When thousands of people illegally download books, music, or films, and their internet service provider knows about it but keeps collecting monthly fees from the pirates anyway, should the company face consequences? That’s the question at the heart of Cox […]
The above post only applies for HTTPS traffic using a third party secure DNS - traditional P2P torrenting will leak what you are downloading to your peers. There are anonymous P2P networks like I2P that (allegedly) solve this issue, but it is not widely adopted.
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be a valid legal argument, but I liked the thought experiment of claiming that it can’t be piracy if the rights holder is intentionally publicly sharing the content. Like trying to charge trick-or-treaters for theft when they took candy out of the bowl you left out with a “Free!” sign attached.
There’s no such thing as entrapment in the world of copyright, unfortunately.
That said, something kinda similar did happen in the Viacom v. YouTube case. It’s been over a decade since I read it so forgive me, but I think YouTube discovered that Viacom themselves had been uploading bits of The Simpsons, and I believe sometimes processing them to look like amateur clips because they believed that the exposure helped them in the long run.
So, the one with the right to share the thing, is sharing it themselves.
I’d say that makes it the correct source to download.
Even better than the DRM’d sources that says you only have limited access.
You can’t get more legal than obtaining content directly from the rights holder. It’s more likely that the rights holder is leeching and recording the IP of the seeders.
Then how do they know what movie I’m torrenting if my VPN is not on?
The above post only applies for HTTPS traffic using a third party secure DNS - traditional P2P torrenting will leak what you are downloading to your peers. There are anonymous P2P networks like I2P that (allegedly) solve this issue, but it is not widely adopted.
The rights holder is seeding and records your IP address, then sends a C&D to your ISP, who then notify you about it.
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be a valid legal argument, but I liked the thought experiment of claiming that it can’t be piracy if the rights holder is intentionally publicly sharing the content. Like trying to charge trick-or-treaters for theft when they took candy out of the bowl you left out with a “Free!” sign attached.
There’s no such thing as entrapment in the world of copyright, unfortunately.
That said, something kinda similar did happen in the Viacom v. YouTube case. It’s been over a decade since I read it so forgive me, but I think YouTube discovered that Viacom themselves had been uploading bits of The Simpsons, and I believe sometimes processing them to look like amateur clips because they believed that the exposure helped them in the long run.
So, the one with the right to share the thing, is sharing it themselves.
I’d say that makes it the correct source to download. Even better than the DRM’d sources that says you only have limited access.
You can’t get more legal than obtaining content directly from the rights holder. It’s more likely that the rights holder is leeching and recording the IP of the seeders.