The Cost of Illegal Downloading
This week marked the first guilty verdict won by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against illegal downloading. A Minnesota woman was accused of sharing songs through a popular file-sharing network and was found guilty and fined $220,000.
The reason I bring this up to parents of grade schoolers is that while companies like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have made it easy and relatively cheap to buy and download digital music online, many children feel it is their right to download and share for free music with their friends (and the rest of the world). What they don’t understand (but you need to) is that it is relatively easy for the RIAA to track down illegal music sharing online.
How do they do this? Each computer is assigned a unique number - called an IP address - when it goes online. The major internet service providers have been more than willing to share that information with the government and organizations like the RIAA when potentially illegal activity is suspected. The woman found guilty this week was sharing music from her home computer and even used her email address as her user ID on the file sharing network.
Two things I’ll suggest to you to help avoid this from happening to you and your family:
- Make sure you do not have any file sharing software on your computers at home - Limewire and Kazaa are the two most popular file sharing software. Talk with your kids about illegal music sharing and explain the risks to them (it might to indicate that the woman found guilty this week was fined over $9,000 per song she shared online!)
- Be sure to secure your wireless network at home. Turn off the broadcast ID or encrypt your wireless router with a password (see my blog post “Secure Your Wireless Network” for details). The reason for this is while you may not be illegally downloading music and sharing it online, if your wireless network is open, others in your neighborhood may be using it for illegal activity and could potentially be liable for their activities.