Somone at my job said that kazaa and all p2p file sharing programs are now illegal. :(

Is that true? I thought you only got arrested if you download more than 600 songs or files in a day.

Tell me whats up with this whole illegal file sharing thing. :?

Maybe so , but how do you enforce it? Is there a p2p police force?

thats what I thought!

I was wondering because I just downloaded like 25 episodes of "Family Guy"

BTW: didnt somone just get arrested for downloading music? I thought I saw it in the news

There was an announcement on the local radio show this morning that stated any one "sharing" songs on Kazaa are eligable to be fined a fee of up too $150,000 for every incident of illegally shared songs. If you are just downloading you are probably still safe. Sharing is where the risk is now.

And yes, they do have the means to track down individually thru Kazaa using usernames, IP addresses, and mony other tid bits of information that are readily available.

Only in the US or is this an internationally passed law?

my thoughts is US only :?

:? Eeeeek i hve Exactly 961 files being shared at this very moment. i sure hope i dont get into trouble for it. ive gotten messages from "Wendy@kazaa" saying sharing files is illegal, and i could be punished for it? lol i just click Ignore!

This is stupid. The government is just trying to help out record companies by cracking down on this crap. The fact of the matter is, there is about 6 PETABYTES of music on the internet being shared. That is 6,000,000 Gigabytes. And that is probably an understatement.

With all the private proxy servers, and the massive amount of web servers, as well as personal computers housing this music and software, there is no way in hell this can be enforced. Even if it was, the government has to get a warrant to even look at the ISP'* servers in order to find out who is downloading the illegal stuff. I don't think they are going to do that for every incident.

It'* a lost cause. It'* just like recording shows off the TV. When VCR'* came out, there were huge lawsuits about people recording shows, and today, its just the modern version of that.

It'* rediculous.

Those are my two cents.

1. Yes, there was one guy in the US that was arrested awhile ago, but he was downloading thousands of songs per day, it was insane.

2. So many people share songs and stuff that it would be physically impossible for everyone to be arrested. Just think of the $$$ that record companies would spend in legal fees if they tried to do that. They would be broke in a week.

3. The Wendy@Kazaa.com was probably just a way of Kazaa covering their own asses if they should ever be called in to court.

4. It looks like it is impossible to stop the flow by sueing the companies that make the software to share the programs with, once one falls, another 10 are there to take its spot (Napster and Gnutella/Kazaa). Are they going to try to stop people from buying CD burners too?

5. I think there was a ruling in the US recently that favored those who share songs over the internet, but I cant remember the case or any of the details. Like someone said earlier, there is already precident for this kind of thing, with the VCR.

I dont think that file sharing will ever be eliminated, the internet is too broad and international for that to ever happen. Alot of times I will download a song and if I like it then I will go buy the CD. The only people that this hurts are the pop singers who have only 2 good songs on a CD with the rest being filler, and I dont really feel sorry for them. If they wrote their own music and had better songs then that wouldnt happen to them.

Sorry if I got carried away

The real crime is the $20 CD that the record company sells and has been selling for years. The majority of individuals have been forced to spend a high amount of money for one or two songs, getting 12-15 others that just take up space. Most of us really only want to buy one or two songs. There are some exceptions to that.

Because of the profits involved, record companies sell product and not music (See fabrications like Britney Spears, In Sync, and others).

You can't stop technology. Record companies should stop crying. Stove/oven producers did not cry when the microwave became popular. Slide-rule producers didn't cry when the calculator came out. Computers are magnificent tools and can be used to benefit everyone.