I think it is a non-problem, because the node is just a cache, just like an optic-fiber acts as a cache (you can actually compute the storage capacity of an optic-fiber of a given length using the bitrate and the speed of light). Owners of internet infrastructure (fiber&routers) are never sued for e.g. infringement of copyright, and infrastructure is exactly what an IPFS node is.
You need to understand WHY people sue others to be able to draw the correct conclusion.
There are reasons why infrastructures don't get sued, yet users who download illegal files very often get sent a warning from their ISP that they may cut them off and charge them with penalty.
If IPFS takes off the same way BitTorrent took off and a lot of people end up using IPFS to download illegal content, ISPs will do the same thing, not because each individual file is illegal, but because they look at the entire network as a whole and conclude that it was this network that caused the rise in pirating, which is technically true. Their goal would be to scare the users into NOT using the network altogether unless they know EXACTLY what they're doing. That's their playbook.
The reason people don't use torrents as much as they used to is because people are afraid of getting sued by their ISPs and content owners. They know it won't completely get rid of all BitTorrent pirates, but they DO know that it will lower the usage. And they will do the same for IPFS users if that's what it takes.
> but because they look at the entire network as a whole and conclude that it was this network that caused the rise in pirating, which is technically true.
But at the same time, ISPs were also profiting from the pirating (in fact, but this is beside the point, they were financially profiting, while the users were just getting movies).
In the case of IPFS, the ones running the infrastructure are not actually profiting directly from the distribution of content in their caches. I.e., the IPFS users are more "innocent" than ISPs in the BitTorrent case.
So if BigMedia wants to sue anybody, they should sue the ISPs, OR the people who placed data in the cache in the first place.
Finally, if this is all insurmountable, then there is still a solution. All users of IPFS transfer ownership of their harddrives (or parts thereof) to the IPFS foundation. That way, the users are not liable.
PS: With IPFS, users are at the same level as ISPs. So if users are getting sued, they can say "I'm an ISP, and I got my data from that ISP, sue them!"
This is why there has been a so-called "the great vertical integration" of the ISPs and content providers.
It's easy to understand if you take a look at what companies own or are owned by major ISP companies like Time Warner Cable, Comcast, etc.
Once you start digging deeper into how the Internet "actually" works, you quickly realize it's not as decentralized as we thought, and you become very pessimistic. But I do hope there's a solution for this, which is why I am a fan of people working on stuff like IPFS.
That said, if you really want to overthrow the current structure, you should really understand the history and why and how things work the way they do currently. Not just at a technical level but on economical level as well.
It's one of the reasons. Did I say it's the absolute singular reason behind all this?
Streaming services cost you money, and if you study microneconomics, humans are rational animals that always tend to move towards maximizing their gains, which is calculated by subtracting cost from benefit. And there are many factors involved here.
The ISP suing people problem causes people to decide between mental cost and financial cost.
If you know what you're doing and have an efficient workflow that doesn't cause you to have a lot of mental cost, then you may use torrents, but otherwise for most people the mental cost overweighs the financial cost, and that's why many people switched over.
Or it could be that owners of internet infrastructure are never sued because they have legal departments that can spend a lot of resources fighting back, keeping the copyright holders laywers busy (and draining resources) for a long time. On the other hand, end-users don't have legal departments, and probably don't have the resources to pay for a single lawyer for very long, and are much more likely to settle to make things go away, so it makes much more business sense to sue them.
The DMCA has explicit exceptions very clearly spelled out for service providers that do not store content and/or do not choose which content gets cached...
Perhaps nodes could seek only parts of files, a sub-set of the pieces that make up the full file, for the purpose of building reputation? It could offer some differentiation between users who are seeking the full file vs those that are just acting as a pipe.
