This shows that there exists employees of anti-pirate companies who themselves pirate. This doesn't prove that, say, the head of these organisations-- who are the ones setting these policies and conversing with the media-- are the ones doing the pirating.
I can't be a surprise to anyone that people's moral compass doesn't consistently align with their employers.
But will one of the studios have the MPAA or some other org file lawsuits against that studio? So what if it was just a few low level people doing it - it happened with the studio's equipment. All of them were gung-ho to send threatening notices to university campuses when some students were pirating. Either their policies should be enforced across the board, or they lose any moral weight in this discussion (which, ftr, I think they lost ages ago).
Those nodes should be run by the studio that produced the movie in question, while this post is, as I understand it, about studio A downloading a movie that belongs to studio B.
As with the last time a similar story made the rounds, I'm surprised by the cognitive dissonance among those that would sympathize with pirates: when it's Joe Homeowner, an IP address does not identify a person!, but when we find an IP out of Warner Brothers's netblock, the studio "is caught". Let's be honest. In all likelihood, this is an employee sitting around after hours abusing the bandwidth, or a compromised machine, or something -- Warner Brothers very likely didn't have a meeting and say "let's pirate some films".
(This does not reflect upon my views re: piracy/copyright nor which side I'd claim to fall on, which might surprise you after reading this comment, it's merely something I've observed from the pro-piracy camp.)
It's not cognitive dissonance; it's a relevant distinction in the law.
Adults aren't responsible for the actions of other adults (generally, and with respect to piracy). So while an IP address can identify a group of adults, it can't ever identify which one was committing piracy.
But corporations are typically responsible for the actions of their employees, that is, they are vicariously liable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_liability. Under at least some circumstances, if a studio's employees are committing piracy, the studio is also liable for that piracy. As long as the IP address corresponds to that corporation, it's "close enough" to signal legal liability (under some circumstances).
I can try to explain it in a different way. Individuals are not and should not be expected to have ironclad control over their connections and monitor all users. If you see traffic from a residential IP you have no idea who initiated it. With a corporate network, on the other hand, 90% chance it was an employee doing it, which makes the corporation responsible. It doesn't matter how many layers of management were involved, and there's even a good chance that the pirate is a manager. I won't blame them if it turns out they got hacked, but I will call them incompetent. Corporations have dedicated IT departments to make sure that only authorized users get on the network.
tl;dr No cognitive dissonance: Corporations vet network users, 99% of homes don't.
Even you admit that it's not a 100% chance, which is my point -- we're using an IP address to identify the studio as the responsible party here, which we frown upon for home users.
You talk about the stuff that all defense attorneys do in the residential cases, then say for some reason a corporation should be better equipped to handle it. Which, maybe there's some relevancy to that, but still the root point is: we're using an IP address to identify a responsible party, which isn't a 100% science.
This also isn't a trial, it's a published article.
If you show me a residential environment that has a dedicated IT staff that only allows qualified people on the network, then you can assume one of the qualified people is responsible for the traffic. You still have to figure out which one because 'an IP address is not a person'.
I'm applying the same standards to either situation. The way a corporate network is configured (excluding cases of incompetence) gives you pretty solid evidence that AN employee was in violation. You still have no idea which employee, which is why an individual suit like in the residential cases would be highly unfounded. Same standard when it comes to that rule. The only difference is that you can go after a corporation as a cohesive group, whereas you cannot go after a household as a cohesive group.
Right, an IP isn't identifying. But these people want us to think it is when it's convenient for them so we MUST treat them like they treat others. Huge fine, life/company running big, and punishments involving never touching anything that uses electricity ever again.
Like torture, I wouldn't wish it on my enemies. But I do wish it on those who user it on others.
Besides, unlike everyone they've attacked they can make it stop whenever they want simply by admitting an IP address is not user identifying.
Legal distinctions may have no bearing on your ethical judgments, but they may for other people -- and an explanation of other people's ethical judgments is what you asked about.
Edit: I don't wanna get in an internet fight, dude.
Entity theory isn't pedantry. Knowing the difference between accusing a company and accusing an individual is quite important.
For a start, the company can be unequivocally identified, because they bought a block of IP addresses. The individual cannot, because the specific IP cannot identify an individual.
This isn't cognitive dissonance, and the massive distinction here is that a company is being held to account, not an employee.
I think the difference is when a person is charged, they're charged regardless of if 'they' did the downloading or not, because it's their Internet connection. Logic would dictate that Warner Brothers would be responsible for anyone using theirs to pirate. We won't, and I'm sure we agree, ever see that.
In fact, it's often argued any party to find this MUST sue infringing parties, for fear of otherwise losing their copyright. That magically seems a non-issue in these cases. It's not anyone else's cognitive dissonance about the morality of piracy or inferring Warner Brothers is any more guilty than an individual accused of the same. It's a sense of anger because they preach about responsibility and issue lawsuits under the guise of curbing illegal activity, while letting others off because...
Why do they let Warner Brother's off again? Oh yes, because they're also a giant media company on equal footing and their own lawyers and things like copyright protection, moral responsibility, and curbing piracy are all bullshit. And given I imagine they know that such cases happen, one has to assume they know it's bullshit. That's why people use "caught". They regularly say a litany of things, none of which seem true given what's actually happening.
Cognitive dissonance? I think those who claim that IP's aren't identity would still claim that with regards to Warner Brothers. It's just delightful schadenfreude that claiming that it is identity would now implicate Warner Brothers. You can still believe the first while thinking the second is humorous without any doublethink.
In case this doesn't reflect my views re:piracy/copyright; I think that it's ethically wrong but the greater crime is disproportionate lawsuits, inappropriate DMCA takedowns, and lobbying for laws that remove freedom of speech from the internet.
I agree with you to a degree on employee abuse, disregarding that corporations have policies in place regulating access to their networks, as well as monitoring for Internet use outside work-related activities. Perhaps these studios are incompetent in administration of their networks. The obvious problem is the futile efforts by the MPAA and the RIAA to "fight" piracy.
