MPAA Overzealous? Laser Printers Can't Get Away with Illegal File Sharing!

Anti-piracy campaigns have caused countless debates over what’s fair and what’s not in setting criteria for establishing rules on file sharing and finding who’s accountable for sharing copyrighted material.

A recent report from the University of Washington may provide the alleged offenders pursued by RIAA or MPAA the exact “weapons” to riposte. The researchers conducting the study were Michael Piatek, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Arvind Krishnamurthy. Their results may confirm that some of the organizations responsible with fighting illegal file sharing are bringing charges that they actually fabricate. Moreover, the researchers came up with a method to spoof traffic from certain IP addresses. After spoofing two printers on their network, the printers were sent DMCA notices from the MPAA for illegally sharing files such as Iron Man and the new Indiana Jones film.

According to the report "Copyright holders utilize inconclusive methods for identifying infringing BitTorrent users. We were able to generate hundreds of DMCA takedown notices for machines under our control at the University of Washington that were not downloading or sharing any content."

There is an established procedure here – takedown notices are used to report infringing material under the DMCA. ISPs receive these notices and then usually forward a warning to the suspect (identified from information provided by the copyright owner).

The report ultimately reveals the seriousness behind the matter and it will certainly have some echoes:
"Our results show that potentially any Internet user is at risk for receiving DMCA takedown notices today. Whether a false positive sent to a user that has never even used BitTorrent or a truly infringing user that relies on incomplete IP blacklists, there is currently no way for anyone to wholly avoid the risk of complaints."

To learn more about the report go at the University of Washington website.