Comment Re:Of course (Score 2, Informative) 1098
First - I do agree with the concept that there should be a lesser sanction imposed upon the owner (I'm paraphrasing here) as you discuss.
From a legal standpoint, however, there are not (at least that I'm aware of - please feel free to correct me on this, I'd actually like to know if I'm missing something) any laws that specifically cover such issues in electronic communications. Thus the determination falls back to remaining generally applicable laws, in this case, contractual law.
With just about every ISP, a part of a user's "Acceptible Use Policy" (or whatever the contract is called) requires that the user assume full legal responsibility for all traffic/transactions occurring through that connection. Remember, the RIAA is using IP addresses to track users (not MAC addresses, at least as far as I've read). (For those unfamiliar with network topology) an IP address is nothing more than a single internet connection - a single machine may have multiple IP addresses, and a single IP address - via NAT - may have multiple machines that "use" it).
The bottom line of all this is that it's not the owner of the machine per se that is being "tracked", but rather, the owner of the internet connection.
This is, unfortunately, a problem that I do not believe will be resolved in the near future (as least through legislation). It may have to be tackled by the courts and some degree of case law may result, but I suspect that at least for the next year or so this issue will remain uncharted legal territory.
From a legal standpoint, however, there are not (at least that I'm aware of - please feel free to correct me on this, I'd actually like to know if I'm missing something) any laws that specifically cover such issues in electronic communications. Thus the determination falls back to remaining generally applicable laws, in this case, contractual law.
With just about every ISP, a part of a user's "Acceptible Use Policy" (or whatever the contract is called) requires that the user assume full legal responsibility for all traffic/transactions occurring through that connection. Remember, the RIAA is using IP addresses to track users (not MAC addresses, at least as far as I've read). (For those unfamiliar with network topology) an IP address is nothing more than a single internet connection - a single machine may have multiple IP addresses, and a single IP address - via NAT - may have multiple machines that "use" it).
The bottom line of all this is that it's not the owner of the machine per se that is being "tracked", but rather, the owner of the internet connection.
This is, unfortunately, a problem that I do not believe will be resolved in the near future (as least through legislation). It may have to be tackled by the courts and some degree of case law may result, but I suspect that at least for the next year or so this issue will remain uncharted legal territory.
