Inside the RIAA and MediaSentry

bsdewhurst sends along an interesting article about how MediaSentry and the RIAA identify file sharers. Since 2003, while the RIAA has been filing 28,000 lawsuits, the percentage of US Internet users using P2P for downloading music has dropped from 20% to 19% (there is no knowing how much of a factor the lawsuits have been). The list the RIAA uses for ISP takedown notices is about 700 currently popular songs that are updated based on the charts, so not liking the top 40 could save you. The list of songs tracked for the user-litigation program is said to be larger.

Numbers

[MichaelSmith]

Since 2003, while the RIAA has been filing 28,000 lawsuits, the percentage of US Internet users using P2P for downloading music has dropped from 20% to 19%

So the actual number has doubled or something, and the percentage might have gone from 20.1 to 19.9 depending on how it is rounded.

Re:The best way to not get caught

[cp.tar]

If you do not agree with their policy, do do not be a hypocrite and still use their product.

Well, what if it is not their product?

For instance, what if you cannot buy the songs in question in the format you want?

Besides, what choice do I have? I live in Croatia, and I cannot access the iTunes store, though I would very much like to purchase some music in a high-quality format. My time is more worth than the meager sum I save by hunting it through various torrents, where I may or may not find acceptable quality both in sound and in tags.

And, of course, if there is something available free of charge, many people will take it. It may be illegal (though not in the way you imply), but there is more than one way of putting one's money where their mouth is. One of those ways is copyright infringement.

Statistics - Surveys?

[aceofspades1217]

If these statistics are based on surveys obviously they are going to be low. If I got a survey saying "do you pirate RIAA music over P2P" obviously everyone is going to say no. No one is going to admit to doing something illegal on a survey.

You mind as well send out a survey asking "do you sell, traffic, or push Illegal Drugs", I wonder what the actual "infringers" are going to mark as an answer?

Pretty everyone I know has pirated some music. Even the mos moral guys have pirated an album or two because hey weren't able to buy it or just really wanted it.

So in actual people who have pirated anything in their lifetime I'm guessing its pretty high (50% at least). But people who are casual pirates who download one or two things whenever they feel like it (maybe once a week) or moderate pirates who download stuff whenever they want it.(maybe an album ever 3 days).

Than you have the serious guys who never have their computer going without downloading something (eg me :P). Especially people with a usenet connection. Just leave your computer running for a couple hours and download stuff.

I am slowly making a shift to usenet because it has no logs whatsoever. Even if the RIAA begin fighting usenet they aren't going to able to fight the users.

The battle for usenet will be a big corporation vs another big corporation battle. Considering their are only a few usenet companies and all of them are massive conglomerates such as giganews, usenet.com, astraweb.com (my fav...real cheap).

So they are just trying to chip away and do some fear mongering. But they will never defeat piracy. It has become almost cultural and most people with a computer have pirated something. Heck i remember when kazaa came out and people would have a computer dedicated to kazaa just because of all the Spyware :P

Good times!

Which is what RIAA sues for, isn't it?

[Moraelin]

Well, AFAIK the RIAA never sued anyone for downloading. They sued people who "made available" the songs for download by others.

The waters are muddier, because apparently some P2P programs do (or did) effectively default to sharing anything downloaded right back. (I guess because the whole P2P model wouldn't really work if there were 1 or 2 guys offering it for download, and a few million downloading from them. At that point, you're back to the classic server model, and not in a good way.)

Who cares?

[twitter]

Laws should follow morals, instead of morals following laws. We know that sharing is good, so it should be legal.

Re:The best way to not get caught

[Pofy]

> You may very well be right, but the article says they
> download the file themselves and run it through a
>"fingerprinting" software to see if it matches a song
> they hold a copyright to.

Out of curiosity, what if they found out through the fingerprinting that it was NOT a song they hold the copyright to, do they then report themselves for copyright infringement? And how large is the fractions of files they download something they don't hold the copyright to? 1%? 50%? Something else?

Re:Method

[JasterBobaMereel]

Since they have tried to sue people with no internet connection, and tried to sue people for sharing music they obviously have no interest in....yes

They don't look for people sharing RIAA members music, they just look for P2P connections

They are not a government organisation
They do not represent the music industry
They do not represent the artists
They cannot arrest you
It is not stealing (it is licence infringement)
It is not piracy

It is however a crime!