How You Can Get Caught
It is easy to think you will get away with pirating because when you are actually doing it no one is physically around to watch you. There are many different ways today that you can get caught. The MPAA, the RIAA, and other copyright and government authorities employs multiple monitoring services to "watchdog" millions of users on the Internet. They do this in hopes to cut down on their profit losses from illegal downloading. Another way you can get caught is your ISP(Internet Service Provider) will notice your large bandwidth use and report it to the appropriate companies.
How You Know When You Get Caught
If you do get caught there are a couple different ways that you can find out. It is considered "lucky" to get a warning email. This will generally let you know that you are on the verge of being taken to court over your pirating. Normally you will receive a threatening legal letter. Telling you that you are going to be taken to court over the pirated items.
What Happens Once You Are Caught
Once caught there many different things that could happen. From a slap on the wrist, to a large fine, and then more critical actual imprisonment. Pirating is considered an offense of the Copyright Act. This act protects copyrighted material and those caught distributing and downloading face civil actions. These acts can be punished with up to 3 years imprisonment and £150,000 in fines. The verdict depends greatly based on the extent of the online infringement. For example often one will have to pay for what they were caught downloading. If you are unlucky and dumb enough to get caught a second time the consequences are much bigger. A Double offense can be up to 6 years in jail. So, next time your about to download something because it's free think twice.
"How Do Music Pirates Get Caught?" About Internet for Beginners: Your Guide to Participating in Online Culture and Navigating the Web and Internet. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. <http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/p2plegalitiesandethics/f/bustingpirates.htm>.
"Illegal Downloading: What Happens If You're Caught? - Features, Gadgets & Tech - The Independent." The Independent | News | UK and Worldwide News | Newspaper. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. <http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/illegal-downloading-what-happens-if-youre-caught-1736013.html>.
"Online Piracy: What Happens When You Get Caught « Internet « MyBroadband Tech and IT News." MyBroadband. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. <http://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/14000-online-piracy-what-happens-when-you-get-caught.html>.
4 comments:
Even though the punishment is so grand and not worth doing, I feel the chances are slim due to the mass amount of people doing it. I remember during soar they showed a video about someone who got caught and by the end no one was paying attention because it is rare in my opinion(probably due to the fact that I don't know anyone personally who has been caught). I do not participate because I know so many people who do this and can just burn it on a cd for anyone.
Our accountant's brother has a business in which someone had downloaded a pirated software, in this rare case that person somehow got caught in the case the the company was fined and had to pay a sum to the company whose software was pirated. these days if you are in a asian country you can walk into a market and for a mere $10 load up on everything you need with proper product keys provided Microsoft office, Adobe suite, Photoshop the newest ones, the best games. or either if you live in america most people use torrent sites to get everything.
The organizations who are finding thath their products are being pirated are really not after the little man. They are attempting to stop it where it starts with the companies and people supplying the pirated information. You will most likely get in a lot more trouble if you are caught selling or distributing pirated items. Otherwise the companies will as "asadp" said just charge you minimums. For example what the pirated items purchase cost would have been. They really don't have time to go after everyone that is pirating.
Don't download things illegally on campus or any other school/company network.
Don't share, just steal. If you are seeding files, or letting people download things off of your computer, you are contributing to said "issue" and become a target. If organizations like the RIAA and MPAA can take out the seeders, then there wont be anything for us to download.
Use a firewall with blocklists. There are people who are committed to finding the IP's of organizations that want to catch you bootlegging digital property. It is perfectly legal to employ these blocklists and stop such organizations from creeping on you.
I'm not making any promises, but I'm quite sure if you use these tips you won't get caught.
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