p2p sharing?

[sadnan]

How worried should a regular music downloader be?

[adydb]

Depends on where the checking is going on.

If you drive without insurance one day you'll be caught...likewise really.

There's no way you can put a figure on it, but i'd be more worried about downloading some script within it more to be honest. 

[El D]

not at all

[andy hughes]

It is a 'how long is a piece of string' question isn't it?

The record companies - for it is they who stand to loose, and are therefore on the trail of the serious fraudsters (and that's what sharing is) - will obviously prioritise the biggest and most frequent first. So, if you are dowloading brnad new albums on release, and mailing them out, or giving access to five hunderd of your very clostst friends, then you are in line for a knock on the door.

Once that level of downloaidng his been dealt with, they may filter down to the smaller bandits, but record labels are in business, and its simply not good business to try and prosecute a small-scale sharer who'se profit-taking may be outweighed by legal costs in getting them to court.

So, the basic rule is, the bigger and more frequent pirate you are, the more chnace you have of getting caught and punished, and this descends on a sliding scale. All you have to do is work out where on the scale you fit, and adjust your sharing accordingly.

[JOEYSHABADO]

Very frequent question this.

I guess they are gonna hit a few inconspicuous harmless small time guys, just to get the message across.

Chances are extremely extremely slim however. The main limiter is the resources, there is no way they can hit everyone, and the number of people probably above you in andyhughes's 'tree' is enormous, as are the number to either side, presuming you're small time. Chances are nothing like the chances of getting done with no insurance. No insurance, I'd say 1/700, chances of getting convicted for being a small time song downloader, 1/4 Million. That's very small.