Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Lister
You prosecute the person that downloaded the content. Determining which user is a function of discovery. If discovery does not yield any evidence pointing to any specific person, then the case falls flat. If it does, and that evidence convinces a judge that it meets the requirements for the class of case being brought (civil or criminal), then the case can proceed, and a jury can decide.
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Do you have the concept of "common endeavour" in legal cases in the US? In the UK, if the police know that a crime was committed by someone among a group of people, but don't know specifically who did the actual deed, they can all be charged with the crime in that they did not actively take any action to prevent it. Common Endeavour is especially common in assault or murder cases, where a group of people attack someone, but there's no way to know who specifically struck the blow that did the injury.
It occurs to me that it could also be applied to cases such as this, where you know that someone in a specific group of people downloaded illegal material, but you cannot be certain which specific individual it was. It would be difficult to show that the other users of a shared computer were not aware of illegal downloads made on it.