If you use filesharing software, watch out!

[Life Sucks]

My roommate told me today that the RIAA (record industry) will be going on filesharing programs and scanning people's hard drives and cracking down on those who have very many mps3. The people that have the most mp3s will be in trouble and have to pay large fines. Filesharing software companies have been sued by the RIAA before, but this is the first time they will be going after individuals. I have about 3000 mp3s on my hard drive and I am getting kind of worried. This fucking sucks.

 

[Sonnenritter]

If you don't share the files, there's nothing to really worry about.

 

[Eating Your Skull]

Ha, with most of the mp3s I have, the RIAA have probably never even heard of the bands.

 

[Thanatos]

OMG *formats HD and burns his computer*

 

[Life Sucks]

Ha, with most of the mp3s I have, the RIAA have probably never even heard of the bands.

Same here, but I don't even think it matters if they heard of the bands or not. I think they are just looking for people who have large amounts of mp3s on their hard drives in general. The RIAA represents all record companies and the record industry as a whole.

 

[Disturbed4ntics]

File sharing programs, like Kazaa, are a fucking waste of time. Ancient. File sharing over P2P went down the drain when Napster went out. If you want whole albums, use FTP accounts, or DC++. These are also good for individual songs.

If you want well known whole albums, use mIRC. Not good for individual songs.

Well, sorry if I can't discuss warez at this board.

Anyway, I have heard about this, and I think they are serious. I am not really concerned though. I don't have that many albums or MP3's, even though I do have a cable connection. I would much rather purchase music. First, I check to see if I can download it somewhere, then I go out and buy if I can't. I don't download every other song in the world and add it to my playlist like most people. It's just not my thing.

 

[stormy]

that sux..

 

[Brood of Evil]

I think they are just looking for people who have large amounts of mp3s on their hard drives in general.

Scanning harddrives is as illegal as downloading mp3's, well actually I believe the penalty is much more severe because it can be catalogued as invasion of privacy and computer intrussion. Those types of filesharing programs often protect the identity of their users for exactly the same reason; to avoid some hacker wanabee try some hostile network attack or attempt to access someone's computer remotely. Plus, as far as I know, even if they find someone sharing music, they won't know the real identity of the user....Unless they decide to create some application of their own which shows the IP address of the user, etc. blah blah

And what about them looking for people with large amounts of mp3's in their HD? I mean it would be possible that those are ripped from Original CD's they've bought? They can't do anything against that. So boys and girls, In reality internet piracy will never stop, so whatever they try to do will be useless. Sure some might be caught, but that will not stop anything. Plus I think they're more busy promoting their boy bands and nu-metal bands at "EmptyV"

 

[Cyanide]

well if they really gonna do that, just put all your mp3s on CD-Rs and remove them from your HD...

 

[Voice of God]

If you don't share the files, there's nothing to really worry about.

Isn't this what they're trying to do? Scaring people to stop sharing. Anyway, I just read from BBC site that the scanning is done so that RIAA acts as a sharer and tracks down IP's that way, so I would guess if that you have to get something straight from them to get your IP caught, and I doubt they're sharing any underground metal. And AFAIK they can only check the files you're sharing, not your whole hard drive.

Don't trust me, I'm not 100% on that.

 

[xenophobe]

IF someome can download something from you p2p, they can get your IP address. If they have your IP address then can track you. It's that easy and simple.

If you have dynamic IPs, (like with dial up where you get a different one every time you log on) your ISP has a record of that.

If you think you have privacy on the internet, you do, to some extent, but when push comes to shove, you're NOT completely anonymous.

Personally, this kinda freaks me out, and the RIAA has been checking out ALL of the file sharing utilities and is taking notes...

Dunno if much is gonna happen, or if they're trying to scare people, but I guarantee some people will go to court in some very highly publicised cases. If the RIAA will win those cases or not, is yet to be known.

 

[Astral Poetry]

What if you just take all of the mp3s and mpegs you have out of your shared folder and into other folders; then can they still connect to you and check your HD, even if you aren't downloading anything?

 

[Brood of Evil]

What if you just take all of the mp3s and mpegs you have out of your shared folder and into other folders; then can they still connect to you and check your HD, even if you aren't downloading anything?

They won't be able to scan your HD, plus they can't do that, it's illegal. But they can do as Voice of God said, they can act as a sharer and when you try to download something from them they might be able to get your IP Address and track you down to your ISP. If they dig deep enough they might be able to get info on you by going throught your ISP's logs and find out which user account was connected with x IP at x time.

 

[Astral Poetry]

Those bastards. Well, looks like i'm only downloading from chosen people from now on.

 

[asphyXy]

i use soulseek, and i don't share unless someone asks for something, so i guess i'm safe.

 

[rahvin]

do you have any idea of how many users connect to the net each day?
do you have any idea of how long it takes to file an international lawsuit against each user you've caught sharing?
do you have any idea of the costs of such an operation and the refunds for all those who are eventually found innocent?

obviously not, if you think riaa or any other surveillance authority can just come down on private users sharing files for free, and thinks it's worth the effort.
what they will try to do is find those who:
- have sites with ads about their file-sharing acitivites or links to downloaders/enquers;
- sell on the black market downloaded records;
- host a server for file-sharers.

in the meantime, they try and scare away normal people by making the ignorant press believe they're about to catch every single one of the millions of people who connect to p2p each day. rather clever on their part, judging from the way you react.

rahvin.

 

[Board]

I have 2256 mp3's, but 1758 of them I have mp3'ed from my own vinyl records (and a couple of cd's) and 97 of them I have mp3'ed from cd's I've borrowed at the library or borrowed from a guy I went to school with, and as far as I know that's not illegal, leaving 400 mp3's that I've downloaded (or got from my brother). I shouldn't be afraid when I mostly mp3 my own records (promised a friend and my brother to do so)? As far as I know it's not illegal to copy analogue to digital and sharing it or am I wrong? I'm not sharing any of my mp3's at Kazaa by the way.
I don't know if I should believe Brood of Evil or Xenophobe though, as I'm not too much into mp3 stuff. Hey Xenophobe, where did you find that pic in you sig? I tried to right-click on it and save it, but it just saves the starting image and not the whole animation.

 

[xenophobe]

I'm not really afraid of being prosecuted, like Rahvin said, there's no way they can catch everyone... but I share over 100 gigs... and I guarantee that they're gonna take a few people down, just to make publicity to scare the general population.

The RIAA may be trying to scare people, but they HAVE visited the DC hubs. That much is certain.

@Board, if you can save it by right clicking, you have the whole animation unless it saves it as a bmp, but Image programs like XP's Window and Fax Viewer, Photoshop and PSP won't show it as an animated pic... open it with Internet Exploder or Netscrape...

here's the corrected link for that image:

http://home.comcast.net/~bartelt1508/SMOKING.GIF

 

[Black Dragon]

They can suck my ass. They wouldn't even scare me if they showed up on my doorstep. For one, just having a ton of stuff in your shared folder doesn't mean squat. There is no law about ripping audio and setting it there. The guy downloading is supposedly breaking 100 laws. They want everyone to believe they are going to be this all seeing eye, and that we will all scratter like roaches being hit by light. If you arm yourself with knowledge then they will be more afraid of YOU than you should ever be of them. If it comes down to it, you can beat them if they want to sue you as the laws are now will protect you b/c you a private individual. Then you can turn around and nail them for malicious prosecution and get rich, then get richer by selling a book on how you did it.

They can come to me with a court summons, and I'll come to court with a hard copy of every fucking song that was in my shared folder....assholes. They seem a bit miffed that people may actually avoid buying shit now that they can adequately decide what they choose to buy.

 

[duckattack]

BD, once they see your arsenal and your pets, they'll run screaming down the street!