What I was implying is that a snapshot of the peers in a given torrent is not exactly hard evidence that each of those peers has a 100% downloaded copy of the files. For example, I remember that some torrent clients have a "super-seed" mode, where they appear as a normal peer with less than 100% completion. I know this sounds a bit like "the dog ate my homework" excuse but it sets a bad precedent of what constitutes an infringement - is it downloading a whole copy, uploading a whole copy, or just a part (unusable by itself) of the work?
Well, what's a worse precedent? Being technically innocent of infringement since you skipped a single bit on the end of a download or the court ignoring your intent? Intent has been the cornerstone of many copyright infringement defenses. It would seem a bad move to claim that intent is irrelevant at this point.
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What I was implying is that a snapshot of the peers in a given torrent is not exactly hard evidence that each of those peers has a 100% downloaded copy of the files. For example, I remember that some torrent clients have a "super-seed" mode, where they appear as a normal peer with less than 100% completion. I know this sounds a bit like "the dog ate my homework" excuse but it sets a bad precedent of what constitutes an infringement - is it downloading a whole copy, uploading a whole copy, or just a part (unusable by itself) of the work?
Well, what's a worse precedent? Being technically innocent of infringement since you skipped a single bit on the end of a download or the court ignoring your intent? Intent has been the cornerstone of many copyright infringement defenses. It would seem a bad move to claim that intent is irrelevant at this point.