[jdiff]

That's the magic of money. Download your favorite artist's discography for personal use? If the MPAA had its way (and it occasionally has), torrenting that could bankrupt you.

The AI industry - soaking up every bit of media available online for commercial purposes, often reproducing it nearly identically - has enough money and capital to influence things its way. And only its way, in case anyone was hoping this might change anything at all for the little guy.

[d1sxeyes]

> Download your favorite artist's discography for personal use? If the MPAA had its way (and it occasionally has), torrenting that could bankrupt you.

I don't think that there are any clear examples of cases where ONLY downloading has resulted in huge fines. All the big bankrupting level fines have been for both downloading and sharing.

You mention that 'torrenting' could bankrupt you, and that is true, but the main reason for the huge fines are that you are taking part in distribution rather than just 'downloading for personal use'.

[0points]

> I don't think that there are any clear examples of cases where ONLY downloading has resulted in huge fines.

They [1, and others] been hunting and fining downloaders for over a decade now, with the only "evidence" being IP addresses connected with the torrent [2].

1: https://www.njordlaw.com/filesharing-and-downloading-films/q...

2: https://admin.ovpn.com/en/blog/online-integrity-new-threats-...

[gruez]

>with the only "evidence" being IP addresses connected with the torrent [2].

Is that an unreasonable assumption? As much as people like to come up with excuses like "I had open wifi!" or "I was running a TOR node", judges don't seem inclined to believe them, probably for the same reason they don't seem inclined to believe excuses like "somebody took my car on a joyride and then returned it!" for parking tickets. Remember, both non-commercial copyright infringement lawsuits and parking tickets are tried in civil court, which means the standard is "preponderance of evidence", not "beyond reasonable doubt".

[actionfromafar]

DHCP addresses often shuffle on reboots. I don't trust ISPs to keep completely accurate records or give them out in a correct manner if they do.

[gruez]

>I don't trust ISPs to keep completely accurate records or give them out in a correct manner if they do.

How hard could it be to keep DHCP logs? Assuming they exist at all, what would cause it to be incorrect?

[d1sxeyes]

I'm sure they exist. I think the point is more that you shouldn't need to trust your ISP's record-keeping to avoid life-alteringly big fines.

[0points]

You are missing the point I was replying to, specifically that parent suggested people were only hunted for creating/uploading pirated content, not merely participating in the torrent.

[gruez]

>specifically that parent suggested people were only hunted for creating/uploading pirated content, not merely participating in the torrent.

For all intents and purposes, participating in the torrent almost guarantees that you seeded, because all torrent clients upload as you download.

[0points]

These are two separate things:

* Making content available for unauthorized distribution

* Distributing unauthorized content that someone else already made available

Seeding isn't making content available, it's keeping content available.

[d1sxeyes]

Yes, but torrenting is not ONLY downloading, it's both. The articles you link are very clearly talking about 'Sharing' (from link 2: "File sharing consists of both download and upload of a file.").

[0points]

Yes, thats lawyer speak to make clients/victims believe there is no distinction.

Hint: there is a distinction.

[d1sxeyes]

There is indeed, but not when you’re torrenting (i.e. you can’t download without also uploading).

[0points]

Even when you are torrenting, there is a clear distinction of the different roles.

Copying from another comment I wrote here:

> These are two separate things:

> * Making content available for unauthorized distribution

> * Distributing unauthorized content that someone else already made available

> Seeding isn't making content available, it's keeping content available.

[jdiff]

Given the lack of sense in treating each peer as a lost sale for damages, I think we can safely say they're only interested in making examples out of people and would absolutely go after people for only downloading if the law permitted. Thankfully it's not, but maybe they lobby to make changes in that direction to try and curb future AI industry shenanigans.

[jajko]

You contradict yourself. There were numerous public cases where they chased people downloading few mp3s just for themselves, and made into example case with massive fines.

If you don't understand how torrents work on technical level I suggest at least some shallow reading. Property rights holders don't care about details, as long as you tick the box of sending a single packet to somebody, off to court with ya.

[d1sxeyes]

> There were numerous public cases where they chased people downloading few mp3s just for themselves

If this is true, I have been unable to find any. Can you please share? In all of the cases I was able to find, the huge fines were based on also uploading.

> If you don't understand how torrents work on technical level I suggest at least some shallow reading

This is a bit patronising, and I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. My point is that the only prosecutions I've been able to find are where they were able to prove uploading as well as downloading (and yes, the fact that someone used BitTorrent makes it a slam-dunk, because the protocol makes it impossible to download without also uploading). Are you trying to argue that someone who torrents a copyrighted work doesn't also share it?

[shadowgovt]

It's more the magic of precedent.

The fight about digitized media for personal (entertainment / informational) use were the early aughts. The precedents crafted then don't immediately translate to these cases (novel transformative work from protected materials), and the new precedents have to account for the fact that universities have been training via "piracy" for ages.

(The magic of money factors in to the extent that they can afford the lawyers to remind the court that this isn't settled law yet).

[1718627440]

The movie industry also has some money and lobbying power. Surely this is a way larger threat than any single torrenter could ever be?

[jdiff]

The fact that this is propping up the entire AI industry adds additional weight. When legislating or deciding court cases, some won't be willing to pop the cash cow, some will be worried about falling behind countries that don't enforce copyright evenly. IP owners are trying to go after the AI industry, with only mixed to poor success.

[verzali]

Hard to justify that they can't afford to pay when they have multi-billion dollar valuations and are apparently paying hundreds of millions to get a single engineer.

[jdiff]

Maybe. But we are talking about the whole of copyrighted creative works created and sold by humanity. That'll get expensive no matter who you are.

[anon191928]

court judges agree to this