Somewhat tangential.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I'm afraid that I honestly don't know enough about P2P clients, and what information they provide to the user, to be able to sensibly answer that question. Sorry.
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P2P clients provide the IP addresses from which the file is being drawn, and the speed at which the bits are being copied, and various bits of metadata (hashfiles, segment sizes, and whatnot), and might provide other info depending on the exact P2P software involved. It's not generally possible to know the exact name of the source, and the IP address could be going through one or more proxies.
I believe the analogy with Jammie Thomas is flawed; she had no legal right to distribute the songs. The analogy should've been, "then you don't think Kazaa/Napster/ThePirateBay/etc should be held responsible for allowing Jammie Thomas' exchanges to go through."
The P2P sites are not providing content; they are providing a specialized search engine that allows content-holders to connect with each other. P2P a way of downloading directly from other people's computers, with their consent; it allows download from several identical copies on several computers at once.
Almost nothing can prevent these data exchanges; the ability to transfer files from one computer to another is inherent in being online. All the P2P sites do is make it easy to do so. All they can do about potentially illegal content, is remove that file's searchability from their index--the files still exist, and individuals can still find ways to share them with each other.