Original Article: European Court Decides FileSharers Should Stay Anonymous | TorrentFreak Source: Digg
This assumes that it was actually them downloaded the copyrighted material... and not just someone else using there connection (or you host a proxy server / tor node etc etc). The only 'evidence' which they can use to claim you did anything wrong is an IP address, which only doesn't prove who did what only where happened (and even the physical location of where changes with ISP's who hand out addresses dynamically). I'm not saying something shouldn't be done about it, I'm saying i don't see what can be done about it while preserving privacy (without privacy you don not have freedom of speech, perhaps one of our most valuable rights). Distributing CD's and DVD's is a failing business model, the general public know that they can download it for next to nothing... and i assume they wonder why the physical copies are so expensive! The only 'solution' to piracy that i can see is cheap, DRM free music... with an interface that makes it easy to get, and FAST... it could uses P2P tech to distribute files with the content servers you would normally download from acting as seeds (and even offer people discounts for being a seed / when they have uploaded XYZ MB's of data). I have seen how most people download music (they search for individual tracks with limewire/frostwire) and i really think that if they were offered at a low enough cost they would prefer it (as it would be legal, and done right faster too) if your selling to the entire world with very low distribution costs, how much do you need to charge per track to make a profit?
And IP address is a start, if activity keeps popping up at a certain IP, then something should be done. On the drm free thing, Amazon officially opened its service, and it works pretty cleanly, i like it.
