DEA and copyright case

I've no interest in downloads etc but have watched the various copyright cases with interest, right up to John Hunt's excellent report today.

Of equal interest is Judge Birss' questioning of using an IP address to identify a copyright owner, which he states will likely just identify a wireless home broadband router and that Media CAT therefore do not know who actually caused the alleged and infringement.

What happens if someone downloads via my BT FON router? Maybe it wouldn't be fast enough; but surely this is the classic example of BT customers allowing downloads without supervision or even knowledge of the content?

Not your responsibility! It is a well-known open network, that is not even your network.

Only the proven perpetrator of the download ban be sued for copyright violation.

Exactly my point. Yet I had the impression that people were being harrassed because they were the owner/operator of the IP in question. They may or may not have been the user and surely this case is all about proving it. It's the idea of proving your innocence that annoyed me about the whole thing.

What happens if someone downloads via my BT FON router?

It is tunnelled to a BT IP address and won't appear as you. Same with the Openzone hotspots.

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

people were being harrassed because they were the owner/operator of the IP in question

Yes, but now it has finally come to Court, the judge is saying that this is not sufficient to show that the IP "owners" are liable in any way. In fact the whole contention is flawed.