12 Year Old Settles with RIAA for $2000.

is that story really true? - or do they just publish stories like that to scare kids into uninstalling the programme.

Why I ask, is because when you download Kazaa, there is absolutely no registration process. You just choose a country from a drop list (eg, I come from "the republic of Macedonia") and thats it. I have heard about this IP address crap - but the dude from the computer shop told me that was just shit, and a myth (ie that people can track you down from what they get off the internet or somethin)

anyway, I dont know much about computers, so maybe some guru can fill me in

I have Kazaa-Lite and there is a option to block your IP

You can't block your IP from your ISP. They have all the information, and that is how RIAA is getting their information.

so even if they get your IP address - what does that mean? Is there like a freakin huge phone book with IP address's in it that someone can look up and figure out who you are.

(nb. also computer illiterate)

They track your IP to your Internet Service Provided and then by Law the ISP gives them your info.

Sucks, but this is true!

Wow, I bet those bands feel so BIG and TOUGH by suing a 12 year old for $2000. GET A LIFE METALLICA AND ALL BANDS LIKE YOU!

In Kazaa you can just change your system options to not share files with other users. Then you can still download the songs but no one can upload from your list of songs. That should take care of your problem.

Rob wrote:

In Kazaa you can just change your system options to not share files with other users. Then you can still download the songs but no one can upload from your list of songs. That should take care of your problem.

Yeah, but if everyone did that, there'd be no more songs to download. Probably what the RIAA is after.

hulk wrote:

so even if they get your IP address - what does that mean? Is there like a freakin huge phone book with IP address's in it that someone can look up and figure out who you are.

(nb. also computer illiterate)

Nothing on the internet is 100% anonymous. When you connect to your ISP, they give you an IP address. Somewhere, in a log file on their server, it notes that at 12:05 a.m. ip address 198.189.10.10 was assigned to you.

You go out and download a bunch of music at 12:15 a.m. Somehow, the RIAA tracks your downloads to that IP address (is Kazaa giving out this info?). They reverse the IP address using nslookup or some other tool and find out what ISP it came from. They call the ISP and ask who the hell had 198.189.10.10 at 12:15 p.m. That's YOU!

If you really want to get stuff anonymously (or post anonymous attacks), do it from a public library. You can often plug in a laptop or use a wireless connection with no registration process, they have no idea you are there or who you are or what you are doing. Download all the stuff you want and leave. When the RIAA comes knocking, the library isn't going to be able to tell them who you were. They don't keep records on stuff like that...interferes with privacy (although some may keep more records now due to the Patriot act).

It's really not the bands who get hosed with these download situations; it's the record companies. The bands don't get crap per cd sold (like a few pennies per cd). They make their money performing, selling t-shirts, and the like. There are only a few artists that can really make money off of cd sales. I think Garth Brooks was one of them, and that was because he got so big that he could tell the record companies to give him what he wanted. Most performers can't do that.

As I mentioned here sometime back, there was an idea to have a "pay per song" download. Most of the money would actually go to the artist. The record labels nixed it because it would cut into their profits.

You have to be one big turd to sue a 12 year old girl.

Ultimately, this will all backfire on the RIAA. In their first round of suits, they managed to sue a 12-yr old kid living in public housing who thought that the money she paid to Kazaa gave her the right to use the music- and you see how fast they settled. The RIAA did not want this one hanging around too long. Bad press, for sure. But they also managed to hook a 75-yr old grandfather who barely knows how to use his computer, and keeps it for his kids.

In the long run, until the record companies lower prices and offer a good selection, and begin to offer music online at a reasonable cost, they will simply wither on the vine. And they need to stop colluding with stores such as Best Buy. I'm one of those who never downloaded a song, but I do buy a lot of CDs. If they keep up this crap, I'll just stop. So will a whole lot of people.

I have a feeling even Metallica would not agree with the tactics used here, even though they were hard core against downloading.

Oaky, titan, now I have to sue you because you took my words and reposted them with getting a copyright release... :-) I am just using RIAA tactics, of course.

BTW, was there supposed to be anything new beyond my own words? ;-)

"Record companies blame illegal music file-trading for a 31-percent fall in compact disc sales since mid-2000"

Maybe they should blame the 20$ price tag on most CD's these days.

Even if you don't allow others to download from you, you are still leaving tell-tale signs of what you are doing online. Most ISP's keep logs of all the traffic that goes into and out of their networks. All traffic is on a protocol known as IP. IP traffic is made up of packets and packets can be identified as to what they contain by examining them. Also, all IP traffic that goes through the file shareing programs is usually sent on a specific "port". This gives further validation to the packet signitures for anyone trying to locate certain types of traffic. The recording industry is examining these logs looking for those kind of signitures in the traffic originating and terminating from ISPs.

If they can get the legal OK to do that then it's not a big leap for someone else to argue that they need to be able to examine the logs to look for whatever it is they want to look for. In short - your privacy rights really don't exist on a public network like the internet.

My neighbor's 14 year old (not licensed) took the family car and on his drive sideswiped a parked car, causing a few thousand bucks of damage to the parked car. He's not going to jail but the family (or its insurance) has to pay.

Same deal here. I am not always in agreement with how RIAA does things, but I don't see they have much choice. The settlement with the 12 year old was a reasonable outcome, scary, somewhat expensive, but not life altering and certainly far less than they might have gotten in court.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Keep your eye on the Sparrow, baby.

It's a business basic that you don't drive away your base, which is what the riaa is doing right now. Regardless of the correctness of what they are doing (and as an author of a number of textbooks I am sensitive to their concerns) you still have to be responsive to your audience. This may have the short-term effect of stopping file sharing; over the long run it will likely hurt CD sales and may lead to more creative methods of downloading music. The riaa had some decisions to make- it could have gone after a few big downloaders, as an example. But instead it uses this hit or miss approach, whose goal I suppose is to make you think anyone could get nabbed. But look who they netted. And look how bad they look as a result. You wanna get heavy handed with a 12-yr old honor student on public aid who did not know she was doing anything wrong? That is plain dumb. What did you win? And how good is it that they obviously put words in her mouthmaking her parrot some stupid company line? This is a perfect example of a bad business decision, likely made by some corporate suits.

DougM wrote:

It's really not the bands who get hosed with these download situations; it's the record companies. The bands don't get crap per cd sold (like a few pennies per cd). They make their money performing, selling t-shirts, and the like. There are only a few artists that can really make money off of cd sales. I think Garth Brooks was one of them, and that was because he got so big that he could tell the record companies to give him what he wanted. Most performers can't do that.

As I mentioned here sometime back, there was an idea to have a "pay per song" download. Most of the money would actually go to the artist. The record labels nixed it because it would cut into their profits.

I think the Dixie Chicks' lawsuit changed a lot of how the money is distributed.