41 ms·

Logic experiment: AFAIK, you can't download a torrent without participating in seeding it (at least while you're downloading it). Assuming that whomever is ga

by furyg3 16y ago

Logic experiment: AFAIK, you can't download a torrent without participating in seeding it (at least while you're downloading it). Assuming that whomever is gathering the IP addresses is an authorized representative of the copyright holder, they are actively involved in distributing the video (at least while they're collecting IP addresses). So, a defendant could claim "At the time you caught me downloading it, an authorized representative of the copyright holder was publishing the content on BitTorrent". Of course, the problem is that the law isn't logical ;)

forax 16y ago
Most bittorrent clients rank their peers by upload speed when they choose who to upload their pieces to. You could still download a file if you refused to upload (afaik seeds will upload to anyone), but you would probably experience a decrease in speed.
roel_v 16y ago
Apart from the fact that you can disallow download and only query the tracker (you'd get horrible download speeds but presumably that wouldn't matter for this use case), you logic is flawed. Merely co-distributing pieces of material doesn't automatically grant others use rights. The co-sharing could be a necessary step in discovering the identity of infringers.
pyre 16y ago
> So, a defendant could claim "At the time you caught me downloading it, an authorized representative of the copyright holder was publishing the content on BitTorrent". They could be publishing data, but you'd have to prove that they weren't just uploading bogus data into the stream. BitTorrent hashes all of the chunks it downloads, but that doesn't prevent someone from constantly uploading bogus data that is only rejected once you've downloaded it. [IIRC, there are clients that will blacklist peers that consistently send corrupt chunks though.] They could just claim that they were uploading random data, and you would have to have some way to refute that (which you wouldn't unless you keep an audit trail of all peers you connect to over BitTorrent).

by furyg3 16y ago

forax 16y ago

Most bittorrent clients rank their peers by upload speed when they choose who to upload their pieces to. You could still download a file if you refused to upload (afaik seeds will upload to anyone), but you would probably experience a decrease in speed.

roel_v 16y ago

Apart from the fact that you can disallow download and only query the tracker (you'd get horrible download speeds but presumably that wouldn't matter for this use case), you logic is flawed. Merely co-distributing pieces of material doesn't automatically grant others use rights. The co-sharing could be a necessary step in discovering the identity of infringers.

pyre 16y ago

> So, a defendant could claim "At the time you caught me downloading it, an authorized representative of the copyright holder was publishing the content on BitTorrent". They could be publishing data, but you'd have to prove that they weren't just uploading bogus data into the stream. BitTorrent hashes all of the chunks it downloads, but that doesn't prevent someone from constantly uploading bogus data that is only rejected once you've downloaded it. [IIRC, there are clients that will blacklist peers that consistently send corrupt chunks though.] They could just claim that they were uploading random data, and you would have to have some way to refute that (which you wouldn't unless you keep an audit trail of all peers you connect to over BitTorrent).