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An industry security expert pointed out recently that:

“Many computers can be connected to the Internet with identical IP addresses as long as they remain behind control points such as routers, firewalls, proxy servers, or similar technologies.”

This might not surprise many people, but certainly it detracts from what may have been viewed as ’scare mongering’ by the RIAA in their recent “sue’em all” campaign.

The RIAA’s recent attempts in cases such as the one where the former employer of a suspected file sharer was asked to try and identify everyone that had used his computer in the previous 3 years have been laughable. Unfortunately, though, they’re certainly not to be laughed at since many P2P file sharers and P2P file sharing groups have been subject to what might be tantamount to harassment from them.

A recent highlight was Capitol v Foster, where the RIAA lawyers’ motives were described as ‘questionable’ and the RIAA ordered to pay costs to the defendant. But this is a small victory in what has been a determined onslaught from the RIAA and the ‘big 4′ cartel of music companies.

Recently brought to court is Arista v Does 1-11, where the RIAA is trying to subpoena the names of 11 University Students accused of copyright infringement. The students are arguing that the RIAA’s assumptions that IP addresses are the a means of unique identification are invalid and false. A 15 page expert witness report, submitted by security expert Jayson E Street, attacks the RIAA’s premise that IP address can be used to identify individuals, and calls the assertion “factually erroneous” and “misleading”

The RIAA argues that “Users of P2P networks can be identified by their IP addresses because each computer or network device(such as a router) that connects to a P2P network must have a unique IP address within the internet to deliver files from one computer or network to another.”

Jayson responds to the above, along with many other ‘dubious’ statements made in the RIAA’s case against the student, stating that “In my opinion, the above statement is factually erroneous.”
The RIAA’s most important relied upon method of identifying what it considers to be people taking part in copyright infringement is being shown, slowly but surely, to be misleading and downright wrong. Proving that those individuals that the RIAA identifies are responsible is more difficult that it may have first thought.

Where will this end? Perhaps with another small victory for the file sharers. Who knows?

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