dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
uniqs
8
RobOutback
join:2011-07-18

RobOutback to analog andy

Member

to analog andy

Re: Blog - Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

said by analog andy:

So Canpire

Found the movies in question on Bittorrent

Recorded the IP's that were seeding the movies

Downloaded the movies in full and compared them with a movie file they have?

Or Downloaded each piece and pieced the file together manually to get a whole movie or are they talking about the torrent software combing the pieces into a complete file and then comparing it?

Okay, if we assume that Canipire's software is accurate:

Looks like they simply combined pieces from a whole bunch of seeders and peers into one file, then verified the file was one of their movies. Which is what a typical bittorrent client would do, so I wouldn't expect them to do anything more.

However, it's highly doubtful that any single seeder provided a complete copy of a movie to them. So, the question that the court needs to answer is how much of a movie needs to be shared in order for that to be considered illegal?

Also, this procedure only verifies that people are uploading the file, it doesn't guarantee that any of the peers have a full copy of the file. For example, what if a user started downloading a movie but cancelled it after 10% was downloaded? Is he guilty of pirating the movie? Or could he argue that he killed the download after he realized it was a pirated movie?

Is sharing a movie (such as what bittorrent does by default) more "nasty" than downloading only? What if you turn off uploading in bittorrent, but Canpire's software marks your IP address as a sharer because you still belong to the swarm?

There are SO MANY QUESTIONS that the court needs to answer. We really do need a test-case to find out what the new law allows and disallows.

The intent of the law is clear: don't pirate movies. But the details are not at all clear, nor are the penalties.