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

[4ction]

First off, it was a good friend of mine that got busted for downloading 187 songs off a P2P site. He's getting charged like $3500 . The problem is that we're both living in the same apartment complex that gets free wireless internet from our university, which I just learned is being monitored for illegal downloads.

I never really thought about the consequences of my music downloading, but I realized that IT guys from my school can look into my computer and somehow pin me for illegally downloaded music! I've downloaded about 1500 songs from torrents since I moved in, and I have another 3,000 illegal songs that I transferred from my IPOD to my new computer.

My question is: How can I keep the downloaded music without being busted? I asked my friend who got sued, and he recommended transferring all of my music to an external hard drive and then deleting all of the music from my computer... will that work? Should I delete BitLord as well? Should I delete my Itunes Library and just transfer all my songs to the IPOD?
Any advice would be appreciated b/c with all the songs I have I'm looking at a $77,000 fine if the rates are the same . I'm going to talk to my computer geek friends and possibly the law school/IT school over here to see what I should do.

EDIT///// New Question
I have a new question... I have this program called Copy Trans that lets me move my ITunes Library to and from different computers. I have all of my illegal songs on my old computer and I hooked it up at a safe place at home, away from my apartment. Should I move the song files onto my new laptop? Will the RIAA be able to somehow peer into my new laptop and detect that those specific song files were downloaded illegally? I'd love to have my music collection on my laptop, but it's not worth risking it if I can still get busted by my school or the RIAA since my school lets the RIAA look at everyones downloads/uploads. Thanks!

[morrowb]

Thats crazy, fucking idiots have nothing else to do than bust some collage kids that listen to music, fucking sad.

[Thrill]

Get all of your shit on an external Hard Drive. Delete all the shit off of your comp.

That'd be my advice.

[hangten420]

Dude bro if I were you I would delete every piece evidence on your computer hard-drive, shit bro I would even defrag and hd-kill your hard drive with symantec ghost, erase everything fast.

[mushroomsatsuji]

Transferring it to an external hard drive is a good idea, but the problem is theres always going to be a record of those songs. Deleting items only removes it from your site, so its always possible to look at what files you had if you know where to look. The only way to be sure is to format your hard drive. Transfer all your items you want to keep to the external and format the drive, then reinstall windows and copy your shit back over, except for the songs of course

[sky dog]

I would put on a diaper and run across campus shrieking and vomiting...start working up a good insanity defense

[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...

[hangten420]

LMAO i am literally rollin on the floor... i can picture will farrel doing that shit

[Smokentoke420]

Originally Posted by mushroomsatsuji

Transferring it to an external hard drive is a good idea, but the problem is theres always going to be a record of those songs. Deleting items only removes it from your site, so its always possible to look at what files you had if you know where to look. The only way to be sure is to format your hard drive. Transfer all your items you want to keep to the external and format the drive, then reinstall windows and copy your shit back over, except for the songs of course

So tranfer it to an external harddrive, and then buy a new hard drive for your computer and destroy the old one.

[Blaze_It_Up420]

Wow, I always thought my campus just said that to scare college students...

Do they really have nothing better to do than to sue a already broke college kid.

[astro_righteous]

dude, that blows goat balls.

that pisses me off so bad for you.

i read an article or listened to it on the radio i cant remember, but it was about piracy like in your case.

basically they had an artist who was talking about it and said that before he was a musician he went to the stores and bought music when he could and then he got cassette tapes and recorded the shit for his friends and they did the same.

he said that that right there is piracy but had it not been for that small act, he wouldnt have discovered nearly half of the music he got into because he didnt have the kind of money to be going to the record stores and buying 3 or 4 albums a week.

so it is in the best interest of the band to be passed around so much. sure it sucks cuz they dont get as much money and then it sucks for the consumer to have to pay more cuz of the piracy in itself and so they need to pirate more cuz they dont have money to get as much music.

so there needs to be a happy medium but there probably never will be cuz there are too many people out there that are greedy and want money so bad, namely the record labels.

im sorry i cant help you with your situation but dude i feel you

[enevitable]

Originally Posted by mushroomsatsuji

Transferring it to an external hard drive is a good idea, but the problem is theres always going to be a record of those songs. Deleting items only removes it from your site, so its always possible to look at what files you had if you know where to look. The only way to be sure is to format your hard drive. Transfer all your items you want to keep to the external and format the drive, then reinstall windows and copy your shit back over, except for the songs of course

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

[astro_righteous]

Originally Posted by Blaze_It_Up420

Wow, I always thought my campus just said that to scare college students...

Do they really have nothing better to do than to sue a already broke college kid.

if they sue them then it would give the kid even more reason to finish school so he could pay off his debts.

[Dark_Angers]

You getting hit in a time of change. This can be good for you if you get a good lawyer who is updated on p2p laws.

First your on a wireless network, so you could fight that the downloads can't be linked to you since anyone could be using that connection. However you said the IT guys were able to track it back to you. This could make it harder to argue the open network.

The RIAA tries tries to bully people into paying and not taking the cases to court. If you do have a good lawyer there is a chance you can win the case if you chose to go to court.

I do recommend moving your files to an external drive and SECURELY wiping you drive http://dban.sourceforge.net/ that way they wont have any evidence on you unless they get your external drive. (besides the ip logs and such, but no actual file)

see if you can get this person Johan Pouwelse to testify at the trial. She recently shut down RIAA expert in a case http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-expert-...petent-080221/

Good Luck.

[chicken tava]

wow, i'm surprised shit like that is actually happening what a joke