BUSTED...for illegally downloading music!? Advice needed!

[hangten420]

Fucking Sucks Man!!!

[Wismoker14]

That's pretty fuckin stupid, they can suck my dick, I have about 20 thousand illegally downloaded songs.

[4ction]

Originally Posted by CosmicSerpent

So did your friend get busted by the school or by the feds? Was he downloading torrents or a file-sharing program? I download torrents all the time, and have a collection of over 10,000 songs... should I be worried? I always thought the chances of getting caught were very slim...

He's getting sued by the RIAA
I think they work with my university to catch poor college kids instead of focusing on the general public b/c we're less likely to make a big deal out of it or something. He was downloading of a P2P program (I forgot the name) but luckily they didn't catch his BitComet torrents. He also got busted for downloading some copyrighted pornos lol....You should be very worried if your internet connection is in any way affiliated with the school.

And thanks for the quick replies!

I looked over those posts and decided I'm going to Best Buy tomorrow to get an XP compatible Hard Drive and I'm moving all my shit onto it ASAP. Also, I forgot to mention this, but my computer is a 6 year old Dell. I got a friend to delete everything off my computer and reinstall XP at the beginning of the year, and so right now I have 3000 old, illegally downloaded songs from my IPOD, which I transferred back to my "new" computer and about 1,500 new illegally downloaded songs from torrents. Will those RIAA guys be able to trace my old illegal songs from my hard drive? I mean, it's not like I'm uploading them or anything.

[Leif]

Originally Posted by enevitable

this is your best bet op

you need everything on an external hard drive, and then you need to format your computer

this is very crucial, so they cant restore your data and pull log files

also to anyone that torrents: make sure you download peer guardian 2, it won't help if the campus is screening your connections, but it will help against RIAA and others from tracking you down through torrents

Listen to her.

I thought torrents weren't illegal though?

Fucken shit that sucks.

If I were about to get busted with that much, I'd probably take my computer out to the shed and smash it with a sledge hammer. Yes, stupid idea, but I'd rather buy a new computer than pay thousands in fines. Plus, smashing stuff is fun. I kinda started rambling, I'm pretty stoned, haha. I hope everything goes ok for you, bro. It's fucked that they are actually busting a bunch of people now.

[Starlore]

Damn man, that shit sucks.

So if I understand correctly, you say they only got him on a P2P program and not the torrents? What program was he using?

How did they present him with this as well out of curiosity? Did he get a letter or did someone come out personally to address him or what?

[Dark_Angers]

Look back at my earlier post, but I forgot to add.

A lot of the "evidence" they have on you is pretty shitty. Courts may accept it, but its becoming more and more questionable whether what they have is enough.

Look into the methods on how they actually gather evidence on P2P users. Read up, so you will be able to understand what is happening and can fight back.

Here are some sites.

http://torrentfreak.com/this-is-how-...u-downloading/ (It is a euro article, but techniques are similar if not the same.)

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-a-person.html


Main thing is GET A GOOD LAWYER!

[CanibasConsumer]

get this software called system mechanic, theres a thing in there to permanently delete deleted file data. it can go up to like 16 passes which is more than the government uses to delete shit. the program costs money though
http://www.iolo.com/
or you could even just download it, i did, although you might have to search on the net for a serial key. but i did it

worth a shot...good luck man

[CosmicSerpent]

Originally Posted by 4ction

He's getting sued by the RIAA
I think they work with my university to catch poor college kids instead of focusing on the general public b/c we're less likely to make a big deal out of it or something. He was downloading of a P2P program (I forgot the name) but luckily they didn't catch his BitComet torrents. He also got busted for downloading some copyrighted pornos lol....You should be very worried if your internet connection is in any way affiliated with the school.

Yeah, it's not affiliated with the school since I live off campus now. Do they still randomly bust people with their own cable lines and such? Anyway, the majority of my music library was either ripped from CDs or downloaded a while back on an old computer, so it can't be directly traced. And the rest was downloaded with utorrent, which from what I understand is a bit safer. I haven't used a P2P program in years.

But even when I was living in the dorms... they threatened to do this, but I don't think anyone got caught. All the rooms were on the same network, so we could open programs like ourTunes and myTunes, and literally transfer each others entire music library in seconds. That's where the bulk of my music actually came from. Apparently, they aren't too smart about busting people for this around here... because they would have been able to sue 50+ kids in that semester alone.

[FrostAie]

I had over a TB of warez on my external/internal hd's when i Got raided i got raided for DDOS and CCFraud. You have nothing really to worry about. It was the worst event in my life

[Dark_Angers]

utorrent is P2P So is any other file sharing program.

[4ction]

Originally Posted by enevitable

this is your best bet op

you need everything on an external hard drive, and then you need to format your computer

this is very crucial, so they cant restore your data and pull log files

also to anyone that torrents: make sure you download peer guardian 2, it won't help if the campus is screening your connections, but it will help against RIAA and others from tracking you down through torrents

Thanks!

By "format your computer" do you mean erasing everything and reinstalling windows?

edit/// Oh yeah, Angers I forgot to mention that even though we have a free wireless network here my computer is still wired. (b/c it's old as fuck and I don't have a grand to drop on a laptop right now)

[Chaohinon]

http://www.eff.org/riaa-v-people
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060727/1131227.shtml

Do some digging. I'm sure there are some organizations out there that would be more than happy to jump to your defense. Don't give in without a fight. Take a look at Slashdot especially, they're big on this sort of thing.

[Dark_Angers]

Originally Posted by 4ction

Thanks!

By "format your computer" do you mean erasing everything and reinstalling windows?

reformatting will not erase everything on your system. A reformat will just cover everything up to the naked eye, but not forensic tools.

Use this http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Then reformat/install windows.

EDIT: It still might be possible to make the open network case. Since wired and wireless connections don't look any different to the outside or inside network. The only difference is speed. Everything that can be done wired can be done wireless.

[EustaceBugles]

Originally Posted by Dark_Angers

utorrent is P2P So is any other file sharing program.

I don't get it. P2P means peer to peer, yet with torrents, you are downloading tiny bits of information from all the different people. You never get a file from an individual, just many samples from many individuals.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying I don't understand it.

[CosmicSerpent]

Originally Posted by Dark_Angers

utorrent is P2P So is any other file sharing program.

Yes, but torrent programs work in a way that helps ensure the files and sources you're downloading from are legitimate. BitTorrent makes many small P2P requests over different TCP sockets and downloads in a random or "rarest-first" approach that ensure high availability. All of this keeps the RIAA from tracing whole files to individual connections. Plus, since the actual torrent files do not store copyrighted data, the use of the technology itself does not constitute copyright infringement. The only thing they can really do is go after the original sources and the websites that provide the searches and means to download things illegally.