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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
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.
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Most of the ones I've seen also provide account names.
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I believe the analogy with Jammie Thomas is flawed; she had no legal right to distribute the songs.
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Neither did Amazon. The question I'm posing isn't "did they have the legal right to distribute", but rather "are they responsible if they receive content in good faith, and then redistribute".
Theoretically, a P2P user is receiving content from unverified distributors, just like Amazon. If Amazon does not have to verify the uploader of the Ayn Rand books, but can be assumed to be acting "in good faith", then someone downloading from a P2P site can also be assumed to be acting in good faith that uploaders are authorizing distribution. Just about every P2P app I've seen has something during the installation that tells you that you should only share content that you have the authorization to distribute, and that the P2P network is not to be used for copyright infringement. Is that a particularly strong standard for authorization... not really. But neither is Amazon's "we'll assume you're authorized if you tell us so".
Should a downloader just assume that another random P2P user is the copyright holder of an RIAA published musician... probably not. But then again, Amazon just assumed that some random internet user was the authorized copyright holder for a Published Author.
If Amazon is not expected to verify every source and only has to remove material afterwards when it becomes known that it wasn't authorized, then P2P users are not expected to verify either.
I'm not saying I agree with the above. What I am saying is that if you do agree that Amazon is not responsible and that they acted "in good faith" by redistributing content that they believed was authorized without verification, then filesharers should be held to the exact same standard.