eff the RIAA

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 6:52 pm

Devil's advocate here, telling you that the artists who make music don't actually get too much compensation from the record companies.

And if you steal from the record comanies, they get even less

Aguiluz · Post by **Aguiluz** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:19 pm

Jongamer wrote:Yes I do download illegaly, who gives a ****? Only the RIAA does..........although I don't approve of poking around someone's computer.

I do download PSone games via BT, but I do have the originals but some are so scratched up I can't play them. Is it legal to download and use them as backups? I have the originals anyway so I think it's ok...

Seconded on the "invasion of system" rule. Would you let somebody read your private email? Erm, no! You could use Zone Alarm. That's a firewall for, eh?

theelk · Post by **theelk** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 9:25 pm

teraflop122 wrote:
Devil's advocate here, telling you that the artists who make music don't actually get too much compensation from the record companies.
And if you steal from the record comanies, they get even less

That wasn't me, that was the Devil's advocate. He comes around occasionally to make sure that a discussion is properly informed.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:54 pm

Guys, yes it is legal for them to search you're computer if you are connected to a network that has given consent to them for said search. If are worried about getting caught, yes an external hard drive, or even an iPod/MP3 player will work. Otherwise you can disconnect from the network until you know it is safe, waiting 24-48 hours is a good window.

As for illegal downloading of music. The companies are looking to hit you for money they feel you are taking from them. Keeping in mind that they can not accurately, or even ballpark the number that they say they're losing from internet downloading (all downloading not just P2P). If you get caught, you have a choice the standard I've heard is $5k or go before a judge.

As for music artists getting a smaller cut of the pie when there are those of us just taking slices without paying; not every artist has a contract that grants them royalties. And further of those royalties, only about $0.04 on the dollar is earned off of CD sales, music downloads from iTunes and such is typically less. The grand total can be thousands of dollars, but we may never know.

If you want to buy your music, if you want to download it you always gamble of the chance you can get caught. Nothing is bulletproof.

Jongamer · Post by **Jongamer** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:38 pm

I only buy music If I really like the artists music, I download stuff that I don`t have the money for, or is somthing I would never pay money for in the first place.
I also stated somewhere else, that I refuse to pirate Wii/360/PS3 games, because those games being sold now are what supporting the devs.

But I will pirate last gen games to an extent, like I will borrow or rent a Xbox game, then rip it to my xbox hard drive, but I have bought 3 xbox games in the past 6 months because they were cheap and loved the games.

Anything before last gen I pirate to death.

I pirate Movies here and there every once in a great while.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:50 pm

Key thing I think that drove a good number of people to download music illegally is the quality of music. No offense to anyone but as I see it majority of music released is crap, and so if there are only at best a handful of songs you like why pay $10+ for the whole thing?

The other thing for those like us that understand it, would be DRM. That stuff is nothing more then chains on the consumer.

I do recognize that there are online music stores that allow you to download individual songs. So you are not burring money on stuff you don't want. However as above, most use a DRM and that only frustrates people.

I don't know if iTunes or any other music store offer 320k song quality, but if they did and it was DRM-free, I'd sing up. However I'm not sure that one does exist.

samus · Post by **samus** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:33 am

when we got our first nice computer awhile back (2000?) i never thought downloading through limewire and napster was illegal. sure it took like 30 min a song thanks to our modem (those were the days...

) and it never occurred to me.

downloading is literally sampling to me. i have a crapload of cd's that i've bought and not burned. i bought all of my cake cd's because i respected the band so much after downloading a few of their tracks. same with system of a down.

i refuse to take any sides on this because we ALL know that this is illegal and that everything illegal has consequences. if you choose to do the crime, be ready to do the time. but on the other hand, 99 cents is a crapload of money just for one measly song.

jaimegmr · Post by **jaimegmr** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:46 am

No one has mentioned this, so I will.

They can not actually search your computer's hard drive for illegal files through the network unless you are sharing the folders that these files are in OR there is some kind of trojan-like program running on your PC that gives them access.

Some of you mentioned that you can just download the files to an ipod or external hard drive. It wont make a difference. They will still find you. The reason for this is that they scan the network traffic. They scan the TCP/IP packets going across their routers for matches of known illegal filenames, IP adresses, etc. As soon as you download the file, there will be a log stored somewhere that your IP address downloaded some file from some server at some date and time.

Only way around it would be to get your own internet connection.

SZF2001 · Post by **SZF2001** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:54 am

jaimegmr, you do make some good points, but let me tell you something about the packets - if you are running on Windows, for some reason (probably because of all the open ports), companies and bots will ping you for no reason other than to just ping you.

If you would like an example, install PeerGuardian. It will block all known school, government, porn ad, etc. links and IP's, but you'll still see a good amount of pinging from God-knows-where-else.

Right now, the IP of the BBC is pinging the crap out of me. All the packets are being blocked but I gotta ask - why? I haven't even been to the website. The last time I opened a torrent program was to get OpenOffice. Could one packet from an illegal torrent also sharing OpenOffice get me in trouble?

That's where the RIAA is really sketchy. I liked IPBlock on Linux, but with most of the closed ports (for the most part) it doesn't seem like more people pinged me for the sake of pinging.

rockem sockem forever! · Post by **rockem sockem forever!** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:24 pm

we have about 5800 songs on iTunes all ripped from cds we own. iTunes is justed used for party shuffle

paul4990 · Post by **paul4990** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:48 pm

to get around the "no usin own router" problem. hide the router inside the pc and put the cables in it.

Jongamer · Post by **Jongamer** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:17 pm

paul4990 wrote:to get around the "no usin own router" problem. hide the router inside the pc and put the cables in it.

They can still detect it through the network.

gamer2 · Post by **gamer2** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:53 pm

Jongamer wrote:
paul4990 wrote:to get around the "no usin own router" problem. hide the router inside the pc and put the cables in it.
They can still detect it through the network.

and it wont work with the network. It has to be their router.

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:01 pm

gamer2 wrote:
Jongamer wrote:
paul4990 wrote:to get around the "no usin own router" problem. hide the router inside the pc and put the cables in it.
They can still detect it through the network.
and it wont work with the network. It has to be their router.

And I still say, if your that worried about it. Switch over to cell tower based ISP like AT&T or Verizon Wireless.

nitro2k01 · Post by **nitro2k01** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:34 pm

I see a lot of ignorance in this thread...
Jaimegmr speaks the truth. Unless they've installed a trojan or are using exploits to hack the computer, there is absolutely no way they could scan someone's hard drive. Unless of course they went to each dorm and checked each person's computer one by one. (Which is illegal unless you got the computer from the school and signed a contract that allows them to do that)
SZF2001: Pinging is not the same as being able to break into your computer.

My bet is that they
a) scanned the school's central file storage servers, if such facilities exist.
b) scanned all traffic on the school network for P2P traffic and matched that to known music releases.

As for the rule against using your own router... I don't know if most routers oes something very revealing, like sending out a broadcast packet that essentially says "Hi, I'm a router" but I assume most consumer grade NAT routers don't. Ergo, it's impossible to distinguish such a router from any other computer* connected to the same cable. The only realistic way for them to enforce that policy is to inspect every dorm for routers. Maybe they do that, what do I know?

*Yes, a router is a computer. What did you think?