Chasing down and filing lawsuits against individuals for illegal file sharing has become one of the current strategies of pro-copyright companies in order to curtail piracy. However, this method is not that easy because in order to acquire personally identifying information, antipiracy companies need a judge to issue a subpoena that compels the ISP to hand over the info they needed.
Certain Porn Companies however had a different approach. For an instance, the website of Adult Copyright Company, a West Virginia-based company, tracks down those who illegally share porn films online. Identities of thousands of people were posted to the Internet this weekend alongside the names of the pornographic films they are accused of downloading (source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20017945-261.html).
Many people would not admit, but the reality is a lot of people really do watch porn. It would be very embarrassing to be identified as a porn downloader because first, you are illegally downloading a copyrighted material; and second because its porn! Not too many people would have an at least neutral reaction when it comes to the issue of porn. Worse, people might think you are a nymphomaniac, an exhibitionist or other negative sexual attributions.
Hence, I personally think that the “SHAME” approach was an effective and practical way of decreasing porn downloads. I say “decreasing” only and not completely eradicating it because some people might just not mind if they are revealed as having downloaded porn. However, I don’t think this method would work in non-porn downloads because nowadays, I don’t think people would mind if their names are broadcasted as having illegally shared files. Such file sharing is very rampant and seem normal to a majority of internet users. Hence, pro-copyright firms might just really have to think of other creative and more practical ways of going after unauthorized downloaders.
---Gen S. (12)
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