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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

If this is really the case, why is anyone still crazy enough to use BitTorrent?

I use BitTorrent to download, for example, Linux distributions, or movies from VODO - http://vodo.net

And don't think all these 200,000 ISP users/contract owners have downloaded copyrighted materials. It is not proofable. It could be a computer virus, a guest, a hacker who has hacked into thier Wi-Fi. How are they going to proof?

So far, the lower courts have set the precedence that IPs are not people. If I catch an IP doing something wrong, I can't yet say to the ISP account holder "Your IP did this, therefor YOU are guilty," for the very same reason red light cameras need to identify the driver of a car running the light instead of only the license plate.

If you have a locked wi-fi and are sharing files via torrent, in civil proceedings (which these are), the companies have plenty of evidence saying that you are probably the one sharing the files. Remember, it's civil: "beyond a reasonable doubt" isn't required.

Yep, just "preponderance of evidence" [1]. Seems like this could fit.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_burden_of_proof#Preponder...

And if you fail to protect your wi-fi they could claim negligence. "I have heard other lawyers compare leaving your wifi open to leaving a loaded gun lying around." (http://torrentfreak.com/are-you-guilty-if-pirates-use-your-i...). I think it would ironic if WEP became popular again because it could protect negligence and is trivially hacked.

That's just the theory of the author of that essay. It has never been tested in court. The "judgement" the author claims at the start of his essay was actually a settlement offered by someone who thought $10000 was worth less than the risk of a court case. (Perhaps because he didn't want to be publically accused of downloading gay porn.) That whole essay is based on deception, and the author is a sleazebag.

http://torrentfreak.com/are-you-guilty-if-pirates-use-your-i...

I think you'd have to be crazy to upload on bittorrent. IANAL but I think you can only get sued for redistribution of copyrighted material, so downloading is safe.

The set of targeted works is pretty small, from what I hear. My understanding is that as long as you stay away from gay porn and recently released movies, your risk of litigation is negligible.

It depends how bad the enforcement tools are. They may make no distinction between uploading and downloading, just output a list of IP addresses that are part of the swarm.

Don't they treat seeding the same as uploading?

By uploading I also mean seeding

Aren't they technically the same thing? Either way, you're uploading bits to someone else, right?

Wouldn't making the initial files available be slightly worse then uploading partial bits?

Sure, but in the eyes of the law, you're still guilty.

To pick a random horseman of the infocalypse to draw an analogy from, importing drugs into the country is arguably worse than selling them on the street corner, but both are illegal.

I didn't even realize you could do this. Won't the swarm stop talking to you if you don't share?

No, they'll just send you less data. See BitTyrant for a detailed examination.

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