Let’s just pretend for a minute that the RIAA has come knocking on your door accusing you of using a P2P service to illegally share music, and violating copyrights. Your first instinct is what? If you’re Jeffrey Howell, you:
- Uninstall KaZaa
- Delete EVERYTHING in the shared folder
- Reformat the hard drive
- Download and use a file-wiping program to eliminate all KaZaa logs
If you are the judge in this case, you automatically find Howell guilty and rule in favor of the RIAA. Yes, the RIAA did score a win.
At the beginning of this whole situation, Howell actually had things going his way. The judge ruled his his favor saying that making a file available on a P2P network like KaZaa isn’t enough to find someone guilty of copyright infringement as the RIAA argued. According to Ars, after the judge made that ruling, it looked as though the case would go to trial in the Fall, that is, until the RIAA filed a motion regarding Howell’s tampering and destroying of evidence. The judge ruled in the RIAA’s favor.
Once Howell knew he was in trouble, he did all of the things listed above which was enough to show that he had to be guilty. He’ll likely have to fork-out a good chunk of money to the RIAA once he gets a written order from the judge.
Now you know what not to do if the RIAA comes knocking on your door.
RIIA in US, SGAE in Europe, and …………. latinamerica ¿?
What about using Boot and Nuke on a computer and then reinstalling Windows and all the other programs you use?
Arnt they more likely to post you a letter then burst through your door?
I think the point is that if you wipe your hard drive after you receive notification that the RIAA is after you, you make yourself look guilty whether you really are or not.
Basically, if you are violating copyright law and the RIAA comes after you, it would probably be best get rid of any illegally downloaded files. Keeping a P2P program as that can legitimately be used to download non-copyrighted files.
The best thing to do is if you are worried about the RIAA or MPAA or any other entity coming after you is not to break the law in the first place.
I didn’t mean literally knocking at your door. It’s a saying that apparently not everybody has heard of. Sorry.
Exactly!
what a strange world we live in.
a user gets sued for wiping his hard drive (hey….maybe he had a virus!)…
yet the chinese government deletes records off their websites, and they get to keep some gold medals?….seems like a similar situation to me….
I;m not familiar with the case, but he must have had a shitty lawyer if the complete lack of evidence is what he was convicted on. How did they prove he did those things? If it was proved, how did they prove he did those things because of stolen music and not just a typical Windows issue?
From what I’ve read, what the RIAA charges you with is sharing and not downloading. Apparently this is easier for the RIAA to prove, and this is potentially more lucrative.
A good friend of mine occasionally used Kazaa, and didn’t know that Kazaa — at the time — would stay open all the time in it’s default position. Thus, every time she turned her computer on, Kazaa automatically loaded and put itself into the background.
Thus, for weeks or even months, she was sharing all the time. Well, eventually she got served. And she was flabbergasted that she had been sharing all that time. I told her to fight it because she could not have known about this auto load feature. But her husband insisted on paying it, and they did.
That was a year ago. I think from what I’ve read, she would have had a pretty good case.
RIAA Lawyers > Howell’s Lawyer
You should have two computers, such as a desktop & a laptop. Use only one of them for your P2P activities. Then, if the RIAA comes calling, reformat the “guilty” computer, but turn the “innocent” computer over to the authorities. This way, you’re not giving them a computer that’s obviously just been reformatted.
Also, never put a password on your wireless router. The liklihood of getting hacked is really pretty low, so having a password is really just a pain in the ass for yourself. And, you’ll always be able to assert that it was neighborhood punk kids using your bandwidth for file sharing.
Ashley, I’m not sure where you got this story from, or if your sources facts are correct, but that isn’t how the law works. Even if there was incriminating evidence on the hard drive, it would still have to be proven that he did in fact have it. Nobody would get sentenced because they made themselves LOOK guilty, they have to be PROVEN guilty. Even if the tampering had been done post RIAA notice, the computer in question was not confiscated(at least you didn’t note it as such), in which case, the owner is still free to do as they please with it. If you’re going to be bold enough to post something online, at least get all the facts straight, and leave your opinion out of it.
“they have to be PROVEN guilty. ”
You don’t seem to know much about the American legal system in practice.