On Monday, November 15th of this year, someone on behalf of the RIAA claimed that I was breaking copyright law by sharing one song and reported it to my university, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The University then cut off my internet access, claiming that I might have viruses I was sending to the University's network, despite the fact I was using the fastest and most virus-free P2P software to date, LimeWire. Thinking that I was in serious trouble, I disconnected LimeWire and removed most of my shared files.
I was highly upset when I found out that the RIAA had claimed that only one of my files had violated copyright law.
I had over 200 files on LimeWire (I must have downloaded between that amount and 500 in the span of one or two months), and the RIAA cited me for only one song. I estimate I owned over 40% of possible RIAA songs such as Jadakiss's "By Your Side" and Chingy's "He's Herre" and the RIAA cites me for owning Ace of Base's "All That She Wants."
To me this is an outrage. I think the RIAA is trying to target college students as well as other individuals to stop P2P filesharers because the RIAA is claiming that "piracy" is hurting their sales, not crappy records such as Encore by Eminem, which has anti-piracy software (if you buy the disk--in other words, impossible to play on any computer).
On this blog I will bring you information on P2P services as well as "legal" downloading services and why P2P looks more attractive than "legal" downloading (other than the fact it's free). I will also oppose the University's Legal Downloading Initiative because it encourages students to buy "legal" downloads that several people do not want to participate in (I think I am one of the few people on this campus who did legal downloading, and I can tell you the fallacies in it). More work on this blog will come after the Thanksgiving holidays, since right now I am working on a novel for National Novel Writing Month. I have a blog with my novel on it, but I wish not to reveal my real identity, so I will not give you that link.
