, it comes down to a question of the letter of the law versus the spirit. By the letter of the law, jasonkolb's proposal would work. However, jasonkolb's propsal clearly violates the spirit under which corporate protection was originally developed.

Now, if you argue that the judge should follow the letter of the law, and ignore the spirit, remember that the first amendment protects the freedom of "speech" and the "press". It doesn't say anything about websites. Of course, the spirit of the law was clearly anti-censorship and would obviously apply to written texts that haven't physically been through a printing press, but the letter of the law says no such thing.

Alternately, you could stick to the letter of the law and simply redefine the word "speech" to include things obviously not spoken, like websites.

Convincing judges that the spirit of the law does not match the letter, or that the dictionary definition of a word isn't the definition to be used in the case, are ways of hacking the law that have nothing to do with judicial corruption.

Re: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

#60

Post by jeremyarussell »

acak wrote: post #54

This may make mass lawsuits difficult but I wonder if this means anything from an individual harassment perspective. I guess the next question is this (if someone can shed light on this from a legal perspective): Is detection of copyright infringement through or from an IP address enough to get a warrant issued that allows searching of the devices belonging to the individual using that IP address (or happens to be co…

So far yes it has been. But what he's saying is that in cases of so many people the risk of catching innocents in crossfire outweighs the likelihood that their IP address is actually connected to someone doing the infringing. This is only in New York though, but the precedent is there now for lawyers around the US to make their cases.

EDIT: likelihood wasn't spelled likely

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