I always hear people getting caught for downloading music and stuff. So heres my questions. How exactly are they caught? How does the music companies know that your downloading illegally? I heard some where that as long as you don't "share" the stuff you download, its legal for you to download it, is that true?
from what i've read, downloading is technically illegal, but they get you for uploading, and only go after people who share several hundred files. if you're a small time uploader you more than likely will get a cease and desist threat or somethig along those lines. as far as i know, just downloading is safe so long as you don't share because a single download is a drop in a bucket. also, i believe there may be certain legalities that keep the riaa from trapping people by uploading files themselves, but i could be wrong.
Don't know about the U.S, but in Canada, thankfully we’re allowed to download but not upload….therefore I’m a leach, I usually just download then delete.
It's pretty easy to track down someone's ip. The Music or whatever company will hire a specialized company for tracking down user that are downloading copyrighted stuff. Then they will contact the ISP to reveal identity of those user, some ISP are *****, and will simply bent over. While some ISP have tougher stances on customer's privacy and refuse to identify the user. Then the music company will go to court to ask a judge to order the ISP to hand over the list of user with the specific ip. Once your caught, they will most likely ask you for compensation ($$$) or else they will see you in court. legal or illegal to download/upload is really ambiguous. I gotta say it really depends how the judge rule. For example, someone could have hack into my pc and download/uploaded copyrighted stuff, or I accidentally clicked on a link and it auto download. And personally, I don't think everyone know what they are doing online is legal or illegal and that those company should held some sort of responsibility too. Is watching and listening to copyrighted stuff on youtube legal? Luckily I live in canada, and I don't need to worry about anything until some company caught someone and went to court and WIN.
I do work in this area so I can add my experience. Some companies go after the first uploader of a copyrighted work and nail them for everything they own. This was held up in court so big movie companies are doing this for movie downloads. RIAA uses outside help and puts out fake MP3's that are laced with a tracker to find out who downloaded it. Some movie companies do this to. As far as the legalities, uploading is illegal, but downloading is still a gray area. Doesn't really matter since ever person out there who has been sued for downloading has settled with RIAA. No one has fought the issue in court yet, so there is no legal determination on whether it is illegal. There are so many other ways to stop downloads or uploads that its pointless to sue. I've shutdown a number of websites that violate copyright laws for my company's products (not music or movies, so don't worry) just by notifying their webhost that they violated the terms of use.
I didn't think downloading could be proven because if you own that material you are free to download it. Meaning if you buy a CD you have the rights to download it online. So if you got a letter in the mail you could probably send your buddy out to Best Buy, buy all the CDs you downloaded, and be safe. Throw away the receipts, they can't prove when you bought them.
I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents here. About four months ago, I got "caught" by NBC, torrenting episodes of "The Office". Now, just to put this in context, I never pirate music, movies, or software. The only thing I ever downloaded was TV shows. For the most part, it was just "The Office", and "Hell's Kitchen". I've been doing that for years, and never had a problem. Always used bittorrent, typically through mininova. A few months ago, I downloaded the last 3 episodes of "The Office", season 3. About a week later, I got an email from NBC's lawyers (through my ISP) that I was caught sharing 2 of the 3 episodes, and I was required to fill out some form saying that I'd deleted the episodes and wouldn't do it again. The email had some technical details about the torrent I was using, my IP address, etc. and it all checked out as legit. They included some legalese about cease/desist and future actions if I don't. Seemed to be a bit much for a few TV shows, but whatever . . . So basically, now if they "catch me" again, they will sue me. As a result, I've just said "the hell with it", and I'm downloading from iTunes.
Are you sure about that? Under the DMCA, you're free to make a backup copy of your CD. But I haven't read it to say that you have a "right" to download a song off an otherwise illegal service because you own the physical CD.
the # of people that download songs illegally is ridiculous, so I doubt downloading is totally going to be stopped(I do see a lot of people getting scared because of the recent suing and deciding to stop). They are going after the uploaders, the people that upload tons of songs illegally, that's the biggest fish. However, there is a much safer way to download songs, it uses upload sites like rapidshare. There are countless ways to get music that IMO it's just not practical to hunt everyone down and stop it. You could get songs off of youtube, just extract the sound from its music videos, record songs on the radio online etc.
I download TV shows too when I want to catch up with the episodes I missed, and I hardly ever check my ISP email account since it's filled with junk mails, and I use gmail as my main email account. what if my ISP has already sent me an cease & desist email long time ago and I already trashed it without knowing it? will I be in any trouble?
newsgroups! its the only way to go. well, RIAA just started goin after the usenet companies so don't know how long they will last. But newsgroups have been around foreverrr.
Fishes protect themselves from sharks by swimming in large schools. Torrents are growing immensely in popularity. The larger the # of seeds, the less likely lawyers are going to litigate each and every one of the seeders.
So what's the ruling on uploading R2K's vids? I don't think the NBA is gonna go after that.. would they? You think the Rockets would go after R2K? I sure hope not! That would be a real bad idea on their part if they try to ban that too.
