Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Good point. Actually, I was thinking it would not require a warrant: It could potentially become a fairly automated process that would spit out data type (copywritten text), sender and recipient to local law enforcement, leaving it up to the law to contact either and have them establish lawfulness, or face fines/punishment.
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Trouble is, that in looking for these things would require monitoring the communications of millions of people, and the Gubmint does need some sort of authorization to do that. Within the U.S. it requires a warrant (think phone taps), for communications that have one end outside the U.S. things are less stringent.
Of course you're actually talking about
private organizations doing the policing, so different constraints may apply.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
If you think of a cable company that can determine, through their cable box, that you are illicitly sharing your cable with others, they can simply shut off your service, then send you a notice informing you of your violation of their agreement, their demand that you pay a fine, and a threat to send your case to the authorities if you refuse (and even if you don't). An ISP could use that same method to exact punishment for illegal activities.
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A cable company protecting its salable product and an ISP attempting to police illegal activities (and only civilly "illegal" at that) are two rather different things. The cable company's reasons for doing so are obvious, but why the name of little green apples would an ISP do this? And for every ISP that did go round the twist and decide to do so, thirty others would announce that people should switch to them because they
don't.
Oh, yeah: if the ISP is doing this at the behest of a Gubmint organization, regardless of level, they would then fall under the same constraints as the Gubmint, because they're acting as agents of the Gubmint. Without the warrant or equivalent authorization, they not only effectively grant immunity to any prosecution, they also open themselves, and the Gubmint, up to law-suits out the wazoo.
They're not liable for what goes through their intartubes, so the best they could do would be to quietly collect the information and pass it along to whatever equivalent of the RIAA rises up to undertake the suing people for the sort of infringement we're talking about, and the ISP(s) might find themselves civilly liable for that when it came out, and it
would come out. (I have no idea whether there'd be legitimate grounds for suits like that, but I'm sure they'd get sued bunches regardless, standing or no standing)