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OK, I'm not really going to jail but I feel I'm getting close. My roommate and I share a computer and split the DSL bill. Last night we had a huge argument over whether we should uninstall Kazaa-Lite from our computer.
I told him that lots of people are getting prosecuted for sharing MP3s but he responded by saying that it is ok as long as we only download and does not distribute. In anger, I uninstalled Kazaa-lite from our computer and erased all of the MP3 files he has ever downloaded.
Needless to say, we are not really on speaking terms right now. Does anyone know what the current state of the law is regarding downloading (but not sharing) MP3 files? My roommate concedes that it is illegal but he believes no one has ever been prosecuted for merely downloading. Why would 3.5 million users still log into Kazaa if it were dangerous, he argued. Help me scare this boy straight!
[ January 10, 2004, 11:43 AM: Message edited by: Beren One Hand ]
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Well, all I know is that there are tons of people getting prosecuted and fined thousands of dollars every week for downloading free music. People with cable modems, or internets that are constantly online are especially at risk because whoever is looking for you can find you a lot easier. I am currently doing what you guys are doing except with Imesh. One of my computer tech friends suggested paying a small fee every time you download, and maybe split the cost between you two. I think it would be better to pay a little bit of money legally than illegally getting free music and then having to pay thousands of dollars if you get caught! And as far as i remember it doesnt matter that you do not share, you are still downloading illegally free music. Good Luck though!
Posts: 53 | Registered: Jan 2004
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As a friend of mine tried to explain it to me, the act that would be illegal is shareing or uploading the files because that would be distributing copy righted materials without the permission of the copyright holder, but downloading them would technically legal in the same way it is legal to listen to the songs on the radio without any special permission. I still think that sounds pretty fishy, and I really doubt anyone would get by with the clame that they thought everyone they downloaded from had the express permission from the copyright holders to distrbute their material.
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Right now people are only getting prosecuted for sharing, not for downloading, and the chances are rather greater that you will be in a car wreck and struck by lightning on the same day.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Wow, I would have been unbelievably pissed if someone had erased all of my mp3s when I had them. Legal or not, a lot of time and effort goes into building a collection, and it's often hard to remember what all you had when you try to rebuild it.
It's like.... you didn't like that he was going over the speed limit when he drove the shared car, so you slashed the tires and broke all the windows.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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I semi-agree with Mr. Berg, but what I said is still true. The risks aren't very high at all of being sued by the RIAA, and you're rather more likely to lose your life savings or your life in numerous other ways.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Of course file shareing also carries the added bonus of putting you at a higher risk for lots of computer viruses. (At least four different viruses infected my old computer back when I shared files on Kazaa, and one of them completely wrecked my computer and caused me to lose every file on it includeing the fairly large mp3 collection I had built)
Posts: 733 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Who's name is on the bill? If the RIAA storm troopers come knocking, that's who's going to have the lawsuit on their hands.
If it's your computer, I'd say you had every right to uninstall it and delete the files. I'd switch to another service for downloading movies if you really want to download music.
You might want to try either the newsgroups, IRC or earth station 5 to download your music.
Using Kazaa is just asking for trouble (either RIAA or some virus).
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Deleting the music seems pretty out of line, to me. I'm surprised your roommate hasn't fought you yet. Like Ayelar said, it takes a lot of time and devotion to build a decent music collection -- the least you could've done was burn it to CDs, then delete it from the hard drive.
You're overreacting by worrying, really. I don't think your IP can be traced by downloading -- uploading can endanger you, but even then it's a one in a couple hundred million shot. I'd apologize to this guy and see if there's any way for you to repair the damage done.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Well, your IP can be tracked by downloading, its just a lot harder to pin down some things that would give them a criminal or hefty civil case: amount of downloading, and you not having a copy of the CD, and such. In fact, I predict they never sue downloaders, or at least not ones they track down over the file sharing networks.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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You know, deleting the already downloaded files and uninstalling the program aren't necessary. All you've got to do is stop turning it on.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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I'd be so enraged if someone erased my mp3s. I have many of them. No. I would not take kindly to that at all.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:the least you could've done was burn it to CDs, then delete it from the hard drive.
Just for the record, it was my computer but we split the phone bill (the DSL line is under his name though). But I agree with you. I was out of line to erase things before giving him the chance to back up his collection. Luckily, I didn't delete the playlists. So I apologized and offered to buy him a new CD burner for his laptop so he can rebuild his collection.
I also offered to make a substantial investment into creating a decent iTunes library that we can both enjoy (we have similar tastes in music). My roommate didn't think this was such a great idea though. Apparently, not only does he not want to pay for his own music, he doesn't want me to pay for it either. He thinks it is not only his right, but his moral duty to download free music as an act of civil disobedience or something. Sheesh.... Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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You should tell him its only civil disobedience if he does it "in the face" of authorities. Suggest he submit a list of songs he's downloaded that he doesn't own the cds for to various authorities .
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Suggest he submit a list of songs he's downloaded that he doesn't own the cds for to various authorities
I would, except I'm probably going to be the person who bails him out of jail so we'll just call that plan "Z".
My roommate is a pretty moral guy and actually a bit of a musician himself. As someone who can play a couple of Eric Clapton and Jewel songs on his guitar, he believes he speaks for all musicians when he declared, "Music is for the people, we musicians do not need to get paid."
quote:It's like.... you didn't like that he was going over the speed limit when he drove the shared car, so you slashed the tires and broke all the windows.
Amazingly enough, that is the exact analogy my roommate gave me. I like to think of it as taking away the car keys when someone is driving drunk. (My roommate replied, quite amusingly, "yeah but the drunk gets his car back in the morning, my MP3s are gone FOREVER!!!!")
[ January 10, 2004, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: Beren One Hand ]
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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So far, no one -- AFAIK -- has ever been prosecuted for downloading. They've gone after the big sharers.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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If it was your computer, you were within your rights. Your actions were likely unnecessary, but there was nothing wrong with them.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Actually, Beren, his mp3's are not gone forever. And the car keys analogy is far more apt than the slashed tires one.
The primary reason being that he is not out any money. Slashed tires and smashed windows are incredibly expensive to replace, much like if you had actually taken a hundred CD's or so and set them ablaze.
Taking the keys away and driving the person home only puts the person out time. Sure, they have to find a way back to their car and bring it home again to regain possession, but it doesn't cost them anything - other than maybe cab fare or a parking ticket. Your roommate apparently has no problem downloading music - he's just angry that he'll have to spend the time to do it all again.
A more apt analogy would be that he had stolen a warehouse full of merchandise which you had the gall to empty out and return to its original owners. He's not out any money, just time to replace the stolen goods - at the same risk he was under taking them in the first place.
Just don't give him your truck to go on his theiving spree. Let him rebuild his collection on his own computer, on his own time, without getting you involved.
While your actions may have been rash, I don't think your intentions were wrong. Probably your best bet would have been to tell him something along the lines of: "If all your mp3's aren't off my computer by next friday, I'm deleting them all. You have a week to back them up, or they'll be gone." That way it wouldn't have wasted your time deleting, and he wouldn't have had an argument other than simple whining.
Let him be angry. It's not like he was downloading onto his computer anyway - it's yours. He was using your car to go speeding, not his own. You essentially told him he could no longer use your car and took your keys back. While hindsight could have made the situation go over a little more smoothly, your motives were justified.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I think you're right. Giving a reasonable ultimatum would have been the best way to go. I think I'll have to throw a couple of trivia pursuit games and make a few pizza runs in the next couple of weeks to patch things up. Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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You're friend is stupid, but right. No one has yet been convicted of downloading music, and it's very difficult to prove it was done, if possible at all. The thing that could get you into legal troubles is sharing it.
Your friend is stupid because Kazaa is not only one of the worst public file sharing networks, but public ones are stupid anyway. Morpheus is probably the best out of the big free public ones (IMHO) but I still think you'd be better off finding a nice community on IRC somewhere and getting them off of it. Much safer, both virus and legality wise.
PS. If you actually want to get those MP3's back, there are some pretty good memory retrieval programs around that you can download for free. You won't get it all back, but if you don't wait too long the majority of them will still be retrievable.
-Fooglmog Guy with no clue.
Posts: 37 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I don't considre it stealing, and even if you do, it's a victimless crime. The music industry is making more money now then at any other point in history, and it's continueing to grow at a rate limited only by the lack of new markets to expand into.
Personally I think downloading music "illegally" has helped the industry because it's essentially free advertising. Even if you don't agree with that, the evidense available leads to the conclusion that even if it hasn't actually helped the industry, it hasn't hindered them either.
-Fooglmog Guy with no clue.
Posts: 37 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Nobody will prosecute you for downloading the music, unless you downloaded from an RIAA computer. Only the person you are downloading from has your IP address, so they are the only ones who can find out who you are (actually, there was a court ruling saying that the RIAA can't force your ISP to say who you are, so you are safe). When you share files, anyone downloading from you has your IP address, and could, until recently, have your ISP tell them who you are. If you are going to download files, don't use kazaa, or any of the file sharing programs with spyware -most have it- I read about a new one that is supposed to make it very hard to track you, called MUTE
And here is an explanation of how the RIAA finds you, and how MUTE protects you.
Posts: 331 | Registered: Oct 2003
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The court ruling was that the RIAA couldn't get a service provider to reveal your identity without a lawsuit. The RIAA has indicated that this just means they're going to file lawsuits against everyone they would have "merely" subpoena'd about before.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I hate spyware. It keeps jumping onto my computer somehow and I can't take it much longer. Really, I don't see the problem with file sharing. To me it's no different than taking a cd out of the library and copying it, or recording a song on the radio.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Except you don't buy the CD to be shared, and usually, neither does the person you are getting it from, or the person they got it from, and so on. Of course it's victimless, unless you count the artists who now get screwed even more by companies who are no longer taking chances on newer material. Nope, no victims as long as you can't see it from your house.
Posts: 346 | Registered: Jan 2003
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It's a matter of scale, Syn. If I poked you in the arm, you probably wouldn't mind. If two or three people did, it's still not so bad. If twenty thousand people did, you'd probably get pretty ticked off and have a nasty bruise.
Saying "I can download an infinite amount of free music because I could always borrow from a friend or a library" and "Allowing thousands of people to copy this song is no different than just lending a CD to a friend" is kinda silly.
Borrowing from a library and copying the CD is still technically copyright infringement, I believe, just as it would be if you borrowed an OSC book from the library and made photocopies of the entire thing (or scanned it into your computer). Books say right in the front "No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means..." etc and so forth. CD's say similar.
Just because it's an easy crime to get away with doesn't mean it isn't a crime to begin with. Is it okay to go five mph over the limit? How about ten? Twenty? Forty? At what point does it become a crime? Is it okay to steal a nickel? A dime? A dollar? Ten dollars? A thousand?
While copying even one song is technically illegal, it's overlooked for the most part. It's when that copying becomes excessive in scale that attention is drawn and legal action taken.
It bothers me because people focus so much on the RIAA... what about copied DVDs? Scanned and copied roleplaying game books that are driving the industry under? The growing eBook market? Artwork? Video games? Programs?
The concept that "I can break the law because its a victimless crime" is stupid. Laws are there to establish a social order, and any violation eats at that order. If you're out for social upheaval and civil disobedience, don't skulk in dark alleyways. Send a letter to the RIAA outlining every song you've downloaded or uploaded, and fight it out in court.
There's a reason why people where masks when they commit crimes. Hiding behind your computer is no different.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:While copying even one song is technically illegal, it's overlooked for the most part. It's when that copying becomes excessive in scale that attention is drawn and legal action taken.
The problem is that copying even one song shouldn't be illegal. And for precisely the same reason, copying a thousand shouldn't be. It's no different than everyone borrowing a thousand books from a really efficient library, or at least should not be. And borrowing a thousand books from a library is no worse than borrowing one, so that cannot be said to be a problem of scale.
What we need to do is change the law - then the RIAA can't have these lawsuits, and we can have legitimate file sharing.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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So, you go out about petitioning your elected representatives and fighting battles in court, rather than breaking the standing law at any opportunity.
If you think marijuana should be legalized, you go through the same legal channels - in the mean time, using the drug is still illegal.
Whether or not any given person thinks a law "should" exist or not, it's still the law and must be obeyed until such a time as it is no longer a law - either through legislation or court rulings.
Those wishing to spin their illegality as "civil disobedience" should have no problems paying the fines or going to jail for their crime, as they knowingly and willingly broke the law in their disobedience. If you are unwilling to suffer consequences for your actions, you should rethink taking those actions.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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However, keep in mind, Beren, that by paying for these downloads, you'll have less to pop into a savings account. Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Syn, you might want to try using Adaware and SpyBot Search and Destroy to try to remove spyware from your machine. Also, you might want to give Mozilla/Firebird a shot (it's a bit more secure than IE).
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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"Yeah, there are much better programs out there that allow us to steal."
There are also programs which allow you to download live music from bands(such as Dave Mathhews, and many others) who encourage taping and trading of their shows.
Try www.etree.org It is a good place to start, but you need a DSL line, and lots of space on your computer, and it is good NOT to have an addictive personality or you can sucked into the virtual music world.
quote:Whether or not any given person thinks a law "should" exist or not, it's still the law and must be obeyed until such a time as it is no longer a law - either through legislation or court rulings.
Hmmmm... have you ever exceeded the speed limit?
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Right, everybody has gone at least a mile or two over the speed limit, so it's okay to steal with nonchelance. Why have rules at all? Posts: 346 | Registered: Jan 2003
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A lot of stuff I dl is live tracks by Tori Amos and stuff I can't get in the US like Yoko Kanno. Plus i need music like a drug and cannot afford all the CDs I want. But if I ever do get stable finances.... the amount of CDs I'l own will be staggering. Plus it's a great way to get into new stuff. If it wasn't for Audiogalaxy I would not even know Dir en grey.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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What I don't like about the whole mp3-riaa thing is that the rules out there are arbitrary. It shows a clear misunderstanding of file trading and a fear of technology.
Radios pay a relatively paltry sum to play music. The reasoning is that you are giving 'publicity' to the artists by playing their music. It's reasonable to assume that you can record music off the radio and listen to them at your leisure. People make mix tapes or mix CD's for friends, and you're not likely to be sued for this. It's word of mouth just like lending a book to a friend.
Online, you have what the RIAA like to call "perfect copies." Considering the debate on mp3 versus aac versus ogg, I insist that mp3s are not perfect copies, and anyhow the quality of the music likely depends on your speakers more than the file.
1. mp3s take as much effort to obtain as recording off the radio. Some days, the radio station plays an entire album that recently came out. Surely that's as easy as happening upon an entire album on a useful peer to peer network. Plenty of mp3s are crap, incomplete or poorly encoded. And it can take hours to find a single mp3. Depends on your luck and the amount of experience you've put into the system looking for the right channels.
2. mp3s provide publicity just as radio stations do. I've heard countless people say that they have purchased an album because they heard the mp3, or they attended a concert because of the mp3s. I don't buy albums for every radio song I like. I listen to the radio and hear them as much as I want (due to the radio stations' paltry playlist length). You don't hear companies whining about how someone didn't buy the latest Coldplay album because they could hear the hits on the radio every hour.
You can tell that they're simply afraid of the technology. Look at webcast radios. They've practically disappeared. You know why? Because they passed a law requiring online radio stations to pay .14 of a penny for every song streamed. One online station calculated that as $224,000 a month and it's retroactive to 1998. Ridiculous. Compare that to the following:
quote:If you own a rink that has 15,000 square feet of skating area and you charge customers $5.00 to skate, you own a class 6B establishment and you need to pay BMI $205 every year. You would need to do the same thing for ASCAP
No matter how you scale it, $205 to BMI once a year does not equal over a million a year.
I'm not writing this to say you should download mp3s. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of the arguments riaa puts forward. They can scare people away from downloading and sharing mp3s, it's their right under the current laws. But I won't like it one bit and I won't buy new music either.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Beren, I would've kicked your ass for deleting my mp3's.
However.
All the mp3's I have, I also own the CD. I have DSL but never download music. Part of it is because I am a photographer and my images are digitized and you don't want someone taking your work. I got pissed at someone who said they'd pay me $25 for each of my prints but wanted me to just email them the file and they'd go and get it printed.
No way. You've got to be kidding.
So I objected to both the price and what they wanted me to do. They informed me that "They could just get the staff photographer to go take some shots." I realize that they're cheap and don't care about my work . I said no. I'm willing to share and sell my work to those who appreciate it and respect it.
The images on my website are compressed enough that they can't be reprinted to any respectable degree at all. If people could download my full images and never pay me or even ask for permission, I'd be mad as hell. Same goes for my books.
And yes, I've broken the speed limit. I also think it's perfectly fair for me to get a ticket when I get caught (which is twice now). It was a choice I made and I knew the consequences of that choice. So when I'm faces with them, I have to accept it. The cop isn't bad for giving me a ticket, he's doing his job, as I expect him to do. The only reason I got mad at the first cop was because he was a jerk about it. The second cop was pleasant and respectful and I was in return.
We're all adults (or nearly legally so). We know the laws and the consequences of breaking those laws. When we choose to break them, we choose the consequences if we get caught breaking that law. Even if you disagree with the law, it's still there and you have to obey it if you aren't willing to face the consequences.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I must say -- all be it a little late -- that Koga's first statement about sharing was the illegal part was correct.
However, if you think about it, the only way they can find you is to see what you are sharing. they could not wait for you to upload, because then they would be offering copyrighted material to the masses, and that would not stand.
Not to mention, Kazaa-Lite is designed to protect you from the RIAA. It has special features that block many of the RIAA's IP addresses, and it has the "don't allow others to see my file list" which allows you to appear to only be sharing one file.
-This is my two cents, I am W-
Okay, I reread the top post, and I must say, that is the most horrible thing that I could think of for you to do, not to mention, the most senceless. Why delete the MP3's? it makes not sence. If the RIAA was already after him, it would not make a difference, and if they weren't, then he is safe.
I recoment that you download a program called PC File Recovery and recover all his MP3's as a sort of gesture. Please, don't do this to him, man.
-W-
[ January 11, 2004, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: Julian Delphiki Jr. ]
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. I said no. I'm willing to share and sell my work to those who appreciate it and respect it. 
