Riaa To Sue Song Swappers?

[yxuz]

Originally posted by {I}{K}{E}@26 June 2003 - 17:53

5 Reasons Not To Be Afraid Of The Riaa

1) RIAA is an American organisation. They have absolutely no juristiction outside the USA.

2) Potential targets of the RIAA are only people who download and upload several GB per DAY.

3) Even if you are one of the few who download so much music, then Kazaa Lite has an option to hide your list of shared files. It will then look like you share nothing at all.

4) There are millions of people in the USA alone that participate in file-sharing. Everytime the RIAA is in the news, they have 'caught' only a handfull of people (only 0 to 5 people per month&#33. So your changes of getting 'caught' are less than 1 to a million. Or virtually 0 when one of the reasons above applies.

5) Those few people that got 'caught' usually only received a warning letter. There are only a few cases known of people who actually got a fine. The highest one was $7,500 for some student that was sharing 1 MILLION mp3 files.


Conclusion: happy filesharing to everybody

1) Proud not to be a US citizen
2) I believe there are quite a lot of freaks like this
3) Dont think this can help, cos they can still trace you by doing a search
4) So RIAA really catches ppl?
5) So RIAA really catches ppl and fine them

[RealitY]

Don't forget they have yet to nail a home user, the Verizon issue is the closest yet.

The 4 colledge kids were a little more severe in their actions sharing almost 2,500,000 songs, and yet did not even take a plea of guilt, though they setteled out of court for between $12,000 and $17,000 (keep in mind the total settlement was about $60,000 for sharing 2,500,000 songs, thats about 2.5 cents each) . One of them got enough donations to pay his fine and fowarded more donations to one of the other 4.

The rest have only got warning letters.

[Switeck]

Originally posted by REALITY@29 June 2003 - 01:05
The 4 colledge kids were a little more severe in their actions sharing almost 2,500,000 songs, and yet did not even take a plea of guilt, though they setteled out of court for between $12,000 and $17,000 (keep in mind the total settlement was about $60,000 for sharing 2,500,000 songs, thats about 2.5 cents each)  

Those 4 college kids were not sharing 2.5 million songs. The networks they were on were sharing 2.5 million songs.

But here's the catch: those networks were ONLY sharing INSIDE the network, not to the internet.
Plus, those networks, being colleges, were semi-private networks of sorts.

And lastly, a VAST majority of those shared files were being shared by OTHER people's hard drives who (inadvertently?) had WINDOWS sharing enabled -- NOT some specialized file-sharing program.

All the college kids were doing was also sharing their hard drive/s AND running a clever program (that they didn't even make) which would allow someone to search a network... just like GOOGLE searches the internet.

So I guess what RIAA is saying is GOOGLE is illegal and subversive because it can be used to find copyrighted content. (Just like communist China does...)

The dean of one of the colleges was mad as hell at the RIAA because they didn't inform him of what they were doing -- instead they showed up one day with blanket warrents and almost went door-to-door confiscating computers and detaining/arresting people. ... more or less on mere 'suspicion'.

RIAA's case against the students was only propelled by the clueless lawyers and media who attributed 'able to find 2.5 million songs' (that other people were sharing) with 'these 4 people were PIRATING 2.5 million songs'. Their case was VERY thin indeed -- and they dropped most of the charges and sought a settlement because a trial would've brought out more dirt than even the RIAA could bury.

Don't fall into the same trap of lies.

[mynamehere]

Just move your files from major label artists to a folder you aren't sharing, problem solved. And if you have over a few thousand songs you should delete some, not like you're creating a library.

[Messican]

Unfortuantely, this RIAA stuff has scared the crap out of me. I have taken off my KaZaA Lite, but will use it in about 2 months. 2 months is a long, long time! But I'm scared, therefore I have no choice.

[brotherdoobie]

Originally posted by {I}{K}{E}@26 June 2003 - 12:53


1) RIAA is an American organisation. They have absolutely no juristiction outside the USA.

Very well said IKE..........but the RIAA can contest jurisdiction as implied.
International copyright law.......


Dont worry be happy..........Keep on sharing.
It is realy nothing to worry about.


Peace brotherdoobie B)

[Switeck]

Originally posted by Messican@29 June 2003 - 22:52
Unfortuantely, this RIAA stuff has scared the crap out of me. I have taken off my KaZaA Lite, but will use it in about 2 months. 2 months is a long, long time! But I'm scared, therefore I have no choice. 

Don't be afraid of the boogymen!
Hunt them down and expose them. B)

Once you learn more about them, you'll learn that they have limitations to how they can scan us:
1.legal ones -- they can't just hack into your computer and use ANYTHING they gather in a court of law or it won't be YOU that goes to jail/gets sued/etc...
2.technological ones -- their tools have to work inside the confines of how fasttrack networks (and windows file sharing) works, they CAN be blocked (if their ip ranges are known) by firewalls capable of blocking all internet traffic from specific ip ranges (Peer Guardian has some limitations in that regard, but has improved immensely from its first incarnation.) In short, just because you've HAD stuff they might be looking for on KL++ doesn't mean they can SEE that now. If you do a complete reinstall and only search for legal stuff and share only legal stuff -- or rather stuff RIAA doesn't care about -- then you're pretty safe. (Just make sure what directories you are sharing on your hard dirve/s! This may make a decent legal defense, because inadvertently sharing files/directories is a common problem.)
3.psychological ones -- there are certain behaviors that although quasi-legal or totally legal that the RIAA probably won't do because it's either a blind spot due to their M.O. (method of business) or because they don't see it as cost-effective. This includes trying to track every p2p user. Instead they do spot/point checks and semi-random ip sweeps, because at the moment they don't seem to mind if 90+% of file sharers slip through their grasp. When they lock onto a particular file-sharer, they may rescan their shared files pretty often -- but expect that sharer to retain the same ip address. If you're rotating your files DAILY and jumping ips each day as well, you may not be safe but they may have a harder time connecting your temp ip with your actual name+location.

The more we know about them, the more they are forced to react to OUR moves than the other way around. Scanning the search engines (and USENET) for (accidentally?) cached listings of corporate memos from these businesses. Doing whois on 'strange' ips that connect to your computer. Finding every bit of press releases and messages the RIAA has sent to companies about how they will/are scanning for MP3 files would be helpful. Finding out what techology firms are 'business partners' with RIAA can quickly help us narrow down our search for their tracking devices/methods.

Remember that the big media (newspapers, tv news, online press) releases about how RIAA is going after MP3 file swappers is PUBLICITY as much or more than FACT. They want you to believe one thing... and not know the truth.