[ILUG] Eircom surrenders

[paul at clubi.ie]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2009, Richard Ryan wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 05:26:54PM +0000, Patrick O'Doherty wrote:
>> is it just me or does the record labels knowing which users to send
>> notices to seem a bit like a catch-22? They don't (or do they?) have the
>> right to inspect all your traffic and determine that you are pirating
>> material, so their determining that you have pirated material is an
>> invasion of privacy and therefore invalid?
>>
>> I could be (and probably am) wrong in saying this though.
>
> If they're connecting to trackers and looking up IPs (which seems to be
> most of what MediaSentry used to do for the RIAA), then they're free and
> clear, privacy-wise.

If that's all they do, they have no case.

IPs published by trackers are hearsay. Some trackers even 
*deliberately* publish additional, randomish IPs along with actual 
participating IPs (TBP does so). So the reporter really needs to 
download the actual file from the actual IPs before making any such 
reports. It's also important the reporter is careful about the 
accuracy of the time.

Reporting IPs based on mere P2P participant-lists is guaranteed to 
lead to the following headlines (and already has in the UK):

  "<middle-aged or elderly> <person or couple> <sued|disconnected> for
   downloading latest <gangster rapper album|first-person shooter
   game>!"

which will surely further sink the reputation of those responsible 
for anti-P2P actions.

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time.