Music filesharing - Internet providers refuse to give names

[FutureTaoiseach]

And surely, if IRMA know the 17 uploaders, they have their names, addresses, locations and presumably could get a warrant to get the Guards to seize computers. Why would they need to get this info from the ISP's?

Well, the way it works I believe is this: They know the usernames (which may not be the real names of the owners), and the IP addresses. But that alone doesnt really tell them enough about who the people actually are. To find that out, they need the ISPs to tell them which phone-number was using the IP address at the specified time (ie Caller Line Identification). You see usually each time you logon to the Internet, a different IP address number is assigned to your computer, and is linked in ISP records to your phone number. Then when you logoff, another person who logs on gets that IP address. So what IRMA are essentiually looking for is identification of the users based on their CLI. The problem then is the question of in the household who was using the computer at that specific time. I have heard that it could be the householder who is then sued.

[onemancommittee]

The problem then is the question of in the household who was using the computer at that specific time. I have heard that it could be the householder who is then sued.

yeah that's the bit that confuses me. I can see why the music industry prefers civil suits: if they pressed criminal charges, they'd have to prove a particular person was using a computer when it was downloading songs - beyond a reasonable doubt - and that could be near-impossible in a flat with 3 or 4 adults, or a family home with adult children.

[NTR]

For the life of me, I cannot see how the music industry can track downloads on peer to peer networks or torrent swarms, where the overwhelming majority of file sharing takes place.

[badinage]

apparantely its very simple: they sign up to a peer to peer network, posing as an ordinary joe, then download hundreds of thousands of files: each time recording the details of the individual computer they download it from. I think they get an IP address that way. Then they take that info to the server provider, and ask for a name and address.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/3722622.stm

[NTR]

Good link Badinage,

However, this can still be frustrated by anonymous proxy and there is the matter of putting the songs there in the first place!

It's really a matter of how far they are willing to go.

With most p2p software being open source, I would bet a fully anonymous p2p will follow that will encrypt ip addresses!