Quote:
Originally Posted by Barton71
Yeah, but that is only VM's terms and conditions, not the law of the land. As the BPI can only provide the IP address to the ISP's, which can only lead to the ISP's finding the name and addess of the account holder, the question remains, is an account holder responsible for what passes through his or her network, or is the account holder, like the ISP's and the Post Office, just a conduit through which the information passes? In other words, is an IP address sufficiant enough evidence to secure a proescution against an individual? If it is, and the BPI are going to use IP addresses as evidence to sue people, then i would argue that the BPI arent interested in suing file sharers, but that they are more interested in the publicity which surrounds suing someone for file sharing, whether that person was actually the person file sharing or not.
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The IP address would have appeared to be sufficient in previous cases where the BPI have taken civil action, what I can't seem to find is a recorded civil case where the defendant has argued that whilst they are the account holder, they are not responsible for every piece of traffic through their network, and won. Anyone know of any?
Currently ISP's can claim "mere conduit" under EU law, but as far as I can tell, not the end user.
It's an interesting point though, and one that could have serious implications, and probably why there has never been any criminal action to date due to the burden of prove.