Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Semantics aside, there's a well-established principle - in English law at least - that you can indeed be held responsible for the usage of something that you are the owner or keeper of. If your dog bites someone, then YOU will be prosecuted. If your car goes through a red light, or is caught by a speed camera, then you will be prosecuted for the offence (unless you can prove that someone else was driving). It seems a natural extension of that principle that if your internet connection is used to download illegally, then you are responsible for the copyright infringement unless you can demonstrate that it was someone else who did it.
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Except in the digital age it is relatively trivial for someone to make it look like it was your car that went through the stop light.
IP spoofing is not a difficult thing to do. Add in open Wifi, Wifi hacking, multiple people potentially with access to your network who could be doing it...
It is a lot more nebulous than "important" physical property that you should know exactly who is using it and roughly when. I don't disagree that there is some burden on the IP address holder, but at the same time it should be comisurate with the scope and severity of the crime as well as potential ease with which the IP address could be missused by another person or has been completely misrepresented (spoofed).