Warning to all eDonkey file-sharing users - Germany

Germany sues 3500 eDonkey users

Interesting. On a similar note one of the big recording companies published their financial results for the last whatever period yesterday. They'd made a huge profit from, you guessed it, electronic file sharing. So the pirates have the idea and make it work, the music companies declare it evil (as they didn't think of it and anyway were too busy ripping us off for CDs). Then they make a jolly mint off it a few years later when they realise they can charge only a fraction less than for a CD with a tiny fraction of the costs. Bastards.

And according to the Police, of those 3500 only 130 search warrents were issued.. They only pulled warrents if more than 500 songs were found on any single PC..

Orig. story translated by Google Translate or Orig. German Here
So if you are a P2P user, then I suggest you follow these:

1. Switch to Shareaza and download/activate the security filters
2. Turn off the option to share files
3. Don't have more than a dozen or so files in you share Directory at any 1 time
4. Remove downloaded files from the share folder as soon as they are done.
5. Encrypt your music/video downloads. (Truecrypt can do this and is free)

Update: With over 14GB of logs gathered in 2 months, after they go thru the music traders, there also going for Video's/Movies and Child Porn.
The servers used to log P2P traffic were owned and run by the Cops/Govt. not one of the common eDonkey servers.. (So don't trust new servers in Germany that showed-up 2 months ago)

that is the basic dilemma isn't it?.. the only way the P2P network stays alive is that the people share..

if it is not legal to share (it is also not legal to download but they seem to be taking action against the people who share for the moment) and enough people do what you suggest, the whole thing won't work now, will it?

True.. But Do you want to invite these people in to sieze your stuff...
There are enough P2P users worldwide, that this is a long way off from happening..

so how come these people are getting prosecuted then?

Cause they didn't follow my (Above) steps

Bittorrent is pretty dangerous too. I have stopped using it. To download something you have to upload the parts of it you have downloaded, and your computer regularly sends out info to the tracker advertising what its sharing (or downloading). Anyone can connect to these trackers and see what people are downloading and sharing.

People are trying to defend against it with IP filters, but they are pretty innefective, the police can connect in from normal dsl connections which arent blocked by these filters.

Not sure about Shareaza being much safer, isnt it just another client for the gnutella, bittorrent, and edonkey networks, and therefore just as vulnerable?

Looks like private ftp sites etc are the only safe way to go now, which is usually only between people who actually know each other rather than strangers mass destributing things, so its a lot more in line with the old sharing cds and cassette dubbing that the police never seemed to have a problem with.

What about newsgroups?

good and interesting point kza. with a loss of earnings in the millions world wide and the massive investment in e-security and detection taking place public illegal sharing is doomed.

because it is not legal to download pirate stuff?

Edit. Agree with DK's rules. The police most probably won't cause you trouble (not for the time being at least) if you follow them. But that's only because they are after the 'big fish' and mess with the people who share more than 500 titles or whatever..

Sooner or later people are gonna buy music only online. They should work on this more instead of crying about the 'millions' they lose every year..

I use edonkey, once my files ar download I transfer them to an external hard drive and delete the file from the shared folder. So I do 3 of the 5 options you mention.

Too easy to be doomed, it will just be a new paradigm shift. Usually the sharing is a few years ahead of the laws that need to be rewritten. At least the record companies are realising what is spurring this sharing. Easy access to the music/movies. Now they just need to bring down their price to a fair market value and then they will reduce this sharing.

and you mention this on a public forum.. that is the secret option 6!

99 cents a song is a fair price. what more excuses do you thieves want to justify ripping off someone elses intellectual property.