?

[Sui]

Basicly the way I understand the law is like this

If you have proof of ownership of a 'whatever', then you are allowed to copy, burn, download, and even place a 'whatever' in a area of your harddrive that others might have access to(filesharing, ftp, ect.). If you have no proof of ownership, then you have no right to have anything to do with a 'whatever'. Generally they do try to take down distributors as they often are the biggest offenders, but its also the whole make it harder thing.

The whole thing started with a case with a guy whos last name was Warez. A judge set him free based on those grounds, because he owned legal copys of the things he was distributing. So basicly it became alot harder to get a search warrent for what they think you may not have proof of ownership for.

I'm not really sure of the legality issues of the RIAA, only that they were suppose to be targeting people that were downloading 100's of songs a day. Those charges would probably be droped if you came up with proof that you actually owned all those cd's, or had proof of ownership. Anyway, if you want 0 risk then don't download illegal stuff, if you want low risk then download only what your actually going to use or listen to. As the saying goes no risk, no reward.

 

[baronvongogo]

I think it also depends on music taste i haven't seen many articles saying:

"a man of 22 was arrested today for copyright infringement for downloading and distributing AC/DC, arch enemy and edge of sanity"

its always pop, rnb and rap, if you have good music taste it seems less likely you will get prosecuted

 

[Harper]

well I have this friend with lots of I believe pirated music on his computer and hes kind of paranoid he thinks someone could bust open into his house like The RIAA and just take his hard drive and examine it and see if it does contain pirated material, is this true?

Yes

if So should he encrypt his hard drive heavily?

The best encryption software that your freind can buy is a High Power Magnet.
Just do what the hacker did in the movie THE CORE if any one disides to knock on his door.

 

[Nitestick]

slightly off topic but i thought i'd mention the out dated copy right laws in australia have finally changed it is no longer illegal for us to rip our purchased music cds to digital music for personal use.

 

[Sui]

Yes


The best encryption software that your freind can buy is a High Power Magnet.
Just do what the hacker did in the movie THE CORE if any one disides to knock on his door.

Like the girl scouts. Here in the states they generally knock.... with a battering ram, and then handcuff the people that are alive. Normally the first indication that they're raiding your house is when they break down the door. They call it a no knock warrent or something like that. Not really enough time to be erasing HD's with an electro-magnet.

Also RIAA were never breaking into a persons house, or hacking into their computer, at least not to my knowledge. They were getting an IP address when your downloading music files, and creating a database with what your downloading. Then they'd sue the owner of the connection(or person whos registered to use the bandwidth) based on the amount of music downloaded.

 

[b0dge]

I think it also depends on music taste i haven't seen many articles saying:

"a man of 22 was arrested today for copyright infringement for downloading and distributing AC/DC, arch enemy and edge of sanity"

its always pop, rnb and rap, if you have good music taste it seems less likely you will get prosecuted

That's because they're (they=RIAA, Music Industry, Artists etc) only bothered about material that they're gonig to make money out of.