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Originally Posted by silent_jay
Is it not illegal to download copyrighted materials? Illegal doesn't necessarily mean a criminal offense has taken place, the matter could be handled with civil suit instead. Think HTA is speeding a criminal offense? Is speeding legal?
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It is illegal to download copyrighted material. Illegal does mean a crime was committed. My point is that criminal and civil offenses are two different things. In this case, it is quite black and white that the ISP customer is responsible for the action on his/her account, just like you say. Because of this they would lose in a civil suit, understandably(this would only involve a termination of the contract including server and possibly a civil suit to recover lost money). However, the insinuation that he is somehow at risk of suffering criminal penalty because you are responsible for the actions occurring on your open network is absurd. You could only suffer these if it could be proven that you were THE person who performed the illegal act; not the person having up a network upon which an illegal act was committed.