Michael Geist has some further news on Canadians that will now be tracked down from their IP address and ISP so that any that downloaded a movie can be sued.
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Hurt Locker File Sharing Suits Come North: Federal Court Orders ISPs to Disclose Subscriber Info
File sharing lawsuits involving the movie the Hurt Locker have been big news in the United States for months as tens of thousands of lawsuits have been filed. It now appears that the lawsuits are coming to Canada as the Federal Court of Canada has paved the way for the identification of subscribers at Bell Canada, Cogeco, and Videotron who are alleged to have copied the movie.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/==========
As I pointed out previously, many people run `open access' NAT routers, which allow others to use the internet connection that belongs to someone else. These NAT routers assign private IP addresses, while the router itself runs on a public IP address that belongs to the ISP.
On your average street or apartment building, atleast one and sometimes a dozen open access points can be found and used by anyone that has wifi in their desktop or laptop/notebook computer. As I write this, I have a listing of 10 wifi routers, and two of them are wide open for anyone to use. Most schools and libraries in this area run open wifi too.
The lawyers will be making the money, and I hope that the judges in each instance of this applied law and the court cases, are educated on the basics of what wifi is, and how having a public IP address does not guarantee that the owner is using it for abusing copyright.
The legal beagles at BMG seem to be lacking in this knowledge, or are going along with it to sooth the customer, and make a profit at the same time.