By David Kravets

A federal appeals court ruled that peer-to-peer file sharers can be prosecuted for distributing child pornography by having the illicit files in their open share folders.

That was the ruling by the nation’s largest federal appeals court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “Following the First, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, we hold that the evidence is sufficient to support a conviction for distribution,” a unanimous three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court ruled for the first time.

California defendant Max Budziak maintained that he believed he disabled the share folder in 2007, before the FBI detected child porn on his computer and downloaded it using the bureau’s “EP2P” program. Budziak was also prosecuted for possession, which he did not challenge on appeal.

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Source: Wired