Originally posted by SteveUK
If you look at the amount of users online with a program such as Kazaa at any one time, am I the only one that thinks common sense should prevail here? There is no way the RIAA or anybody else has the resources to track and then take lengthy, expensive legal action against each of those users.
This is about making a noise, sulking and making an example of a very few people in an attempt to scare everybody else into behaving themselves.
I want to make it clear that I am not condoning any form of copyright infringement. However, I would like to point out a couple of extremely easy ways to protect yourself. All my music, video and other material, the stuff we are talking about here, is stored on a second hard drive. I can download something, transfer it to the second hard drive and then remove it. I have a tray on the front of my PC tower into which I can slot a second hard drive. If I then decide to view or listen to anything on that hard drive, I can simply make sure I am offline. Secondly, if a piece of spyware software from this all knowing, big brother organisation we are talking about ends up on my machine, how do they know which mp3's came from Kazaa and which came from my own bought collection? Remember, copying cds and dvds that you own for back-up purposes is perfectly legal.
Stop panicking people, your PC is not going to catch fire and blow up the next time you go online!
I do have a couple of quick questions though:
1. I dont live in America. What jurisdiction does the RIAA have over me and my file collection?
2. Are we just talking about music or could we all be in trouble for downloading jpeg's, mpeg's etc?