Are you a Criminal? What will happen if "they" catch you?

Are you still using p2p downloading programs like Morpheus, KaZaa and Shareaza to "steal" music and even movies? Courts around the world have, time and again, ruled in favor of the record and movie companies. These media giants have proved that they intend to protect their copyrights on their "products. We have all read about the numerous lawsuits that have been made against down-loaders. Most of these, it would seem, have been ruled in favor of the big business interests. So unless you have a different and cleverly devious defense planned, it would seem that -- eventually -- you may be caught. What will you do?

Are you still downloading music and movies == copyrighted material ?
What do you do to "protect" yourself and what if you are caught? What do you think will happen?

There is too many people to prosecute and you will have to download files from a server who is owned by a intelectual property type company like the RIAA, even then if you have firewalls enabled or if you are behind a proxy they might not get your IP adress very well.

Also, the ISP might be quite reluctant to share which user used what IP to download the file since only they can have the answer to this.

Don't forget ISP's promote downloading music, moves etc since that's what they make money off of...if they started turning users in they would bankrupt them selfs too

I dont think they are after people who are downloading a movie or a song here or there, but are after people who are downloading BIG stuff. Like militarian and programs that cost up to $10,000+, yes they are out there I have seen them. If they really wanted to protect music from people copying them from CD's they would put a "Copy Protector" on the CD itsself. Kind of like when you get a DVD, there are just some that you cant copy...why not the CD's too?

I'm one of the people who got scared off, so I converted to the legal Napster service. Its quite reliable, very fast and you actually get what you asked for (as opposed to the lottery of P2P). The files are protected but there are solutions to that.

I still use Morpheus, but just for film clips and eBooks.

I don't use any of those funky P2P things but some pople who use them protect themselves with Peerguardian. Programs can cost $10,000?!?

If anything programs like Kazaa are far far worse than the music/movie companies. Kazaa and its ilk infect computers with spyware and other lovely bits of code that are very difficult to shake off.

These days I use Bitorrent type programs, i usually download abandonware with it, games that are no longer being sold or supported.

And sometimes I do download music, but when I like it I usually end up buying the CD like I did for BoC's Geogaddi...

Oh yes, there are programs that EASILY cost over $10,000. I know that commercial lisences of engineering software like Autodesk's CAD packages, Pro-Engineer, and thermal analysis software can easily be that expensive. There are even other programs that can be phenomenally expensive. I've heard numbers over $50,000 thrown around. At the arcade I go to the guy was working on the Dance Dance Revolution Extreme machine and showed me the CD-ROM that ran the game. That CD and the corresponding security ROM were worth $1000. Some upgrades may cost even more.

Anyways, if I were to pirate, I'd just take my entire music collection and burn it to a DVD-RW and give it to a friend. I'd really like to see the RIAA or MPAA try and track that. (I have moral issues so I don't actually do that, but I can easily see other people doing that.) That's 900 songs right there. So I'm thinking offline "speakeasies" might be the upcoming thing - and that would be infinately harder to trace or regulate.

11+ gigs of music stolen yeee haaaaa, The way I see is it that i'm supporting my favorite Artists by not giving them drug money hahaha.

LMAO Poison! that's one way to look at it!!

My friends use LimeWire. My friend is trying to convince me but I am a little afraid. I really don't think they are gonna go after you unlesss you have like 1,000 songs or movies. They will not waste their time on something lower than that.

iTunes Kind of promotes piracy because you have to pay to get songs, so people don't wanna pay, and voula, you have pirates.

1,000 songs?! lol

thats childs play my friend. its called usenet.. 15 bucks a month unlimited downloads, at speeds that will make you cry anything you want right at your fingertips
art should be free.