ok im going to explain how this works.
if you have a song, a movie, a game, or anything that is copyright protected and you are sharing them you can get sued.
here are the steps they tal:
1- they download the file from you, they have thousands of computers dedicated for this exact purpouse with enough bandwidth to make any group of hackers jealous. they download it to make sure that its their copyrighted material. if they see for example britney spears- im a slave for you and once they download it its actually a 12 year old girl singing a half assed version of that song they delete that file and go to the next person. if it is the file that it claims to be and its theirs they go to step 2
2- they nark down your IP dress, the time of the download, and get the rest of the songs that you have, keeping all the information on that file they just got from you. at this point you are in their database and they can sue you for $2000 per song
3- they decide that you have alot of files and that if you stoped sharing the pirating problem will go down. your a big fish and taking you out will have an afect on digital media pirating.
4- this is where it gets tricky. if your past step 3 your in trouble. they have to go to your ISP give them your IP adress and ask for your name and adress. if you have AOL its not too big of a problem because AOL gives them your contact info sometimes without them even asking. if you have something like Verizon then they have to go to step 5 (verizon fought the RIAA in court about 2 years ago saying that giving them their clients info is taking away their right to privacy. and they won)
5-So now their at a block they have an IP adress that looks like this:69.267.78.256
and the company providing this IP adress wont give them your home adress. so they have to sue you. do you have enough songs to warrant a lawsuit. its gonna cost them alot. if they decide to go ahead and sue you you get a nice letter saying that you are needed in court because the RIAA is suing your ass. please delete all the files from your computer imediately, and dust off your check book your about to pay $200 to $2000 a song or settle for the price of a couple thousand dollars + any fees they had to pay in the process of suing you.
now if you havnt been sued yet dont fool yourself they probably know you. if you have been sharing music for more than 2 years and its pretty famous music, eminem, 50, Britney, and everybody else on MTV then they definitly have your IP adress and they might have your name and adress from when they didnt have to sue you to get it. their going after the top dogs right now the ones making them loose millions of dollars, the ones who upload the songs in the first place, the warez groups all those big guys. but nothing stops them from suing everybody who has or ever had one song. even if you deleted all your songs, and you have a new ISP, a new computer, they can still sue you, your name is probably in their database and if they keep on not making enough money to buy those new jets they had their eye on theil come knocking on your door for the money, hopefully itl be in the form of a letter asking you to show up in court, but it can also be the FBI rushing in your house and grabbing all your computers.
hope someone learned something
