
Court confirms: IP addresses aren’t people (and P2P lawyers know it) - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/court-confirms-ip-addresses-arent-people-and-p2p-lawyers-know-it.ars
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tbrownaw
In [this particular part of?] the UK; personhood of IP addresses may vary by
jurisdiction (hm, do each of my 2^64 IPv6 addresses get to vote?).

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Tyrannosaurs
Re: This particular part of - there are three legal systems within the UK,
England & Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland; though England & Wales* (where
this was ruled) accounts for over 80% of the population and probably a greater
proportion of businesses and contracts.

They also have a common enough history and basis that it's unlikely that
rulings in Northern Ireland and Scotland would be substantially different.

* Wales now has it's own legislature so Welsh law may have minor differences in certain areas but this wouldn't be one of them as it's not an area the Welsh assembly have law making power over.

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sofuture
I'm pretty pro-filesharing (whatever that means) but I just don't understand
what the big deal about IP addresses is... Would someone mind explaining it to
me?

Fingerprints aren't people either, but they can help build a case against a
murderer/whatever. What's the issue with "This IP did this, the ISP says you
had that IP, it's you or someone related to you that did this Q.E.D."?

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vaksel
because a lot of people use WIFI in their house, which a lot of people fail to
secure...so for all you know someone else accessed it

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sofuture
Yeah but you know, and I know, that's a rubbish argument. Absolutely it could
happen and that person obviously should bear no responsibility. But an IP
address is enough to _bring the argument to that point_.

Pretty big leap to go from "Well MAYBE someone else used this IP over this
persons MAYBE unsecured wireless" to "I guess we can't use the IP as evidence
of anything" (Which is the gist, I guess?)

Don't get me wrong, I think we should draw-and-quarter the people filing these
lawsuits -- I just have trouble seeing how an IP address is meaningless. Is IP
address information still used in cases against spammers or crackers?

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jdhopeunique
I don't think anyone is suggesting that IP addresses provide no evidence
whatsoever or that they shouldn't be used as evidence at all. Certainly, they
do narrow the possibilities down. However, by dismissing arguments of hacking
or sharing an IP address as rubbish, an IP address effectively becomes a
person's identity regardless of whether they can completely control it. Since
many users are not technically savvy, they cannot control what happens at an
IP address. Hence, parents and grandparents get sued for their kids behavior,
coffee shops with open wifi face litigation, schools and businesses must
enforce draconian security measures just to enforce a strong tie between a
person and an IP when that tie is not natural.

