As someone who has technical experience and understands on a much deeper level on how P2P networking programs like Kazaa and Napster work, I would just like to bring to your attention some facts, especially to those who are siding with the RIAA on this. In order to find the people who are partaking in these "illegal" file sharing programs, the RIAA and the INTARNET POLICE must be on these networks as well, actively searching for content to download, and then successfully download just a portion of the song in question. They can't find and target people who are simply downloading songs. They target people who are making these songs available to others. This is, of course, somewhat unfair, because many of these P2P programs are set to seed automatically, and people are frankly too stupid to turn uploading off. I know Bittorrent will not allow me to download at significant speeds unless I am also seeding. There are ways around this, however, for the sanctity of this board, I will merely say go find it yourself if you're interested.
ANYWAY, so they have to download a partial song from a seeder, to prove that the song file is legit and that it's being shared out. THEN they have to obtain the IP address of the user who is seeding the file (this is very easy), and then must contact the ISP for logs on who was assigned that particular IP address at the time. Here's where things get a little gray in the legality of everything, and how I don't understand how the Juries keep finding for the record companies. The ISP is under absolutely no legal responsibility to turn over the IP addresses of their users to the RIAA. In fact, it's a violation of privacy to do so. The RIAA holds absolutely no legal ground, and cannot demand this information without a court order, which would turn this from a civil case into a criminal case (stealing). No one has ever been criminally convicted for stealing intellectual property, which it seems to me, is what the RIAA is claiming is going on. But, for shits and giggles, lets say a Coldplay song was downloaded onto your computer. The RIAA comes knocking at your door. You end up in trial, and the only evidence they have is your IP address, and, heck, I'll even go so far as to assume: the song on your computer, with Kazaa, in a folder that's shared out. Now, forgive me for sounding a bit arrogant, but there are SO MANY things wrong with this it's unbelievable. Let me see if I can list a few.
1. If there are 4 people in the house, how can the RIAA or the Jury say it was one individual over any of the others? If your answer is "Well, the person who's in charge of the Internet Bill!", fine. I don't like it, but legally, i can't challenge it, because I don't know if it'd stand up in court. BUT.
2. If you have an open Wireless Network, or even a secure wireless network, they are easily hacked and are commonly done so in Apartment complexes, or Drive By Wi-Fi stealing. Even if you think you're secure, you're not 100% safe. Who's to say another individual was using your router for the same purpose? (The same IP address is associated to everyone using a specific internet connection via the same router. I could go more into this if you need me to.)
3. It is INCREDIBLY easy to spoof an IP address. What if, for example, you own a legit copy of Coldplay's CD and have shared your default music directory, ripped the CD AFTER the last time you loaded up Kazaa, say, 3 months ago, and have never actually shared the song in question, but someone spoofed your IP and now you're getting sued?
These are just a few quick examples of why I could never award the RIAA money if I were to be a juror in one of their trials. Too many "What-if's" ... Lawyers are doing a shitty job with these cases, and people like The Pirate Bay are losing cases because others don't understand the technology, and Judges are members of the very community that's crying fowl.
