Is 'Making Available' Copyright Infringement? ~ ALERT for personal computer owners....

Hollywood Reporter ^ | January 22, 2007 | Ray Beckerman

[RobRoy]

>>I find your rationalization of theft appalling.<<

It is not theft. Nothing has been removed. The artist still has his song. The store still has it's cd.

I also don't consider it stealing when I sing the songs in the public shower.

[BlueNgold]

It IS theft - read the law - read the case decisions.

I find your logic indicative of the moral decline of this country. No guilt - do what you want - rationalize away anything - self above others - personal opinion above the law.

[RobRoy]

I've argued this twist ad-nausium. How can anyone respect the law when there is no evidence to support the respect for the law makers.

There were laws about slaves too. We have the wrong governor in my state because of blatant disregard, by lawmakers, for the law.

It's the law? Pfffftt...

I will not steal someone elses property. The definition of stealing is when the person from which a person steals the property no longer has it in their posesion.

[Arthalion]

she doesn't really know how to remove files I guess. she should have just removed the hard drive.

The RIAA is many things, but stupid isn't one of them. They fully expect that people will try to delete data off their computer, and account for that. The FIRST THING they do is run some very expensive data recovery software (at a hardware level, they pull the HD from the machine so it never even gets booted) to determine whether you've deleted any files. It's very difficult to completely erase all traces of a file from your computer, and many of the higher end hardware recovery solutions can recover data even if it's been overwritten once or twice. If nothing is found, the SECOND thing they do is a pattern search on the empty spaces to determine whether you've run any software annihilation programs. If you did so, they'll find it and you can expect the judge to be very upset that you deleted files in an unrecoverable manner. We're talking contempt charges if you can't prove some other need for it.

If neither of those routes turns anything up, they start trying to verify that the HDD is actually real. They look at the write dates for the OS, installation dates for all the files on your computer, and dates on files cached both within your browser and for changes in your email storage files. A recreated drive is almost always caught once they do this...if everything was installed on the same date, or on two or three days, it's a good sign that the harddrive was recreated. A drive that actually gets used will have a steady progression of file create and modification dates, almost like fingerprints of constant use. While someone skilled in computers COULD recreate that, it would take an enormous amount of time and effort. Since most subpoenas don't give people much time (24-48 hours as I understand), very few people could pull it off.

FWIW, that's how this lady got caught. She knew a little about computers and figured that reformatting and reinstalling her OS would be enough to destroy the evidence. The forensic analysis didn't find any files, but it clearly demonstrated that everything had been installed on a single day, and that the PC showed no signs of actually being used for any amount of time. Since the PC was a few years old, this was a dead giveaway that she'd reformatted it. She was charged with contempt and jailed for her effort.

[Arthalion]

I don't avoid P2P because I support the RIAA. Far from it, I think their tactics are underhanded, that their members function like abusive monopolies, and that a CD costs way too much for what you get. I believe their investigative methods are only vaguely legal, and think they deserve a nice hefty counter-suit for some of the BS they've pulled like suing grandmothers who have never even owned a computer. I believe that modern American copyright protections are overly broad for most music (and print, for that matter...modern copyright goes way beyond what the founders of this nation intended when it was enshrined in the Constitution), and that the only reason this type of sharing is illegal is that the industry has a few bought men in Washington.

Still, I don't P2P for two simple reasons: 1) It's illegal, and if I'm going to get sued over something, it's not going to be something as stupid as a song. 2) The quality of P2P recordings tends to fall well below what I can do myself. Pops, poorly cut transitions, inconsistent album and song labeling, completely mislabeled tracks, tracks that are cut off before completion. P2P is amateurish, and since my MP3 player is part of my home theater, I want only high quality, highly organized music. I've found that ripping it myself, or buying it from a service like iTunes or AllofMP3, provides far better quality. And yes, I use AllofMP3...that should dispel any notion that I'm an RIAA fan :)

[oceanview]

"file cleaner" software isn't illegal to use, I use it as a matter of course on my systems - to clean spam mail, financial data, personal emails, etc. that alone is no basis for a contempt charge - that assertion just goes to show how insane the power the government has given to this industry is.

[FYREDEUS]

I already AM in Canada...do you think everyone on this site is American?

RIA-AMERIKA seems to forget that it's a WORLD WIDE web too...We The People of the WORLD will decide the future of file-sharing, not RIA-AMERIKA.

VIVE LE REVOLUTION!

[FYREDEUS]

"The FIRST THING they do is run some very expensive data recovery software (at a hardware level, they pull the HD from the machine so it never even gets booted) to determine whether you've deleted any files. It's very difficult to completely erase all traces of a file from your computer, and many of the higher end hardware recovery solutions can recover data even if it's been overwritten once or twice."

Good luck RIAA with the "once or twice" recovery solutions...I routinely employ FREEWARE Eraser 5.7 and DBAN [Dariks Boot and Nuke] on my drives; that allows the the option of GUTTMAN - 35 PASSES - as well as DOD and RCMP/CSIS protocols - thats forensically unrecoverable randomization...sowwwwy RIA-AMERIKA.

But not actually because of RIAA since MY downloading is both LEGAL under our laws and MORAL because of our CDR levy the labels themselves asked for lol...rather I do so because I've had some nasty hacker problems [last time I nuked and reloaded i'd had almost a half million attacks on my system according to my firewall logs] so I just nuke my system as part of 'routine housecleaning'...I'm sure other folks have completely normal SECURITY reasons to DBAN their disks too.

[BlueNgold]

Great .. a Canadian thief in our midst...

[FYREDEUS]

If it's LEGAL to take something then one is not a thief...try again, lolol.

[Old Professer]

And the second is the backbone of the Internet.

[Old Professer]

I keep a bucket by the back door for emergencies.