Owners versus thieves… Information sharers versus greedy capitalists… Network managers versus bandwidth hogs, security viperpits and legal quicksand. No matter how you frame it, the fallout from peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing battles will hit us all.

[Download IFPI Digital File Check]

Viewed from the perspective of email admins, a small relief is in the offing: eDonkey and LimeWire are going straight. Previous experience indicates that legit ops create less network havoc. Of course, users have plenty of other options: Ares, BitTorrent, FrostWire, and a host of corruptions, many with outright evil intent.

Even the most anal overseer may innocently wind up on the court docket for theft. So how to respond?

Start by checking in at Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. There you can bone up on your First Amendment and intellectual property rights, as well as legal analyses of cease-and-desist letters collected by other defendants.

If you’re a Service Provider, you probably qualify for Safe Harbor Protection. To qualify, you can’t know about or make money from the theft(s). Subscribers must have ready access to both your copyright policies and your copyright complaint person. Immediate documentation of removal is usually enough to get the dogs off your back. Same goes for other ops that display similar due diligence and response. Chilling Effects provides a handy response form for DMCA compliance (Digital Millenium Copyright Act).

Parents make easier targets, as they often have assets, uncontrollable teens, and little legal knowledge. Here’s what sometimes works in court:

College kids and other young perps may want to try the “My roommate did it” or the “I’m-a-kid-and-I’m-broke-lemmego-lemmego-lemmego” defense.

Just don’t expect to get off without spending some money. The attack dogs for the copyright owners are well-heeled, battle-hardened collection agencies. Once they’ve started the paperwork, they intend to get paid.

In the end, your best defense is avoidance. To that end, The IFPI… that’s International Federation of the Phonographic (not Pornographic) Industry offers a free sanitizer, Digital File Check. Security and legal types may also want to slog through Copyright and Security Guide for Companies… Or is that too prudent?

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