I have backups of my own personal MP3 Music on this server for personal use. No P2P sharing.
This directory is offline and password protected to observe the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on June 25, 2003,
that it will begin suing users of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing systems within the
next few weeks. According to the announcement, the RIAA will be targeting users who
upload/share "substantial" amounts of copyrighted music. The RIAA has stated that it
will choose who to sue by using software that scans users' publicly available P2P
directories and then identifies the ISP of each user.
Then, using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the RIAA will subpoena the ISP
for each user's name, address, and other personal information in order to sue that user.
US penalty for copyright infringement is $750 to $150,000 per work.
That's $750 to $150,000 PER song.
And since the Kazaa file sharing program has been downloaded 285 million times,
Morpheus 119 million times, iMesh 59 million times, LimeWire 16 million times, and
Grokster 9 million times [source: download.com], the RIAA has a *HUGE* pool of people
they could potentially sue for disgusting amounts of money.
And that pool could very well contain you.
You *MUST* read this document if you have *EVER* downloaded songs off of the Internet
using Grokster, Morpheus, Kazaa, Aimster/Madster, Mactella, Gnucleus, Gnotella, LimeWire,
BearShare, iMesh, or WinMX.
I recently heard a computer "expert" say that one way to keep the RIAA at bay is to
simply stop using your peer-to-peer program. That advice is both incorrect and dangerous.
Even if you have not used your peer- to-peer program in months, that program may still
be running in the background on your computer ... especially if you installed that
program using its default settings.
In other words, your computer could currently be sharing songs with the entire
planet -- and the lawyers at the RIAA -- without your even knowing it.
Thank You for visiting Ed-Justice.com we proudly observe the (DMCA)
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)