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Todays e-school is on a scare to file and music swappers.

Starting today the Recording Institute Association of America (RIAA) will start tracking down music swappers. You might say 'ahh they can't do anything to me, im just a little pc user'. Thats completely wrong. Technically you are stealing the music you download. Now if you are not only swapping music but sharing it too you can be in even greater risk.

"Once we begin our evidence-gathering process, any individual computer user who continues to offer music illegally to millions of others will run the very real risk of facing legal action in the form of civil lawsuits that will cost violators thousands of dollars and potentially subject them to criminal prosecution," said Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA.

Technically they are aiming at people who are providing the files to download. The way they plan to catch these users is through a program that will scan all of the peer 2 peer networks (ex. Kazza, Morpheus, eMule). Once it has found a targeted user it will download some of the files he is offering and note the date and time. The program will then try to identify the user by his IP address and the ISP which uses it. The RIAA will then contact the ISP and ask them to hand over that users information.

"The law is clear and the message to those who are distributing substantial quantities of music online should be equally clear --- this activity is illegal, you are not anonymous when you do it, and engaging in it can have real consequences," Sherman said. "We'd much rather spend time making music then dealing with legal issues in courtrooms. But we cannot stand by while piracy takes a devastating toll on artists, musicians, songwriters, retailers and everyone in the music industry."

This e-school was prepared by Aaron Jones.
If you have any questions please send an email to jeanhill@surfmore.net