Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Oh well, given that the law appears to favour your viewpoint, I guess you don't have to worry too much about my warped views about the way the world should be becoming a reality, do you? It concerns me deeply, though, that the criminal appears to be being given a "get out of jail free" card here. "Oh it wasn't me, officer. Someone else must have used my IP connection!".
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"Then why is your hard drive full of movies datestamped at the time we tracked the copyrighted materials?"
An IP address should be enough to get a warrant; the issue is copyright holders wanting to *bypass* the court system and issue expensive settlement options based on IP addresses. Recent judges have thrown them out, not so much for not having enough identity info, but for the fact that they obviously had no intention of prosecuting anything--they were hoping for a lot of settlement $ from people too busy or ashamed (in the case of porn accusations) to face them in court.
If there's an actual crime or other violation with real damages involved, an IP address is certainly enough info to kick off a real investigation. Proving absolutely that this one person downloaded the fies may be impossible, but connecting usage logs to records on the hard drive can prove things beyond a resonable doubt.
The problem isn't the courtroom standard of proof--it's that the RIAA and MPAA want to avoid having to meet legal standards before inflicting punishments.