Steve Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 The age of illegal music downloads could soon be over. The UK's largest provider of home broadband is to warn internet users building up vast libraries of music that they could be prosecuted. From next week, Virgin Media will send letters to thousands of households where music is either being downloaded or illegally shared. Many of the recipients are likely to be the unsuspecting parents of teenagers who hoard free downloads offered by file-sharing services. Research shows the majority of them are unaware their children are breaking the law.http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertai...ion-842086.html Ooooooooh. Scary! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phology Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 LMFAO!! they'll send a letter. i always wonder though how they know people are downloading music.. you could just rename the files to something inconspicuous like - Johns Holiday Photos.rar or whatever cudnt you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dextrous Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 More to the point, it's none of their fucking business and what are they doing monitoring users online activity? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Face Melt Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 can i ask a serious question here? can the "powers that be-eth" actually do anything in reality to stop large scale illegal downloading? or is what they're saying all just a bunch of crap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted June 7, 2008 Author Share Posted June 7, 2008 what are they doing monitoring users online activity?Virgin aren't. They're pandering to the BPI who are. can the "powers that be-eth" actually do anything in reality to stop large scale illegal downloading?Not really. Not unless they monitored every single bit of data that passes through an ISP's servers and even then, how would they know what it is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Face Melt Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 so all this talk is just scare tactics?good to know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted June 7, 2008 Author Share Posted June 7, 2008 If you share music via P2P programs like Soulseek, Kazaa etc. or if you use torrents you can be caught and prosecuted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rygon Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 but how will they tell the difference between legal d/ls and illegal ones...a lot of ppl make music and share it for free using p2p networks...are they going to going to find who owns each one and then prosecute accordingly..seems a waste of time and money Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xxplosive Posted June 8, 2008 Share Posted June 8, 2008 are they going to going to find who owns each one and then prosecute accordingly..seems a waste of time and money either that or they'll just blindly accuse random people. i wouldn't put it past them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted June 8, 2008 Author Share Posted June 8, 2008 but how will they tell the difference between legal d/ls and illegal ones...a lot of ppl make music and share it for free using p2p networks...are they going to going to find who owns each one and then prosecute accordingly..seems a waste of time and moneyThe BPI or a company that represents them would go on a P2P network and search for certain songs. If you're sharing the particular songs they search for and they start to download them from you, you're caught. The same with torrents - They download a torrent of a particular album and if your computer sends their computer any info, they've got you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snuff Posted June 9, 2008 Share Posted June 9, 2008 but how will they tell the difference between legal d/ls and illegal ones...a lot of ppl make music and share it for free using p2p networks...are they going to going to find who owns each one and then prosecute accordingly..seems a waste of time and moneyThe BPI or a company that represents them would go on a P2P network and search for certain songs. If you're sharing the particular songs they search for and they start to download them from you, you're caught. The same with torrents - They download a torrent of a particular album and if your computer sends their computer any info, they've got you. is that the case even if you're religously using Peer Guardian? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted June 9, 2008 Author Share Posted June 9, 2008 Using PeerGuardian is a bit like using a condom with holes in it, haha. When those MediaSentry emails were leaked to the web not so long ago, one of them contained a list of IPs they use. PeerGuardian was only blocking a small percentage of them at the time. It's certainly much better than using nothing, but just how effective it is against any particular company is pretty much impossible to say. Some "expert" on TorrentFreak tested the program somehow and he reckons it's 70-80% effective, which sounds good but still leaves you wide open to getting caught. I would guess that the BPI go looking for people sharing more mainstream artists. I would also guess that they go for the big targets - open trackers like Pirate Bay and large index sites like Mininova. Also, if you use a P2P program like Soulseek, only share stuff with people on your friends list. Downloading from Usenet or via hosting sites like Rapidshare and Megaupload is far safer and if you have to use torrents, stick to registration only sites - although even that is no guarantee as 13 people have been arrested recently for sharing music on OiNK, and no doubt more arrests will follow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snuff Posted June 9, 2008 Share Posted June 9, 2008 yeah i thought so in regards to PG2. still better than nothing. I dont download much anyways to be honest, maybe a movie every couple of weeks and some music apps from audionews.ru. i dont think i'll be hitting anyones red alert threshold anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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