Submitted by Codewarrior

Cable modems by the millions are humming nationwide, downloading and uploading tunes.

Although the RIAA wants this to stop, ironically, they have an interest in finding out what songs are the most popular, because, their labels ARE in the business of selling music, right? Someone could make some money by tracking which songs are the most popular, right? It's already being done. BigChampagne.com has got that covered, and they're watching your downloads!

In an article in Wired magazine, October 2003, we get a profile of the company, Big Champagne. According to the article, in summer 2000, Eric Garland (CEO of BC) and Tom and Zack Allison, hired programmers to build an application capable of indexing and searching shared folders and tracking 50 million search queries a day.

You log onto Kazaa and type in "50 Cent", and Big Champagne knows about it.

More importantly for their business, LOTS of people want to know that too, and even some members of the "Big 5" are interested. AOl/Time Warner, for one, is very interested in which of their artists are most popular.

But, this bit tracking doesn't come cheap. For limited interests, they offer a subscription to their database to track ONE album for $7500, but the bigger labels are reported to have deals per year, in which they are paying $40,000 A MONTH!

An interesting aspect is: they can develop profiles of listener's preferences. Since they can record the entire contents of shared folders, they can break it down, for example, that 58% of folks with a Norah Jones tune, also have one by John Mayer.

This makes the service important for radio stations as well as record labels. It can be used for programming and play lists, if stations want to fine tune what they play, with what people are wanting to hear.

In probably one of the most interesting quotes in the article, Jed Simon, head of new media for DreamWorks Records says : "The fact is, P2P is a likely distribution channel for our wares." Hey, does that mean mainstream media are now going to start calling their product "wares" now?

And so it goes.

that is know,but thanks for the reminder....

i belive they are all ready in the database

And yet ANOTHER bunch is watching what P2Pers are doing online, cataloging searches and contents of shared folders. How many other companies beside Big Champagne, and the creeps working for the RIAA are looking at our IP addresses, shared files, etc.
This is getting out of hand. Is privacy just a thing of the past in this country?
-bulkeraser

I don't understand how come those networks can provide so much detailed information on what I'm doing to just about anyone who wants. How can an outside company go on the p2p network and learn whatever it wants about whoever is on the network and then sell it to anyone who is willing to pay for it. Does the owner of the network has nothing to say about it? Can the user prevent this information collection about him/her?

the internet is not as secretive as people would like to think

Is there a way we can load up our Kazza share files with a bunch of crap and nasty grams for them to read?

I noticed an add on tv the other day for oldies, out of the fifties and forties! I think it was 3 cd's for $27.00 It looked like all the same tunes my friend downloaded from Kazza and ripped! It is as if they know what people are looking for and then tried to market! So your right on this post!

This was in another thread, but I felt it relevant..sorry new here and wasn't sure where to put it. But you're issues of the RIAA suing 12 year olds has come true...check this out from the New York Post.
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/5349.htm

i knew code could not stay away vary long hehehe wel;l thanks for the artical code and i hope you don't truly leave us any time soon ;0)

Thanks for the post code. This is the dirty little secret that the RIAA doesn't want to tell is that they're actually benefitting from the information that they collect from filesharers on the internet.

And Gaangel, if you're reading this...please submit that news story to the main news area so...everyone can see it...purty please .

The CODE~Is in the house! Glad your back BRO!

Privacy? I used to know what privacy was...lemme think for a minute...nope can't remember what it was, oh well that's not important right now.

(sarcasm intentional)

Okay did that.

somewhat ot...but not really
this is taken from tech tv's site

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3519512,00.html


While the RIAA may be suing people who have generally traded an average of 1,000 songs, a survey of the 19 lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, shows a broad range of users. In some cases, the filings displayed screen shots taken of the userss KaZaA interface, with hundreds of songs displayed


ok am i not the only one that see this as a trojan activity?hello you can only take a screenshot of the machine shareing files if your connected to the computer and looking at the desktop,and seeing the kazaa program....unless they just worded it wrong then they ARE hacking into peoples machines that i was thinking.


so if i am right then whats gonna happen....they can't get away with hacking peeps machines,and if i remember right they just nabbed the google hacker

http://www.windowsecurity.com/pages/article.asp?id=453

netbus

http://www.windowsecurity.com/faqs/Trojans/#faq1217

faq of what trojans can do

Jukebox Maker Files for Chapter 11

http://www.newsday.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-rowe-bankruptcy,0,3211813.story?coll=sns-ap-business-headlines

You think Cary Sherman will blame this on file sharing ?

I can't believe that they are doing this. Dont we have concern about our and other people's privacy anymore.So yah maybe 60 million people or something are downloading music. But nobody ever said if u do that u give up ur privacy.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), chairman of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said Monday he plans hearings to examine the industry's tactics, which he said could threaten privacy on the Internet.

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/0903/09fileshare.html?urac=n&urvf=10631106980800.19596868654199262?707


Atlanta Journal

heh.......wb, code.

Here's an edit on the bill.....I was bored this morning (day off), so I went ahead and incorporated a few things. Y'all give your opinions, so we can get this thing rolling.

1. Consumers are using personal home computers as important means of home entertain , vehicles for communication, and for storage and manipulation of personal data. Concurrently, they have developed certain reasonable and legitimate expectations concerning the right to store , use, manipulate, and transfer digital data to other home users. They further have certain proper expectations that the constitutional rights afforded to them by the Bill of Rights , should apply to their computer, in like manner , to their domicile. For example, the protections against unreasonable search and seizure which the constitution applied to a person’s residence, and which was later also applied to their personal vehicle or conveyance, should now also be applied to the personal computer. With the development of new technologies, Networking, or sharing of connections/resources/information, previously only available to large corporations at high cost, is now available to the end user, in the form of Routers, off-site Internet Servers, and readily available Internet Server Software.

The reasons for these assertions are manifest. Home computers may, and often do, contain personal and private information including such material as personal financial records, medical information , business information, and other personal and private data which may apply to the user themselves, but also, in the case of a shared computer, or a “family computer”, the machine may in fact hold personal records for many persons , both of adolescents, and adults. In the same way that "reasonable search and siezuere" is applied to physical cases, it must be applied to a shared computer system. Current laws have long protected individuals from unauthorized and unfounded search of private property, and must be applied to a shared computer or network.

Also, much in the way a personal vehicle allows a person to physical travel outside the home, so does the personal computer, allowing far greater travel and with far greater speed than an automobile. In these cases, the personal computer may be seen as both a home device, and a personal conveyance. In its basic form, transferrance of information from one computer to another is similar to sending and recieving through the USPS, or via any of the available physical carriers, and as such, must be treated in the same manner.

2. For the foregoing reasons and others , citizens have certain legal rights which should extend to their personal digital storage devices. It is maintained that the legal rights provided to each citizen in the Constitution of the United States, and in other Acts such as the Privacy Act of 1974 , shall be also reserved for devices in which citizens store their digital data. Without limitation, all rights and protections afforded to citizens by the government in their homes and vehicles, shall also be extended to their personal data storage and creation devices such as personal computers. Current developments in technology have allowed personal computers to attain the same scope of travel as any other method of information transfer, and must be protected under similar conditions as physical media transfer.
The personal computer has also become one of the main conveyances of personal commmunication, as relevant as the telephone. Current protections that cover the unlawful "wiretapping" of phone conversations must also be applied to communication programs used on the personal computer, in the forms of "chat rooms", Instant Messengers, and email. These are private commuication devices, in the same way that communication by telephone, radio, and wireless communication is protected against unlawful monitoring.

3. It is further found that citizens have a right to be protected from having their rights violated by any person, business, enterprise, regulatory agency , or other entity , whether said entity is in the public or private sector. We find that the founding fathers did not intend for private businesses to have powers and abilities to violate the rights of private citizens, in any manner which they found would be improper or unconscionable for the government to do. This bill will thus bar any private or public entity from violation or abridgement of any rights or protections under law.

4. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 , has enabled private individuals, companies, and others, to violate basic , Constitutionally protected rights of private persons. The DMCA has enabled private persons and companies to violate the protections afforded citizens by circumventing the traditional methods by which law enforcement officials are legally bound to obtain subpoenas. This circumvention is expected to lead to innocent persons targeted without proper evidentiary procedures being followed. The DMCA has emboldened and enabled the violation of the right to be secure in ones own computer . It is asserted that the reasonable expectation of privacy which are constitutionally guaranteed, have been obliterated by the draconian actions which certain companies and persons have perpetrated upon the public. The alleged raison d'être for the DMCA was to encourage original creation and provide copyright protections to creators in the digital age.

This act was an amendment of Title 17, and was an implementation of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) copyright provisions. Due to the fact that the DMCA has resulted in the enabling of people in the private sector to violate constitutionally provided protections and rights, it is now asserted that this Act, through its practical application, has proven to be ill conceived , and is in fact, a threat to the protected rights which citizens of the United States were assured of, by the Constitution. Thus, as the DMCA comes in conflict with the Supreme law of the land, it is hereby found that the DMCA should be repealed.

5. In 1984 , the Supreme Court of the United States, ruled in a 5-4 decision in the Universal City Studios v. Sony Corporation case , that home recording of copyrighted materials, would be legal under the fair use provision, since the action was a “non-commercial, nonprofit activity”. Although the main issue in this case was that recording programs which were copyrighted (video cassette recorder) were being “time shifted” for viewing at a later time, the central theme of the decision was that it should be legal for home users to make copies of copyrighted material without obtaining prior, written, express permission of the copyright holder to do so. Technology has since expanded to include such devices as DVD recorders, computer hard drives, and portable media storage units, which were not an available option at the time of the UCS vs. Sony Corporation ruling. Such technologies should be covered under the same ruling, as they are also "time shift" based technologies, intended for the same purposes as the original causes for the Supreme Court ruling, i.e. "time shifted" recording for viewing at a later date, or non-commercial copying of copyrighted material for private or non-profit use, as covered by current copyright laws.
As the 21st Century continues, previous technology, such as television sets and video cassette recorders, is being replaced by a newer, digital format, in the form of HDTV (high definition television), personal computer television tuner/reciever units, and DVD (digital video disk) form factors. In their current form and usage, these methods of "time shifting" are essentially no different from the video cassette recorders noted in 1984, and only differ in the manner of storage used, in that the manner of storage is now primarily in the digital realm, rather than analog. These technologies, then, must be covered under the Supreme Court ruling pertaining to the 1984 case. Current "fair use" allows for the use of other digital media storage form factors, such as "TiVo", and cable/satellite recievers with integrated computer hard drive recording capabilites. The personal computer is also being marketed as a time-shift based recording device, by companies such as Sony, Gateway, and Hewlett Packard, and as such, must be protected under the same rulings.

As written, the DCMA does not take into account the astounding rate of development of these technologies. It must be amended to allow for the consumer based trend toward a more stable, reliable form of time-shift based recording, media storage, and communication, as presented and marketed by the same privately based businesses represented in the 1984 Supreme Court case. However, with the advent of "broadband" communication, we must also extend this finding to prevent unauthorized access by privately funded companies to what is essentially private storage and archival equipment. As current search and seizure laws cover home, mobile, and public transportation, it must also be extended to networked mass media storage. The current writing of the DCMA does not allow for the reasonable use provided by rulings based on other forms of archival storage.

The burden of proving that the nature and degree of harm which alleged copyright infringement may exact on complaining parties, must be weighed carefully against the degree of harm which such actions may cause, or have caused. Furthermore, it is the burden of the copyright holder to prove that the alleged infringement is in fact the sole, or proximate cause of such harm. It is not sufficient that a copyright holder make unsubstantiated speculations, or “post hoc ergo propter hoc” assertions as to cause and effect.

6. Consumers shall hereinafter have certain specific rights with regard to digital data and files which they have legally acquired. It is further understood that these rights shall not exclude nor prohibit the free exercise of other rights, which are not specifically enumerated nor described in this bill. Consumers shall have exclusive right to perform the following modifications and to exercise the following uses of digital data and media which they have legally acquired.
1) Time shift – record digital presentations and store them for use a later time.

2) Space or location shift – Consumers have the right to move digital files from location to location, or from one device to another, without losing any legal rights originally afforded to them as an owner or user of the original file in the original location.

3) Format shift / format translation -Consumers shall have the right to convert digital files and digital media from one format to another. For example, if a customer purchases a music CD, they shall have the right to convert the music tracks from the CD into other formats for storage , transportation, or transmission. Such formats shall include wav files, MP3 files, midi files, au files, aiff files, and any and all other formats which exist currently, or which shall be created. Such format changes shall not diminish nor eliminate any rights which the customer had with regard to the original format.

4) Backup of original data legalized- Owners of digital data in any format, hereinafter have the right to make backup copies of original discs or other media, for the purpose of preserving the material, owing to the fragile nature of the CD media, or other media.

5) Multiplatform usage – The consumer shall have the right to move digital data from one operating platform to another, e.g. from a Windows PC to an APPLE “Mac” platform, or other operating system platform. This right shall extend to such devices as "portable media format", in the forms of personal media players, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's), handheld computers, and wireless based notebook computers, including all portable forms of media storage.

6) Consumers shall forthwith have the right(s) to use technological methods, devices, algorithms, software , and other means, to accomplish the above reasonable and proper actions, and to secure the effective usage of the media and files under their care, custody, and control. The right to implement various hardware and software solutions to accomplish these goals, shall not be abridged , modified, nor infringed upon by other laws, acts, statutes, or other legislative actions existing now.
7) As guaranteed by Due Process of Law, infringement of copyright must be provided by the copyright holder or its representing entity. An end user must be proven guilty in a court of law, and shall not be antagonized, or considered "guilty until proven innocent", and shall apply only to the defendant. Guilt by association is contrary to the Constitution, and must be applied to the digital era, i.e., if one member of a household has engaged in criminal activity, the owner of that house cannot be held responsible, unless proven by due process that express permission was given to engage in said activity.


B) PURPOSE –
1) Congress finds that it has a legitimate and mandated purpose to maintain a reasonable consistency in legislation, such that legislation is not passed which allows, through extension and practical application, the violation of the rights of the majority of citizens. A case in point was the Eighteenth Amendment, the National Prohibition Act, or the Volstead Act . This act was found to be unenforceable because it was widely regarded as a wrongheaded act, was regularly disregarded and violated by the majority of people who had previously purchased and consumed alcohol, and effectively turned millions of Americans into criminals.

When an Act , through its application, enables wholesale violation of constitutionally protected civil , and by extension and application makes millions of Americans criminals, it is asserted that this legislation should be amended to correct the harm, or, if it cannot properly be amended to avoid the harm, should be repealed.

It is found that the DMCA has become such a template for mass violation of rights, and, through a meticulous application and enforcement of its provisions, would make criminals out of millions of Americans, who regularly make digital copies of all kinds of files. In point of fact, each website is copyrighted upon creation, and millions download copyrighted images, text, and code daily upon visiting these sites without prior express, authorization from the copyright owner/ website creator. This technical violation of the DMCA by an ordinary act of internet usage, tends to point out that the Act criminalizes benign actions by ordinary citizens.

The Congress has to balance the harm which an Act generates, with the benefits it provides. For around two centuries, the Copyright Act which preceded the DMCA, did an acceptable job of protecting the rights of those who wrote, drew, performed, and otherwise created novel and unique works of art and industry. The widespread abuses which the DMCA has enabled, along with the aggressive manner in which certain parties have exploited these provisions, have pointed out with great clarity, the need to correct the harm. It is found that the DMCA is thus, fundamentally flawed by the manner in which it provides for sacrificing the rights of consumers and other citizens, in favor of simple pecuniary interests. It is found that because of the fundamental flaws, the passage of the Digital Consumers Rights and Protection Act is necessary in order to offer a restatement of the rights consumers have, with regard to their ability to copy, store, transfer, and translate digital files and digital data.

The purpose is thus to bring the rights of consumers in a digital age into compliance with constitutional provisions and protections, but to define and specify how they may properly and legally accomplish these rights, and the means by which these protections may be ensured.

SECTION 3 – DEFINITIONS
The following are definitions for terms used in this Bill. If words are not specifically defined, the ordinary or usual meaning in common parlance will guide the reader in understanding their meaning.

1) Person – Any natural and/or legal person or individual who is a citizen of the United States of America.

2) Consumer – Individual who purchases, uses , maintains, and disposes of products and services

3) Digital Data – 1. Data represented by discrete values or conditions, as opposed to analog data. 2. Discrete representations of quantized values of variables, e.g. , the representation of numbers by digits, perhaps with special characters and the "space" character.

4) Time shift – the recording of any digital data in real time, that is viewed or otherwise used at a later period in time, i.e., there is a temporal delay between recording and usage.

5) Space shift – the physical transference of digital data from one location to another, or the copying of said data from one location to another. This covers movement from one point on a fixed media to another location, from one fixed media to a different one, from one media to a different media, or any combination thereof, and of transmission and transferal not herein described, but which can logically be inferred from this definition.

6) Format shift – the translation from one format or file type to another. This would include any change in a data file or file type which would render the file in any manner changed, and/or any change from one form in which data is stored or used, to another form in which data is stored or used. Encryption and compression are specifically allowed by this provision, and are thus legalized for personal users for nonprofit uses.

7) Backups (and/or making of backups)- describes any process whereby a consumer engages software, and /or hardware applications, devices, technology, and/or algorithms to make a perfect copy or image of original material. The act of backing up one’s digital data can be done in a manner that the backup is a mirror or exact duplicate of the original, and/or an encoded version that is capable, through a technological action, to reproduce the original on demand.

*whoops* edit.....

The personal computer has also become one of the main conveyances of personal commmunication, as relevant as the telephone. Current protections that cover the unlawful "wiretapping" of phone conversations must also be applied to communication programs used on the personal computer, in the forms of "chat rooms", Instant Messengers, and email. These are private commuication devices, and must be protected in the same way that communication by telephone, radio, and wireless communication is protected against unlawful monitoring.

This may be a little off topic but I wasn't sure where I should post it to....
I , like anyone that is smart run a firewall on my computer...Maybe I am paranoid, but all of the players ie: realplayer..musicmatch and programs like that, want to "access" the internet. I wonder if somehow they also track what people have, rather than just give you the info on the song or movie. I have disabled them from access in my firewall. Also, it seems since this whole thing started really picking up, I have an insane increase in the amounts of high-alert intrusions to my computer.I think our levels of privacy on all counts are in serious danger if this BS is allowed to continue........

Under the current and appointed regime in the US, personal privacy and information is subject to search,(in violation of the 4th Admendment), as a result of the infringing Patriot Act. File sharers, aka 'pirates', fall into some sub-category of terrorist because we terrorize corporate America by viewing media, pre-purchase. But folks, what can you expect from an appointed regime headed by a bush, a dick, a colon and an asscrack??

does anyone have Sherman's addy>?

thanks everyone...hard to stay away from you guys!
heffie- thanks for working on things...I'll to look at it when if get back...

jnsnlace- some of the time, programs want to connect to sites to check for upgrades, and you usually can disable automatic upgrade checking, or enable "manual upgrade". I don't like programs to willie nillie connect to the internet in general. Although a program may start as benign and just upgrade your software, they can always change their policy, and decide they want to know more than they have a legitimate right to know. With ZA Pro, you can set it to ask your permission on what programs connect to the Net, and then, decide yes or no. Also, as people have pointed out...free programs like ad-aware,spybot, and spywarebuster, are great to install and run to delete "malware/spyware".
And, with ad-aware and spybot, you need to do the upgrades so that, when more bad spy programs come out, you can get rid of them.
and
AntiRepublican - much of what is going on with Patriot Act, as well as the DMCA, ACCOPS, and other stuff, is extremely troubling and we need to do what we can to stem the flood of repressive legislation.

Wow...For someone trying to shut down p2p, they sure are making great marketing use out of it while it's still here. Lets sue our customers for using the technology, but lets use the technology our selves to track those same custumers preferences so that we can better market to them after we rape their wallets. Doesn't sound too kosher to me.

G'morning Code...
Yeah..I know some do it for upgrading but I think at some point it could be a threat. I use ZA pro and I do not allow access. I am also a regular user of Ad-aware. I do all of the updates manually. Guess I am not a very trusting person...lol

Wait a minute...it's illegal and morally wrong to download, but it's legal and morally right to make money off of downloaders? Ok, now I understand.

Not a matter of being trusting, jnsnlace.......sometimes the upgrades may screw up a perfectly good system. I don't often upgrade my video card drivers, even though there's a new version from ATI available weekly. I've found that the newest driver may sometimes conflict with other hardware/software I have installed. Windows upgrades can eat up your bandwidth with upgrades that only apply to server applications, or software you don't have and never intend to buy. Really, the majority of "recommended upgrades" only amount to the same idea of taking your car in to have the upholstery changed in color....you don't NEED to do it.

That said, I run a server, and I block so many ports that sometimes I can't even email myself. )

You need to run a good firewall, a virus scanner, AND use the spyware removal programs. It's a shame, really........spyware is generally ad related. Here's a link that you should respond to, regarding a spyware company.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1212&e=10&u=/nm/20030909/tc_nm/tech_popups_dc&sid=95573503

The worst part of this ruling is that the judge states that "we must endure pop up advertising......as a burden of using the Internet." Last time I checked, I don't have a clause in my ISP contract stating that I MUST accept popups, spam, and spyware as a condition of my service contract.

And back on topic, here's where the RIAA is going wrong, and where they're gonna alienate users who don't even know about us.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1212&e=4&u=/ap/20030909/ap_en_mu/downloading_music&sid=95573501

Maybe I'm not being paranoid enough here but I don't see anything wrong with this. If they are gathering private personal information and selling that, THEN I would have a problem. Banks and credit card companies regularly sell all of your personal information, including your social security number, to other institutions for money. If this company is tracking popular songs and ONLY popular songs then not only do I think that's cool, I wonder what took so damn long to figure that out.

The RIAA represents businesses that depend on the popularity of music, doesn't it make more sense to find out what is popular instead of spending outrageous amounts of money to artificially produce popularity. Finding out what people WANT to listen to is a better business plan than FORCING people to listen to crap.

As I understand the article the company is sending inquiries to songs available to download. It then takes those numbers and puts them into a database that sorts based on how often it is available for download. This includes such information as what else is shared by those individuals. This is the exact same thing users can do on kazaalite. You can find a song, and more songs by who is sharing it.

As I said before, this is a great idea, unless there is personal information being collected. Numbers of files and what else is shared doesn't concern me. IP addresses and non-shared file information being collected scares me.

LETS JUST BURN THE MOTHER FUCKERS. LETS DRAG THEM INTO THE STREET AND BURN THEM ON A POST. This entire situation reminds me of a certain ruler in french history who proclaimed "Let them eat cake".

You know I am in the wrong business. All I have to do is to hire some overseas PHds, and pay them almost nothing to surf Kazaa & others, gather data and sell it to the RIAA. Sign me up! They have been soaking me for $20,00 cds all these years, it would be my turn to soak them...
I can dig it!

well i bleave with just about any thing microsoft it would be better not to upgrade auto as far as i can see there offring the scurty updates threw there web site the rest seems to be propairing for DRM so no need to upgrade any of that crap o yea bye the way you can get all your software needs from the open sorce cummnaty and neaver pay a dime and have just as good and in some cases better software then you pay for you just have look a bit more and keep an open mind

let's see...if they really are hacking into our systems...why isn't McAfee and the rest picking it up? shouldn't Trojans be read either way...so who else is getting money? How far does the RIAA's little greasy fingers reach?

Goof, I have a problem with it. Webites, physical companies, and mail order places are REQUIRED to give you the option to decline giving out peronal info. It's called opt-out, and is part of the ToS of every website, including mine.

As a consumer, I don't want to give my info to anybody, other than the few shops or sites that I agree to visit. I generally avoid sites that claim that they give "only non-personal info for marketing reasons", as I don't know what info they've gathered, and have not given permission for them to do so.

An argument can be made that the use of any P2P gives impied consent to the gathering of this information. What files are available, how many sources are providing them and what other files are files are shared. This is the information that this company seems to be gathering. As I said, if they are gathering more information than that, then there's a problem.

The music that I share does not tell anybody what my name is, what my bank account numbers are or where I live and I certainly don't keep that information in my shared folder. That's the information that I want to protect, not what music I listen to. If knowing what is in my shared folder might help more independent artists get air play then I don't mind at all.

Everybody has jumped to the conclusion that Bigchampagne is collecting all kinds of private information like name and IP addresses that can be used to track you down. What I got from the story is that they are looking at what you share (like every other user on the P2P) and using that to build a database that can help real artists get exposure and possibly improve music as a whole. I don't see anything wrong in that.

"While the RIAA may be suing people who have generally traded an average of 1,000 songs, a survey of the 19 lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, shows a broad range of users. In some cases, the filings displayed screen shots taken of the userss KaZaA interface, with hundreds of songs displayed"

You can easily see all the shared files of one user on your own Kazaa screen. Simply 'View User's Files'. It's not a trojan, just someone hasn't configured their Kazaa to not allow browsing 'all files'.

Does this mean if we all typed in "screw you riaa" in the artist search box on kazaa, that they'll all see it, and find out how popular it is? LOL

How do you make it to where people cant see what you are doing on your computer, more specifically KaZaA?

code email?? Possible TV apperance??

No joke?? Relative GM over station

Not all p2p apps will allow viewing your shared folder. I believe kazaalite has an option to disable viewing the shared files.
It's easy to watch what is being searched for. Porn is much more popular than music.