Random thought to get you going....

Was just thinking about the new threats to file sharers going around and a random thought occurred to me. Where exactly is the line drawn in file sharing and piracy battles, and how do the ISPs determine whether you have downloaded a flagged file?
If they are tracking our traffic through torrent trackers they may see we are participating in file sharing, but how can they tell how much of that file we actually received? Can I download 80-90 percent of any file and then cancel the download and be safe? How do they know what I'm doing and if I only download half of any file how can I be accused of piracy?
This is just meant as a though exercise. I don't know exactly what the law says, but it seems to me that this loophole could be a valid legal concern.

According to TorrentFreak, the ISPs are not the ones doing the actual spying. An assortment of third-party vendors on hire from the MAFIAA will do those honors. When they spot an infringing IP address, they will report it the ISPs, who will identify the relevant customer and begin his or her six-letter regimen. Presumably, the IP address also will be reported to the MAFIAA (by the third-party vendor), but the ISPs have not agreed to release their customers' details to anyone without a court order.

Perhaps someone who knows this stuff better than I can explain exactly how this differs from what has already been going on. Since a major purpose of this new campaign is what the MAFIAA calls "education," they have an interest in scaring us as much as possible. Hype is not beyond the bounds of possibility, especially since we've seen so much of it in the past.

This also occurred to me : If I pay for cable and I download a movie that showed on cable, can that be considered theft? Maybe the MPAA should sue cable providers for offering DVR?

They are sometimes ilogical. But if they catch you to download ilegal stuff, they need to find in on your harddrive. if you don't have nothing ilegal on it, don't worry :)

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Originally Posted by dkplayaclub

This also occurred to me : If I pay for cable and I download a movie that showed on cable, can that be considered theft? Maybe the MPAA should sue cable providers for offering DVR?

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Sort of falls under fair use policy, it's a tricky field to navigate, but convention now still considers it illegal since you don't have anything in place to verify the license to view of the people with whom you're sharing the files.

Good point mjmacky. I guess there's one more reason usenet is looking better every day. Just got a one month trial the other day and it's pretty sweet. May have to find room in the budget.