IP Address "not a person", rules judge(s)

Some interesting tidbits I stumbled upon. Newer, US-related article here and an older, UK one here.

A pair of juicy quotes:


Quote:




Baker concludes by saying that his Court is not supporting a “fishing expedition” for subscribers’ details if there is no evidence that it has jurisdiction over the defendants.





Quote:




All the IP address identifies is an internet connection, which is likely today to be a wireless home broadband router. All Media CAT's monitoring can identify is the person who has the contract with their ISP to have internet access. Assuming a case in Media CAT's favour that the IP address is indeed linked to wholesale infringements of the copyright in question... Media CAT do not know who did it and know that they do not know who did it.




(Emphasis mine)

These seem like relatively harsh wordings, just short of outright calling these suits frivolous.

Also good to note that the courts seem to be waking up to the electronic reality and won't be fooled by nonsensical babble.

On a side note: That both these are related to pornography should be no surprise. Like the advent and spread of VHS and DVDs, it is after all an embarassing fact that the Internet Is For Porn. |||Hehehe I saw this today in a Rage Comic.

It's great for us denizens of the Interwebz, but I don't know how great it REALLY is lol Personally, I'm of the mindset that I'll buy music if I can get it directly from the artist, but I don't like dropping $10+ on an album so music execs / apple / whomever can make a mint. I'll go see your show when you're in town and I'll bring some friends, how's that for support?