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Comment by adhoc32 | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but I have a question: Is this network illegal? Or the real copyright infringement is the URL used to reconstruct the copyrighted work?

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If the bits were derived from a copyrighted material then they fall under that copyright. Whether you can prove it just by looking at them is an unrelated issue.

You don't know that, only the owner of the URL knows what's what. The network can also store copyright free files.

Like I said, it's an unrelated issue whether you can prove the bits were derived from copyrighted material or not just by looking at them. That doesn't change their legal status.

I'm not disputing the legal status. Obviously downloading copyrighted material is illegal. I'm asking how they're going to enforce the law in a scheme like that. In order to have strong evidence you have to get physical access to the computer committing the crime. But in most free countries you can't raid houses without having evidence in the first place.

But once you have the URL, you will be able to raid everyone who had those blocks.

You could make an argument that “they didn’t know”, but it doesn’t mean they will not be able to prove that you were an associate in crime.

But each block is used by multiple different files. Owning a block of a forbidden URL does not prove that you're committing a crime. Owning all blocks of that URL is an strong indication but still not a proof to justify raiding.

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