
BitTorrent users don't "act in concert," so judge slashes mass P2P case - Mithrandir
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/bittorrent-users-dont-act-in-concert-so-judge-slashes-mass-p2p-case.ars
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0x12
Every time a judge does something like this I have some hope that we will move
past the current copyright legislation to something more appropriate for the
digital age.

I'm sure that copyright has had its use, and in many ways still has uses
today. But I'm also sure that the time of 'easy money' by the simple act of
reproduction will come to an end, and as far as I'm concerned that can't
happen fast enough.

Copyright, like any tool is a two edged sword, and the one edge has been
systematically blunted whereas the other has been systematically sharpened.
There was a balance where there is now a very strong imbalance and judges like
this help to at least temporarily restore that balance, until we can move past
the current implementation.

I hope it will happen somewhere in the next 50 years, sooner is better. The
closer we are to a balance the bigger the chance that we can move on. So
thanks to this judge.

~~~
sliverstorm
_I'm sure that copyright has had its use, and in many ways still has uses
today._

My housemate, and his friend, have both told me copyright is a bastion in
their industry- pharmaceuticals. It's not like they are Big Pharma shills
either- he just graduated 2 months ago, and they both work for a tiny almost-
company sheltered by a University.

In general it seems to be this way in every industry that doesn't yet move as
fast as computing. Which has long suggested to me that what computing needs is
not copyright abolishment or even sweeping reforms, but simply drastically
shortened duration, perhaps in the range of 3-5 years.

~~~
chc
Copyright? I think you must have misheard. Copyright has to do with creative
works, not with physical substances. The pharmaceutical industry mainly relies
on patents AFAIK.

~~~
sliverstorm
Gah, I'm sorry. That's like the 3rd time I've conflated the two on accident.

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pseudonym
Could this be? A brief flicker of hope for the fact that maybe tech-savvy
judges might be able to do something sane?

I have to wonder, though, how long it'll be before everyone starts just
opening their wifi as a "it wasn't me" defense. And how long that will last.

~~~
jrockway
Many wifi passwords are trivially guessable, so the access points are already
open. A more frightening question is, "how long until access points contain
spyware to incriminate the owner in court?"

~~~
redthrowaway
You don't need spyware; routers already keep logs. I'm not sure what discovery
is like in civil cases in the US, but requisitioning the MAC addresses of all
computers in the defendant's possession, as well as the router logs, would be
sufficient to establish identity (or at least which computer was used). The
fact that this doesn't seem to be widely used suggests to me that it exceeds
the plaintif's rights to request said logs.

~~~
nettdata
Mac addresses are trivial to change on most operating systems.

~~~
redthrowaway
The vast majority of people don't know that. As civil cases have a much lower
standard of proof than criminal, a mac address that matched the router logs
for the downloads in question, and belonged to the owner of the connection,
would likely be enough to establish identity. Given that a simple IP address
is accepted by most courts as sufficient, MAC addresses would probably be
icing on the cake.

