Is it possible to get caught downloading music

But what is that risk, anyway? And the consequences are potentially a lot more severe. Ten years after the RIAA first busted into the party of unlimited Backstreet Boys and Blink swapping known as Napster , we now have plenty of data to examine when it comes to piracy. And the conclusions are pretty interesting. Census Bureau — or roughly 12 out of every hundred Americans. In a more recent Pew survey, that number leapt to 15 percent of Americans , or The question, of course, is how many of these steal-from-home thieves were caught.

The RIAA started chasing individual file sharers back in , then ended the offensive in , leaving us a finite number of people to look at. How many ended up in the nets? Estimates range from 18, to 35,, depending on who you ask. It is still unclear how willing courts will be to prosecute individuals based only on the fact that their IP address was recorded.

This month a U. The New Scientist reports that "anyone who has downloaded pirated music, video or eBooks using a BitTorrent client has probably had their IP address logged by copyright-enforcement authorities within three hours of doing so. They successfully pressured the Department of Justice to halt Megaupload and managed to prod the Ukrainian government into shutting down Demonoid , the popular private tracker.

The next step seems to be bring Internet service providers like Comcast and Time Warner into the act. Someone breaking copyright laws by regularly downloading movies is using more bandwidth than the next-door neighbor who's just streaming funny videos on YouTube.

You make an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you bought expressly permits you to do so. But then you put your MP3 copy on the Internet, using a file-sharing network, so that millions of other people can download it. Then you download unauthorized copies of all the music you want. You transfer copyrighted music using an instant messaging service.

You have a computer with a CD burner, which you use to burn copies of music you have downloaded onto writable CDs for all of your friends. Visit www. The owners of copyrighted music have the right to use protection technology to allow or prevent copying. For queries or advice about claiming compensation due to a road problem, contact DFI Roads claim unit.

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