Quote - is it true that copyright holders can use bitTorrent somehow to get the IP addresses of folks who are uploading files? or maybe they can get the IP addresses of folks who are downloading files? I don't use bittorrent or any P2P software, so I dunno how they work. I just read in the papers about how college students are getting letters demanding that they pay the copyright holders or face court action, so they may be able to get their info without the formality of a subpoena.

What is happening there is the RIAA is trying to browbeat the colleges into turning over their tracelogs so they can snoop and sift until they find what they assume is pirating. About as ethical as whoring your 5 year old on the street corner, and while some colleges are cowering in fear of the bad ol Media, many are telling the RIAA to go forth and multiply with itself; they have no legal reason to do so unless there =is= a court ordered subpoena involved (one university basically told them to get lost; that they had a rotating IP scheme, so IP addresses changed at every power up, and that they dumped the logs after 30 days storage. And that it wasn't their job to keep those records any longer. They even sent the RIAA a bill for the time their IT staff wasted on this nonsense....). Why -someomne- hasn't hauled the recording industry into court on RICO is beyond me....