Filtering IP addresses on peer-to-peer (or P2P) networks is the dream weapon for heads of the music and film industries. They hope it will enable them to industrialize the process of identifying Internet users so as to hunt them down more effectively. The principle is very simple: instead of manually logging on to the network to observe the Internet users in action, they let an automatic tool take care of it. This tool then collects the IP addresses of a large number of Internet users active on the network (the IP address is the unique numeric identifier of computers with Internet access).
These addresses are automatically collected according to pre-determined criteria, e.g. the number of files made available by a file sharer or the presence of certain key words in file names. And, in comparison to humans, the robot can explore P2P networks, without taking breaks, to gather a large number of numeric addresses. It is then time to trace the owner of the computer hidden behind these addresses, and that’s where things get complicated. For only the access provider who allocated the address is able to put a name to this series of figures. And traditionally, access providers aren’t too keen on handing over their subscribers’ addresses - probably because P2P networks are one of the reasons their broadband offers sell so well! That being the case, they only agree to divulge their subscribers’ identities when legally obliged to do so, which is what the entertainment and record industries have tried to do.
Until recently in the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) could force Internet access providers to hand over their subscribers’ personal details by using a particularly controversial legal process: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). By releasing snooping robots onto the web (including FTP sites) and P2P networks, the RIAA obtained thousands of IP addresses and took out as many injunctions against American access providers. But the defiance shown by one of the providers (Verizon), and the ensuing legal battle, was a significant defeat for the RIAA. Verizon won the case and the appeal, and the Supreme Court then confirmed the appeal verdict, meaning that American Internet access providers are not obliged to comply with RIAA demands.
All of which is just as well because the RIAA robots weren’t up to much. They made countless ridiculous mistakes leading to unfounded accusations, such as the university researcher who had the misfortune to have a rapper for a namesake - the robot confused his personal directory on the university’s FTP server with a stock of the afore-mentioned rapper’s musical files.
Representatives of the entertainment and record industries in France too of course have tried to automatically collect IP addresses. At first they were successful: in the spring of 2005 the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) allowed SELL (a representative of games publishers) to automatically collect the addresses of Internet users who offered certain titles in order to send them a direct warning via the P2P messaging software. The CNIL had been assured that the addresses would not be kept and that the Internet user’s identity would not be revealed unless legal action was taken. Shortly after, other organizations followed suit and demanded the right to automatically collect addresses and send them to access providers so that the latter could contact the Internet user directly. This time the CNIL refused: only a judge, in the course of legal proceedings, may ask Internet access providers to connect an IP address to an individual.
But just because the automatic collection of information has been provisionally halted, it does not mean that downloading protected works is now allowed. At any rate, the representatives of the industries concerned intend to continue patrolling the networks manually and to bring cases in the traditional manner, as they have been doing for several years now. With the intention, of course, of prosecuting all offenders.
