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addresses of the tracker server and the appellant’s seeder computer, as well as
information regarding the files to be downloaded.
25.
In addition, it was found that the appellant had used the camera
seized on the raid to take digital pictures of film-poster like images
corresponding to the pictures on the seized VCDs and had copied those images
onto his computer. He had sent them as images embedded in e-mails to the
newsgroups to advertise the availability of the films.
26.
The seeder computer must then be connected to the tracker server
which, after examining the files being made available, registers the connected
computer as the initial seeder for those files. A downloader wishing to obtain
the relevant files would then be able to connect with the tracker server which
would direct him to the seeder’s computer, enabling copies of the target files to
be downloaded.
In the present case, it was found that the appellant had
established a connection with a tracker server referred to as “sml.dyndns.org”.
27.
When the first person wishing to obtain the target files (call him
A) activates a .torrent file (usually downloaded from a newsgroup) this
connects him with the tracker server which directs him to the seeder computer.
On being accessed, the seeder computer transmits the desired files to A’s
computer. In so doing, the seeder’s own electronic copy of the film remains on
his computer’s hard disk. What is transmitted is an electronic reproduction of
that copy, generated by the appellant’s computer in the form of discrete packets
of digital information designed to be transmitted to and re-assembled by
downloading computers in the correct sequence so as to constitute (in the
present case) an entire viewable copy of the film.
28.
If, in the course of this transmission process, a second downloader,
“B”, joins in to download the files, the seeder computer transmits digital
packets simultaneously to both A and B. To speed things up, the software