Happily none of this prevented COD4 from reaching the no.1 best seller slot but it is a potent example of the problem developers’ face in just one industry. Likewise, other major PC gaming studios, such as Epic and id Software, have expressed similar concerns.

Tracking Lawbreakers

To understand why some ISPs are so reluctant to adopt such a system we have to examine the 'existing' processes involved with identifying an illegal download. It begins with a company, usually a specialised law firm, which is hired by the industry (publishers etc.) to track any illegal public P2P downloads of their content.

This is possible because P2P software must publicise and communicate a tremendous amount of information between clients, including your connections IP (online identifier) address. Nearly all of this information is then pasted into the public domain and, using clever data analysis software, law firms are able to track and monitor the activity of each individual user:

Fig.2 - Example of how users are displayed in public when conducting a P2P download.

Piecing all of this data together allows such firms the ability to produce an exceptionally detailed report of your activity, such as what you’ve downloaded, for how long, how many others have downloaded it from you and whether the download completed etc.

From here it’s a simple matter of matching the IP and time to an ISP. The law firm must then gain a court order before it can submit a request for customer details to the ISP. Finally the customer is usually forced to either pay an inflated fine or risk being taken to court.