Will H.R. 5211 allow copyright owners to violate the privacy of P2P users?
No. Nothing in the bill implicates the privacy of P2P users, and in fact, the bill may enhance privacy. A P2P user has no expectation of privacy in computer files that he has chosen to publicly download from, or distribute to, 100 million other P2P users. H.R. 5211 only allows copyright owners to view these files to the same extent as all other 150 million P2P users have such an ability, thus, the bill does not violate a P2P users privacy. Furthermore, H.R. 5211 does not give copyright owners any ability to determine who a P2P infringer is. Rather, a copyright owner, like every other P2P user, simply knows where – at which IP address – their copyrighted work is located. In fact, the types of technological self-help measures encouraged by H.R. 5211 will prove less invasive of privacy than the other option – lawsuits against individual infringers. The use of technological self-help measures only reveals the IP address of a file on a P2P network, but does not reveal the identity of the di
Related Questions
- Does H.R. 5211 require P2P users to suffer more than $250 in damages before they can sue a copyright owner for hacking, wrongfully stopping file-trading, or otherwise damaging their computers?
- Does this bill protect computer users against overzealous or unscrupulous copyright owners that might abuse the safe harbor the bill provides?
- Will H.R. 5211 allow copyright owners to bring down P2P networks?
