complicated tech question

I have a friend who is illegally downloading music from the web, and I was wondering if I explained how he's doing it would someone here be willing to tell me how he could get caught so I can try to convince him to stop. Thanks

 

I guess that he really isn't much of a friend since you want him to get sued. I'm sure that the RIAA already knows about his source of downloads. If you really want to rat on him, the RIAA are the people to notify. Are you sure that you want to rat out your friend, for something so small?

 

buy the CDs.... that's what we used to do during the 90s.... or buy some used ones for $3.99. I remember the good ol days...

 

That is why I am asking so I can warn him, that his "full proof way" as he calls it is not full proof. And while he says that he will never sell the music I would expect that it will still catch up to him in some way, which is what I want to warn him about.

 

Try showing him this: Minnesota woman to pay $220,000 fine for 24 illegally downloaded songs | Technology | The Guardian

You can tell them until your blue in the face and it is not going to make a difference. Just make sure you are no part of it.

 

So what is his fool proof way? Is it a VPN, Tor a hacked wifi account? Those 3 ways are pretty good. So far, his only mistake was telling you.

 

He uses a YouTube to MP3 converter.

 

I don't think that's illegal. You said that he was downloading music & that's not a download.

 

How is that not illegal? He is getting a free copy of the music, should I post in the legal forums?

 

From what you tell me, he is recording the sound, from a youtube video. How is that different than recording a TV show on a DVR? If you don't agree with that & you want to report him, contact the RIAA. The contact info is below.

https://www.riaa.com/report-piracy/

IMO, I think that you are going overboard. There are so many other issues that are more important that need attention than someone recording youtube. I doesn't make sense to me.

 

I don't think what he's doing is illegal. See Universal Studios vs. Sony Corporation of America

 

Copyright holders can post, or allow their music to be posted, on Youtube but they still retain the rights to it. That's why Youtube, Pandora, etc don't have a "Download" feature. There are several Youtube capture apps and software but generally not available through legitimate sources (like the Play Store).

That said--it's highly unlikely that such an app leaves any "breadcrumbs" that a song was downloaded & stored rather than streamed so your friend is probably safe. Not so for direct downloads from torrent sites and other sources of pirated files.

 

I agree that it is technically illegal. There is a lot of discussion about whether it should be, and as Esand pointed out, how it differs from, VHS tapes, DVRs, etc.

But at least in my opinion, other than a few "let's make an example of him/her" cases, 99.99999...% of downloaders don't get caught/sent a letter/sued/etc.

It doesn't make it any less bad, or in many people's opinion, time consuming. If you consider your time, it's often cheaper to spend the $0.99 on a song (or pay for a Spotify/Pandora/etc subscription) than to go through the effort to download/convert/save the song.


Maybe your best solution would be to give him a $25 iTunes card and let him see how easy it is to get songs legally. They will likely be better quality AND the musicians get their (small) cut.

 

At the moment, there is a loop hole in the law. Even if it's closed & it becomes law, it's unenforceable.