What if the original owner of a file decides to sell it. Now the buyer decides to upload to a file sharing site. Who would get penalized for the upload? The seller of the orignal that has done nothing wrong?

How would you distinguish between the seller of the file, who did nothing wrong, and buyer who uploaded the file?

I'm personally only targeting members of file sharing sites, although as I'm finding out, some of these same individuals are involved in assorted other scams involving creators.

The whole story is just now starting to come out. Might make an interesting ebook!

- entity

Agree with edh. You have no real way to check if the book was pirated by the original owner, or a borrower or buyer or a thief.

By the way using the IP addresses to check is waaaaaaaaaay wrong. I hope you're not using that method to "identify" people. And I'm pretty sure most people don't use the same email on those sites. Would be interesting to know how you "identify" those people accurately...

Interesting that you would think that I use IP addresses to track members of file sharing sites. What gave you that idea?

- entity

Your post above wrote - "Interesting that you would think that I use IP addresses to track members of file sharing sites. What gave you that idea?"

Do you want me to list out all the possible ways of tracking someone through torrents? Or maybe you want me to provide you a Google link for that? The most dummy method is to use the IP address. DUH? I've used that method 8 years ago. It's not as effective now.

I didn't post in the Osterlind thread. In this thread I have never said that I use IP addresses to track members of file sharing sites.

No, Li sheng. I don't think I want your help with this, but thanks for the information.

T. Baxter

Using IP addresses to trace is flawed because -
1. Home and work connections are usually placed behind routers nowadays, unlike half a decade ago. Tracing to the IP address may lead you to a residential gateway, which is in no way specific of an individual. Multiple people behind the residential gateway may be accessing the forum under different IDs.

2. IP addresses are dynamic in the homes of many countries. They stay leased to a certain ethernet adapter for a certain period of time, usually 24 - 48 hours. The IP addresses are then rotated amongst different households under the same ISP. Tracing an IP to wrong individuals is highly likely.

3. The only ways to find IP addresses in a torrent are either to access the tracker or to be a leech / seed / peer. While doing that, you're essentially sharing as well. If it's another person's file, you're equally morally wrong, no matter how you debate about ethics. If it's your own file, you can't complain that more people will have it in future because you played a part in sharing it anyway.

Just my 2 cents about the IP address.
There are many tricks that you can use in order to change it on the fly.
You can appear with an London IP adress and few seconds after with Sidney IP adress,
so you cannot proof anything with the IP adress.
As I already said in some post ago, the only method to reduce the file sharing is to intimidate the customers saying that inside the pdf there are the info that you need to identify them. This method is already used by: http://www.magicshop.co.uk.
With this method, if someone share your pdf, you have just to download it and see who started to share it, so you can start a legal action.

MP

MP:

...and if the original purchaser of your coded ebook has given the ebook away or sold it to someone else, how do you determine who placed it on the file sharing (stealing) site?

T. Baxter

I identify the orginal purchaser... You warn the original one to avoid to share or to give it away. The original one has made a mistake to share your pdf.

However this is a lost war from the outset. You cannot stop the hacker and filesharing there is always someone will hack any protection system. :-(

Just my opinion.

MP

For the record, I would not rely on ip addresses to track membership in file-sharing/torrent sites. While it might be an indicator, there are other, more sure-fire ways to determine the information.


- entity

You see that it's impossible to stop people from lending or selling ebooks or hard cover books, or to keep them off the sharing sites. I agree.

So my answer is to find out definitively who the members of sharing sites are and to be careful about selling to those people; and to warn other creators about those who are members of file-sharing sites so that they can decide for themselves what to do.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Surprised that some people find a problem with that.

T. Baxter