Why I Argue Against Anti-Pirate Legislation in Four Screenshots

While I’m clearly not a fan of piracy (even though I understand it sometimes), I can usually be found rooting against anti-piracy legislation.

In two screenshots, here’s why:

Even if you didn’t believe that I did not download any of the torrents claimed in the first screenshot, it’s strange that only a few minutes passed before it claimed something completely different. All that changed was that I power-cycled my router… something that I have scheduled to happen once a day. That was enough to change the dynamically assigned IP address – which is what the big media companies have used to go after people in the past. This isn’t even a case of someone cracking my wifi – still possible, even with WPA encryption – but just normal cycling.

To make things more complicated, let me show you two more…

Not only did the “found piracy” bits change, but the location changed dramatically. (Welcome to the world of VPNs and proxies.)

Considering that I’ve been falsely accused of piracy once before by an ISP, this is something I’m kind of exquisitely touchy about. Sure, you can try to backtrack time and date stamps to figure out what account was connected to what IP address and when… but that’s not something the RIAA or MPAA (or any of their hired thugs) routinely bother doing.  The screenshots are from webservice “ScanEye“.  ScanEye does not work with the RIAA or MPAA – but both organizations (and the companies they’ve hired) use similar practices.

In the USA, there’s supposed to be a presumption of innocence until proven guilty – and it’s all too easy to look guilty (and be treated as if you’re guilty) without being guilty.

Try looking at ScanEye yourself, and see what it has to say.  You might be unpleasantly surprised.