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Authors Guild Asks Supreme Court to Hold Internet Providers Accountable for Copyright Theft
(authorsguild.org)
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
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The rights holder is seeding and records your IP address, then sends a C&D to your ISP, who then notify you about it.
I'm guessing it wouldn't be a valid legal argument, but I liked the thought experiment of claiming that it can't be piracy if the rights holder is intentionally publicly sharing the content. Like trying to charge trick-or-treaters for theft when they took candy out of the bowl you left out with a "Free!" sign attached.
usually, they don't actively seed, they are just part of the swarm, and request content from you. And if that content is part of e.g.their movie, they get you for distributing the movie.
There's no such thing as entrapment in the world of copyright, unfortunately.
That said, something kinda similar did happen in the Viacom v. YouTube case. It's been over a decade since I read it so forgive me, but I think YouTube discovered that Viacom themselves had been uploading bits of The Simpsons, and I believe sometimes processing them to look like amateur clips because they believed that the exposure helped them in the long run.
So, the one with the right to share the thing, is sharing it themselves.
I'd say that makes it the correct source to download. Even better than the DRM'd sources that says you only have limited access.
You can’t get more legal than obtaining content directly from the rights holder. It’s more likely that the rights holder is leeching and recording the IP of the seeders.