how did the song downloaders get busted?

[Bombtrack]

How did the authorities track them, is it easy to do?

[Dogmudgeon]

1. "The Authorities" ... ?

I thought it was the RIAA acting as its own private police force.

--bkl

[unblock]

2. visit www.danasoft.com

it tells you your ip address, your isp, even what browser you're using. any website you visit can easily discover this about you.

that's just a taste of what can be tracked on the internet. if the authorities get full cooperation from some website you visit, there's no telling what they can capture from you.

[ronzo]

3. Good Question...

They're probably trying to get the sharers on kaaza first. That's probably not that tough.

[FDRrocks]

4. by IP and content on thier hard drive

If you download, burn it. Period. WinMX seems to be safe, too. For as long as this continues, a periodic format would be good, as well.

[DIKB]

5. Downloads

they simply d/l'ed some files, checked to see if they were copyrighted, and then issued subpoenas to ISPs to get the personal information. fairly straightforward and simple, it's a scare tactic, in most cases they will settle

[Occulus]

6. What if

you have a router on a single ip that blocks incoming connections but is set up to allow bearshare limewire etc to work, as well as having multiple boxes behind that?

Is there a way to determine which box ran the sharing software?

[Resistance Is Futile]

8. Routers no defense

That's not an effective defense as the RIAA will simply sue whoever pays for the ISP account regardless of which computer is actually sharing files.

The only effective way to participate in the file sharing networks without running the risk of being sued is to connect to the internet via an ISP that is based in a country that isn't an American client state. Satelite Internet via a Russian or Chinese provider should be fairly safe for at least the next few years.

[Resistance Is Futile]

7. Tracking file sharing participants

Basically what the RIAA is doing is using an automated client to find which people are participating in the file sharing networks (Kaaza, etc) and strongarming internet service providers into revealing their customer information. It is likely--although by no means certain--that the RIAA is picking people to sue on the basis of how many files they are sharing with the public. The best way to avoid this brand of American fascism is simply not to share RIAA music over the traditional file sharing networks.

Ultimately, the file sharing scene will move towards technologies similar to Freenet and become largely immune to legal attacks launched by American business. This will not, however, happen overnight.


It is extremely unlikely that the RIAA is hacking into computers and suing people for having MP3 files on their hard drive. This would be both technically difficult, prone to a very high percentage of false positives, and blatently illegal.

[Old and In the Way]

9. If you can rip CD's to your hard drive, why can't you put them in a

public folder?

I have a lot of my music in my hardrive. I happen to keep it in the same place that I keep my downloads in (mainly, old stuff, definitely nothing "new"). If the RIAA download from me, how is that a crime?

Anyway, I've decided to put my music in my 120 gig external hard drive and only keep a few tunes in my public folder....of course, that will defeat the concept if everyone does it....

[ET Awful]

10. The ones who were caught . . .

Simply had the largest quantities of files shared out to others. It isn't downloaders that were sued, but those hosting files for download.

The RIAA had a piece of software that did searches for particular songs, and every person that had that song on their hard drive, the software would then use the "show other songs from this user" feature. Those with the largest lists that contained the particular songs the RIAA was looking for were targeted.

It was also mainly people who left the Kazaa software (or whatever they were using) running 24/7.