People wary of using Kazaa Lite, Bit Torrent now??

kevix78

after the recent spate of prosecutions in UK and Ireland - is it just me or is anyone else feeling a bit nervous about downloading music...

Im not a very frequent downloader maybe 10 songs a week - does that constitute heavy use?? Cos as much as I dislike the music mega-global dominating record companies..I don't fancy ending up in Guantanamo Bay or The Joy...

Do they go after big downloaders - or are we all in the potential firing line..??

chorus techy

Well they tend to go for the uploaders because, if there's no uploaders, then obviously you can't have downloaders!

But that doesn't mean they won't hit downloaders.

10 songs a week probably isn't *heavy* - I know guys who'd be downloading hundreds of songs, videos etc. and then burning them to CD / DVD and selling them - it's people like that they also tend to go after.

But ultimately, if you don't want to risk the fines, don't commit the crime!

Lump

Only downloading 10 songs a week is still a crime. If everyone with the net only downloaded 10 songs a week, there'd be no music companies. I think they tend to go after the people who download and sell etc etc.

John

Willymuncher

Theres bigger fish to fry than me...but i am still kind of wary as that still doesn't mean i am untouchable, its like an addiction though i just can't stop!!

vibe666

Lump wrote:

....If everyone with the net only downloaded 10 songs a week, there'd be no music companies......

and if everyone grew their own spuds, there'd be no chippers. :rolleyes:

I'll stop when they snatch my dsl router from my cold dead fingers. or something.

quarryman

Guantanamo Bay or The Joy

so what are you in for?
Car bomb.

you?
downloaded 11 songs in one week.

gline

i dont think the music companies are worse off since peole started to download a lot of stuff, in fact they are probably making more money than they ever did. Though i dont agree with downloading and selling and dont think there is much harm in downloading for yourself, in saying that it is against the law , so there is no gray area there.


What id like to know is how are they tracking these guys and what constitutes as a "heavy" downloader???

aidan_walsh

gline wrote:

they are probably making more money than they ever did.

Elaborate, please?

gline

i watched a documentry there from bbc that i happened to have downloaded funnily enough and they reckoned that mp3 downloading was in fact helping music sales, although people do download, still a lot of people will buy the cd when it is released. I think if music sales were plummiting rapidly it would make headlines in all the newspapers and tv etc. Are music artists becoming poorer??? i think not.

Zombienosh

vibe666 wrote:

and if everyone grew their own spuds, there'd be no chippers. :rolleyes:

LMFAO!! o god yeah im goin to go and plant some now,

digitaldr

A few ponts:

A woeful band/muscian can earn vast amounts of money (for themselves and the record company) with the right marketing etc. How guilty can you feel when they're deprived of a portion of their income? Especially since the best teacher, doctor, nurse, builder in the country etc is not similarily rewarded.

I think what IRMA may be trying to do is discourage people from sharing ie having no or very few mp3s in your shared folder.

There are some "grey" paysites which operate from countries which have laxer copyright laws (eg Russia) and charge much less (around 2 cent/meg)than for instance itunes. I'll bet that it would be a lot harder to track down people downloading stuff from them and even if it could be done prosecutions may be more difficult to get.

lomb

digitaldr wrote:

A few ponts:

people downloading stuff from them and even if it could be done prosecutions may be more difficult to get.

id say impossible.
anyway if u are concerned get an anonymous fast proxy for a fiver a month or download from newsgroups for 12 a month at full speed.

Chalk

recent prsecutions in ireland?
not for file sharing anyway....

see bertie havin a go at musicians today?
12 artists not paying taxes totalling 75million because of an old law?

downloading a song = no ivory back scratcher for them.

gline

Chalk wrote:

recent prsecutions in ireland?
not for file sharing anyway....

see bertie havin a go at musicians today?
12 artists not paying taxes totalling 75million because of an old law?

downloading a song = no ivory back scratcher for them.

yeh wat prosecutions?? i thought theyjust said they had peopleunder surveilence??

jor el

gline wrote:

yeh wat prosecutions?? i thought theyjust said they had peopleunder surveilence??

Indeed, they have information on who was uploading songs and they are now looking for the names and addresses that correspond to the IP address. Only then can they consider prosecuting, and even then I would imagine it would be hard without getting physical evidence, i.e. the persons harddisk with the songs on it.

Since IP addresses can be spoofed, could you use that as a defence? Or perhaps claim stupidity as a defence: 'I have a wireless router and didn't bother to encrypt it so it must be one of my neighbours who piggy-backed on my broadband' or some such.

I wonder did the actions in the UK actually get to court, or did the accused just plead guilty and agree a settlement out of court? I would imagine that with a good solicitor you could very well get away with it if you were accused of being an illegal file sharer.

Spear

gline wrote:

What id like to know is how are they tracking these guys and what constitutes as a "heavy" downloader???

They mentioned last year that an American company was being used to gather data, so realistically that means either BaysTSP or Overpeer are doing the snooping for them. There are various easy ways to stop them using tools such as Blocklist Manager from bluetack.co.uk

Goodshape

tbh.

jor el

jor el wrote:

'I have a wireless router and didn't bother to encrypt it so it must be one of my neighbours who piggy-backed on my broadband' or some such.

I presume you are liable for all the traffic that passes through your router. Its up to you to make it secure.

jor el

Deleted User wrote:

I presume you are liable for all the traffic that passes through your router. Its up to you to make it secure.

I was thinking that too, but I wonder if it's true. If you're non-tech, like most people, then you may not even realise that your wireless network is open to abuse. Unless people are specifically warned and shown how to secure their network then this remains a possibility.

BloodBath

I wasn't aware that any law was passed in this country for prosecuting people who download music or any other media. There are millions of people doing it worldwide and your worried they will track you down :rolleyes:

Indeed, they have information on who was uploading songs and they are now looking for the names and addresses that correspond to the IP address.

My ip changes every day so I don't think there is much chance of that.


BloodBath

chorus techy

jor el wrote:

I was thinking that too, but I wonder if it's true. If you're non-tech, like most people, then you may not even realise that your wireless network is open to abuse. Unless people are specifically warned and shown how to secure their network then this remains a possibility.

Tough like IMO. If you have a mobile phone, but are not technical enough to put a PIN code on it and someone uses it to make prank calls to 999, who's fault is it? It's up to you to secure your router, and if you do not know how, then you should get someone who does. I'm not saying it's right, but that's they way the law will look at it...

abccormac

I wasn't aware that any law was passed in this country for prosecuting people who download music or any other media.

It's called copyright and its been around for quite a while.

chorus techy

chorus techy wrote:

If you have a mobile phone, but are not technical enough to put a PIN code on it and someone uses it to make prank calls to 999, who's fault is it?

Emergency numbers can be dialled without the need of a PIN

Simi

so what are you in for?
Car bomb.

you?
downloaded 11 songs in one week.

lol. I don't think there's much point in fighting this in court if u do get prosecuted tbh. The average 70yo Irish judge isn't going to have a clue what the **** an i.p. address is and is probably going to rule in favour of the record company cause they use bigger words when makin their case.

BobTheBeat

Well if you are using dial-up etc and now on an account you shouldnt worry. But to be honest, you cant really play the "my ip address changes everyday" card any more. Im pretty sure records can and probably are being kept.
I know it sounds a bit big brotherish, but soes anyone think this is entirely possible? Im guessing even at that, this type of evidence wouldnt be admissable in court, as you would have to be told before you used your account, that all access is logged and monitored..

Mutant_Fruit

BloodBath wrote:

My ip changes every day so I don't think there is much chance of that

Except that i'm pretty sure ISP's are obliged by law to record and track what IP each customer had for a period of a few months (or more?). This is to help in tracking down people doing really nasty things like credit card fraud and suchlike. So unfortunately, you're ISP do have a record of what IP's you used and what times you had them at...

MartMax

might be out of topic:

"sales slump bcoz of music downloads" sounds like a half myth to me.

it's a multi-billion dollars industry, the men behind are as greedy as everyone else. not saying all music artists, some but few living like stars, bling bling etc. and some fans who earn less 10 dollars a day, spend their hard-earned to buy some music.

but again, not everyone gets what they deserve. it's a real world.

it's like everything else. illegal musics are not much different to fake designers shoes, clothes, etc.

DonkeyStyle \o/

I blame MTV Cribs for the decline in music sales... "oh, so this is where my money is going... more bling... er, nice one."
Aww, the poor struggling artists. :rolleyes:

BloodBath

It's called copyright and its been around for quite a while.

Yes but do those copyright laws cover internet downloading. I haven't kept up on changes in the law in that area so I genuinely don't know. Has the law been updated recently? I don't think the average joe has to worry about anything even if it has tbh. The sheer scale of the "problem" means you probably have more chance of winning the lottery than getting criminally charged for downloading music/software ect.


BloodBath

Infini

The 4 REAL reasons why music sales are falling...

1) The dot-com crash of 2000, caused downturn in the global economy.
2) The fallout effects of September 11th.
3) They're putting out crappy music today than before 2000 and nobody's interested in buying that crap.
4) Some people aren't interested in buying from record producers that sue 12 year olds and grandparents.

darraghrogan

gline wrote:

i dont think the music companies are worse off since peole started to download a lot of stuff, in fact they are probably making more money than they ever did.

Did I somewhere that Mobile ringtones sales have passed out singles sales?

The music industry seems to be embracing this new media without looking for restrictions on sharing ringtones

Darragh

stevejazzx

when you download music (even illegally) you are supporting whatever particular artists music you are acquiring for eg if I download a paul simon song I might like it so much i go out and buy an album of his or some other merchandise of his or maybe even i'll discover simon and garfunkel and get some of their music or tell a freind about it and they might aquire it either legally or illegally the point is though that its all marketing/advertising/exposure for the artist

gline

Isnt jay-walking illegal too?? What chance do you have getting arrested for that?? the same chance as getting arrested for downloading music. you can guarentee about 60%+ of internet users have or would download music at some stage and id say 30%+ do it regualarly, of course these are just guesses but u know urself most people do use the internet to download copyrighted material, so they are hardly going to be able to catch ALL these people doing it. Id say theywill more than likely look for people who make profit out of it and publicly use the stuff, but the average joe-soap probably has nothing to worry about.

Seth Brundle

[resurrecting old-ish thread]
The ISPs must retain records of traffic for whatever it is (3 years?) but just because it is there does not mean the record cos can access it. The ISP must respect their customers privacy.

Also if a file is downloaded from the net 'accidentally', who is to say that it was not deleted straight away? (or are you still guilty of copyright infringement even if you delete it immediatley?). I can recall a case in the UK where a bástard paedophile got off (IIRC) because he claimed the pics of kids were downloaded by a virus!

Also if they did manage to get your details from your ISP, would it be a civil or criminal case? Presumably either way they are unlikely to knock on your door with some kind of warrant demanding the pc!

mad m

I reckon it could only be a matter of time before a general user on BB is prosecuted for downloading media/films/ etc.They will make an example,and id say we all will quake in our boots....



im not afraid..... :eek:

boo4842

aidan_walsh wrote:

Elaborate, please?

The hip-hop genre of music today is bigger than the ENTIRE music industry was about 15 years ago, even taking into account inflation. Thats just one Genre! The whole industry is probably has revenues 10 times what it was 20 years ago.

Remember the whole music industry claimed that they would be destroyed by tapes (reality growth of 500 - 1000%)

Now they claim that downloaders are killing the music industry (reality: after an inital slide around 2000. Music industry revenue has seen modest growth every year since.) In fact, the industry is about twice as lucratice as it was 10 years ago before the interweb.

I think people are forgetting that 1 song downloaded doesn't = 1 lost sale. I downloaded about 20 britney spears tracks for the hell of it. You think I'd be rushing to the store to pick up her latest CD if I couldn't download it? Please.

clearlyn

Following the thread i am now more confused than when i started. I use Kazaa(the version with ads) to download about 20 songs a week. Is using blocking my IP address the way to go??? does anybody know any small time irish users say (30 songs a week) that have been fined by the Garda????

Khannie

Ok, getting really sick of this. :mad:

closing this thread now.