Hey everybody! Anyways, I’m a student at UCSD currently, and the recent RIAA crackdown on UCSD’s students (from $30,000-150,000 a pop) has me scared. I was looking at the ways that they track people online, and i found this:
Ballard has asked the court to delay any ruling for two weeks while he prepares his arguments, and he noted that his client identified only as “nycfashiongirl”—has already removed the file-sharing software from her family’s computer.
The RIAA accused “nycfashiongirl” of offering more than 900 songs by the Rolling Stones, U2, Michael Jackson and others for illegal download, along with 200 other computer files that included at least one full-length movie, “Pretty Woman.”
The RIAA’s latest court papers describe in unprecedented detail some sophisticated forensic techniques used by its investigators.
For example, the industry disclosed its use of a library of digital fingerprints, called “hashes,” that it said can uniquely identify MP3 music files that had been traded on the Napster service as far back as May 2000. Examining hashes is commonly used by the FBI and other computer investigators in hacker cases.
By comparing the fingerprints of music files on a person’s computer against its library, the RIAA believes it can determine in some cases whether someone recorded a song from a legally purchased CD or downloaded it from someone else over the Internet.
Copyright lawyers said it remains unresolved whether consumers can legally download copies of songs on a CD they purchased rather than making digital copies themselves. But finding MP3 music files that precisely match copies that have been traded online could be evidence a person participated in file-sharing services.
“The source for nycfashiongirl’s sound recordings was not her own personal CDs,” the RIAA’s lawyers wrote.
The recording industry also disclosed that it is examining so-called “metadata” tags, hidden snippets of information embedded within many MP3 music files. In this case, lawyers wrote, they found evidence that others had recorded the music files and that some songs had been downloaded from known pirate Web sites.
However, A friend and I were arguing about how the RIAA actually selects people to sue. Do they care about random users who just happened to ‘accidentally’ download music, and it turned out to be their bad day? Or do they track people’s bandwidth usage and sue the larger file sharers?
When you guys reply (as i’m sure you will, :wink:), please try and include a URL or link to newsite?
Thanks,
~nox
though i have a question for you. I am currnetly finishing my degree in the UK and is planning on maybe doing a post graduate masters degree in the states, i want to do a masters in business/economics/entrepreneurship.
