Apparently Hollywood, or rather the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) have launched 100 copyright infringement suits to make an example out of a new U.S. film industry initiative that will target individual file-swappers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4018755.stm
The defendants are only described as operators of servers supporting BitTorrent and the MPAA will not let the cat out of the bag as to their identity. This means they could be targeting ANYONE - I know scores of people who use Bit Torrent on a day to day basis to download all manner of files.
This has got me thinking about PeerGuardian - the software that many torrent users use to mask their IP addresses from known MPAA / RIAA and media sources who snoop on download activity to instigate litigation. Peerguardian keeps a log of the known IP addresses 'sources' and much like a firewall, blocks any connection attempt.
Although the Blocked IP address list is meant to be updated regularly (the software searches for these updates periodically) when was the last time any of us actually had an update?? My last update must have been months ago - forcing an update just tells me that my list is already, erm, up-to-date. If the MPAA and RIAA (not that I have anything to hide!) is stepping up their game then you would have at least expected a significant update to counter the threat.
Which brings me to the question - to what extent can P2P downloaders rely on Peerguardian to protect them from any (either warranted or unwarranted) litigation?
Peerguardian is not 100% foolproof - use it if you will but keep a cautious mind when doing so.
Or better yet, avoid 'pirating' at all, they might just get you in the end.....
Peerguardian can be downloaded (free) from: http://www.methlabs.org/
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