P2P Downloading

[TEAK36]

I use BitComet and am quite a heavy downloader,mostly movies and tv shows, but I do download about 20GB per month.I am well aware that what I am doing is illegal,but I am not one of those dodgy people who sells discs down the local boot sale.What I download is completely for personal viewing.I have just read in one of todays papers that a Mum is being prsecuted for �4000 because her 14yr old daughter has downloaded 1400 mp3 tracks over the past 2 years.I always thought I would be ok as far as being caught,but now I am getting a little more concerned.How do the tv/record companies know how much you are downloading? If I download something and remove it from my shared folder (yes I know its not fair) will these companies know how much I have downloaded.

[fo3nix]

they can get the ISP from your computer. You probably aren't encrypting your connection. So, your ISP knows your IP address, knows who that ISP address belongs to, and knows exactly how much you're downloading, and from where.

You could encrypt your connection, and route round many proxies to lose the trace. But that would firstly be quite complicated, and would slow down your download speeds. I'm not sure if you can do this with bitComet, but I believe you can get a suitable plugin for Azureus.

[twiglet4frog]

t is a case of quantity here really, as the mother being prosecuted has allowed 1400 tracks to be downloaded illegally and that in the eyes of a music business is far to much revenue lost as compared to someone that has downloaded maybe 20 or 30 a year and isnt worth the persuing through the courts. remember that over the 2 years of downloading this girl was effectivly stealing 2 songs per day every day for the whole 2 years and at a loss of approx 79p-99p per track she was ripping of the music company by �1.50 - �2 every day. and what is worrying more to the companies than that is not just she was stealing them but also that there is a high chance that she was distributing them to friends or family and possibly a far wider group of people either for free or for a profit. This is just too much to go unhalted!

For example, she was downloading 2 a day, if she was then sending directly to, and indirectly through her friends copies of them 2 tracks a day too? if she and 9 of her friends had a copy of the 2 tracks then there are 10 less copies sold and profitted on per track for the companies thus losing them and the retailers 10 copies per track at 99pence a track =approx �10 for one track downloaded and she was doing 2 a day =�20 a day in sales on a daily basis for 2 years  = �14,600 of track sales lost due to this one girls downloading.

And remember that they didnt know that the person downloading this quantity at the time of prosecution being brought about was a 14 year old girl, she could have been a older person selling the top selling 1400 tracks of the last 2 years at a car boot sale and selling 1000's of them at a profit.

bit different to someone downloading a couple of songs a month

[ian.miller]

Sorry Twiglet, it's not about the numbers she downloaded herself- the key thing they go after is uploaders, NOT downloaders.

They use exaclty the same networks as everyone else and they just trawl through to seek out the people with the most number of tracks available, and those that are on major back bones.

That means they can just get the IP address and details from your ISP, and cut things off at the source. Think about it, if they go after the downloaders yet all the songs are available from uploaders, then the circle will just repeat. If they can shut down the uploaders then the downloaders can't find what they want and they will go elsewhere / give up. That's exactly what they did for the major BitTorrent sites.

So, if yu do want stuff then keep the fewest available for upload.

This girl probably didn't have a clue and had her computer always on, with 1400 songs available, and as they were probably popular ones, they were downloaded many thousands of times.

Either that, or get a wireless card and jack into an unsecured network to do your downloading.

[MargeB]

I think that's correct. Anyway, if they did decide to go after downloaders only, the chances of getting caught are still miniscule.

They would definitely target the uploaders first. But many programs, like Bearshare, try to make uploads available from your downloads whether you like it or not.

[the.dr]

these companies make trillions every year and complain at people sharing files!? screw them....i for one believe that these stories are all scare tactics....does anyone know personally anyone who has been caught or prosectued? i dont!