IPs are not People and Money is free speech

Some good news for those fear mass lawsuits by media companies. A New York Judge has ruled that an IP-address is not sufficient evidence to identify a copyright infringer. Since an IP does not collate to a person but to an account. While the account has an owner it is not possible to tell if the owner was using the account at the time any copyright infringement happened.

As the article puts it: "The problem, however, is that the person listed as the account holder is often not the person who downloaded the infringing material. Or put differently; an IP-address is not a person".

This should take some of the steam out of massive lawsuits against copyright breakers. Mainly those that illegal download movies, tv shows, games, music, etc on-line. By no means will this stop the legal action against down-loaders. Even with the Judge reported to have said in his  recommendation that: 

"[M]ass-BitTorrent lawsuits a “waste of judicial resources.” For a variety of reasons he recommends other judges to reject similar cases in the future."

A lot of this is by-product of an industry that simply did not or could keep with the changes in technology. Rather than make it simple to download music or other media many of these companies have overlooked or at lest did not make much of a serious effort to embrace new technology. Many have stood by their guns and kept to the old media models as their users moved more and more away from that very model. 

It is all very silly and a waste of everyones time. A good article on this topic can be found here. No need to rehash it since it makes a lot of the same points that I was going to.

Citizens United has brought out a lot of passions. It legal allows for  corporations and unions to spend unlimited money on political campaigns via their own political groups (PACs, Friends of ___  and the such).

The simple fact is that Money has been equated to freedom of speech in America. Buckley v. Valeo is often cited as the landmark case as it stated that money is free speech and that candidates can give unlimited amounts of money to their own campaigns. Since that ruling in 1976 courts have upheld the idea that money is a from a free speech. All people (citizens at lest) in America  have freedom of speech and spending your money is freedom of speech. 

So if I want to spend my own money on an ad that says I think that the mayor of my town is jerk then I have that right.

But Citizens United allows for corporations to do what only people could do in years past.  

Well corporations are people and that was been a legal fact for quite some time. Justice Marshall explicitly stated as much back in 1823 in Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts v. Town of Pawlet:

"The great object of an incorporation is to bestow the character and properties of individuality on a collective and changing body of men."

One can many more ruling relating to corporations being people across the American legal landscape. The idea of corporations having some of the same rights as people is nothing new nor should it be viewed as something unexpected.

Why should it not be unexpected it makes the legal life of corporation a lot simpler since they can sue another person and make legal contracts just as if they where a human. In fact had it been for the past 200 odd years of legal rulings on the matter they would be no lawsuits against the downloaders of today. 

Getting back to my title, which is my point, IPs are not People and Money is free speech. 

We have entered an odd world legally speaking. In this world what is and is not a person or what can and cannot be directly linked to another person it proving to be quite a tricky thing legally. 

Here is fun thought can an IP address, no name no other means of contact, send unlimited money to a political campaign. 

Yeah okay that may not be as fun as I thought but still it may very well come up one day in a court.

We have reached a nice point in history our technology has changed everything from the top the bottom. Wiki Leaks means that cases like New York Times Co. v. United States (the Pentagon Papers) will no longer happen. Short of completely shutting down the Internet suppressing information is no longer possible. Trying to control it is costly and often high infective.

As this is happening in America we are seeing the old media becoming untied under a few corporate banners. Also other groups are using their new found freedom of speech to flood the old media with their political message. Clouding it up they are attacking those that freely sent out their content over the Internet. 

The American legal system nor is political system is really ready for this. Attacks, information, and well to be frank truth comes from the Internet via a nameless IP. Now the old media may very well try to hide but for those that wish to look with ease they can find the information. Furthermore is legally difficult to track back the to person that uploaded the information also once something is out there countless sources can host and reproduce the information. Making it costly and nearly impossible to stop the spread of the information.

It is a brave new world that we are a part of. Censorship is no longer an easy affair. Propaganda is losing its effectiveness. Even with all the money the Internet allows for any voice to heard. As the old world is being bought up and craved up among a few corporations. They true power is vested in fading world. A world thats day to day impact on the lives of people grows less and less.