In general, the “Pedophile Argument” is much to blunt and primitive to be taken seriously. “Blunt” because it can be used against any form of freedom on the Internet. “Primitive” because it appeals to an emotional absolute: Would we not sacrifice anything, or everything, for the safety and welfare of children? Would we not do anything to catch and punish pedophiles? Does anyone dare argue for freedom for pedophiles to distribute abuse images and groom victims? No? Then it’s unanimous: Let’s shut down the Internet!

Remember, the ultimate system for preventing Internet related crimes, including pedophiles pandering in abuse images, would be what they have in North Korea: A heavily surveilled Net, separate from the messy Internet, available only to select users, with only government approved content. Technically, anyone arguing against the North Korean model can be accused of supporting pedophiles. And freedom of speech. And anything in between.

Freedom for you means freedom for everybody. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Everybody are suspect characters that get up to all sorts of nasty stuff.

I wonder if that might cause some changes in their attitudes?

- Unless you consider the Southern District of Florida to be one single neighborhood, It’s extremely unlikely that the IP address was in the neighborhood of the offices of Malibu Media.

- It’s extremely unlikely that the IP address belonged to a crack-house or “druggie-house”.

- Unlike with a crack-house, where the identity of both the owner, and many of the residents and visitors will be known, and which will have been observed from outside before any warrant is sought, the identity of this file sharer was unknown, and he had not been observed.

- Unlike in a crack-house, most inhabitants on the address of the IP address were probably not only innocent, but also unaware of the “illegal” activity — even if it was committed in the building.

- When dealing crack, it’s very difficult to use the front door of your neighbor two houses down without anyone noticing; when sharing files, it’s quite simple to use the Wi-Fi of the neighbor two houses down.

- Unlike movies, crack is illegal in itself, and the manufacturers and large scale distributors are higher priority targets than local dealers and users. Of course, if you honestly means that all those involved in the movie industry should be rounded up and handed decades long sentences for producing their filth, you’re a bit closer to being consistent.

- Absolutely correct: Without some observation of the alleged crack house, yielding some form of evidence that crack is actually being dealt, in the actual house, with the knowledge and consent of the inhabitants of the house, rather than in the neighboring house or by a passer by, you cannot get any search warrants, much less any arrest warrants. You’ll also be hard pressed to get a search warrant for an entire apartment block, or even a building containing two apartments.

Why is it that the MAFIAA and their trolls keep coming up with such sensationally lousy analogies?

That kind of says to me they already know the physical address where the infringement took place (or at least somewhere within wifi range of said address). So couldn’t they just send the “Pay up or else” letter to that address?

Of course a mailing address won’t really tell you who infringed any more than an IP address will, but it’d save them a lot of headache trying to go through the court system…