Since the RIAA first begain their campaign against illegal file sharing on P2P networks there has been intense debate over the methods used to figure out who's responsible for sharing copyrighted content. Now a a report frommay prove to be a powerful tool for those accused of such illicit behavior in fighting back against their accusers. The report, written by Michael Piatek, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Arvind Krishnamurthy and based on experiments conducted in August, 2007 and May of this year, shows that some of the agencies tasked with putting a stop to illegal file sharing are making accusations that are simply false.

The report saysTakedown notices are the official mechanism used to report infringing content under the. They're routinely sent to ISPs, who then typically send a warning of some kind to the individual they determine was responsible based on information supplied by the copyright holder.No doubt what will attract the most attention, and is certainly the most amusing aspect of the paper, is that 3 laser printers and a wireless access point were the targets of a combined 13 takedown notices. In each case, as well as 5 more where a desktop computer was alleged to have illegally shared files, it was due to intentional misdirection on the part of researchers who wroteDespite the report's somewhat humourous point of view, in the end there's not much to laugh about. The researchers concludedFinally Piatek, Kohno, and Krishnamurthy cautionedThey urged enforcement agencies to adopt ato avoid the problems described in the paper, but note that it would be significantly more difficult than the way these operations are handled right now.You can find more information about report at the