Mom Fights Downloading Suit on Her Own

[GullyFoyle]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051226/ap_on_en_mu/music_download_suit

Mom Fights Downloading Suit on Her Own

By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press WriterMon Dec 26, 3:26 AM ET

It was Easter Sunday, and Patricia Santangelo was in church with her kids when she says the music recording industry peeked into her computer and decided to take her to court.

Santangelo says she has never downloaded a single song on her computer, but the industry didn't see it that way. The woman from Wappingers Falls, about 80 miles north of New York City, is among the more than 16,000 people who have been sued for allegedly pirating music through file-sharing computer networks.

"I assumed that when I explained to them who I was and that I wasn't a computer downloader, it would just go away," she said in an interview. "I didn't really understand what it all meant. But they just kept insisting on a financial settlement."

The industry is demanding thousands of dollars to settle the case, but Santangelo, unlike the 3,700 defendants who have already settled, says she will stand on principle and fight the lawsuit.

"It's a moral issue," she said. "I can't sign something that says I agree to stop doing something I never did."

If the downloading was done on her computer, Santangelo thinks it may have been the work of a young friend of her children. Santangelo, 43, has been described by a federal judge as "an Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo, and who can barely retrieve her email." Kazaa is the peer-to-peer software program used to share files.

The drain on her resources to fight the case — she's divorced, has five children aged 7 to 19 and works as a property manager for a real estate company — forced her this month to drop her lawyer and begin representing herself.

"There was just no way I could continue on with a lawyer," she said. "I'm out $24,000 and we haven't even gone to trial."

So on Thursday she was all alone at the defense table before federal Magistrate Judge Mark Fox in White Plains, looking a little nervous and replying simply, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" to his questions about scheduling and exchange of evidence.

She did not look like someone who would have downloaded songs like Incubus' "Nowhere Fast," Godsmack's "Whatever" and Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life," all of which were allegedly found on her computer.

Her former lawyer, Ray Beckerman, says Santangelo doesn't really need him.

"I'm sure she's going to win," he said. "I don't see how they could win. They have no case. They have no evidence she ever did anything. They don't know how the files appeared on her computer or who put them there."

Jenni Engebretsen, spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, the coalition of music companies that is pressing the lawsuits, would not comment specifically on Santangelo's case.

"Our goal with all these anti-piracy efforts is to protect the ability of the recording industry to invest in new bands and new music and give legal online services a chance to flourish," she said. "The illegal downloading of music is just as wrong as shoplifting from a local record store."

The David-and-Goliath nature of the case has attracted considerable attention in the Internet community. To those who defend the right to such "peer-to-peer" networks and criticize the RIAA's tactics, Santangelo is a hero.

Jon Newton, founder of an Internet site critical of the record companies, said by e-mail that with all the settlements, "The impression created is all these people have been successfully prosecuted for some as-yet undefined 'crime'. And yet not one of them has so far appeared in a court or before a judge. ... She's doing it alone. She's a courageous woman to be taking on the multibillion-dollar music industry."

Santangelo said her biggest issue is with Kazaa for allowing children to download music without parental permission. "I should have gotten at least an e-mail or something notifying me," she said. Telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment from the Australia-based owner of Kazaa, Sharman Networks Ltd., were not returned.

Because some cases are settled just before a trial and because it would be months before Santangelo's got that far, it's impossible to predict whether she might be the first to go to trial over music downloading.

But she vows that she's in the fight to stay.

"People say to me, `You're crazy. Why don't you just settle?' I could probably get out of the whole thing if I paid maybe $3,500 and signed their little document. But I won't do that."

Her travail started when the record companies used an investigator to go online and search for copyrighted recordings being made available by individuals. The investigator allegedly found hundreds on her computer on April 11, 2004. Months later, there was a phone call from the industry's "settlement center," demanding about $7,500 "to keep me from being named in a lawsuit," Santangelo said.

Santangelo and Beckerman were confident they would win a motion to dismiss the case, but Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the record companies had enough of a case to go forward. She said the issue was whether "an Internet-illiterate parent" could be held liable for her children's downloads.

Santangelo says she's learned a lot about computers in the past year.

"I read some of these blogs and they say, `Why didn't this woman have a firewall?' she said. "Well, I have a firewall now. I have a ton of security now."

Someone at Democratic Underground pointed out thet the artists don't make a single dime from RIAA actions. If that is the case then the only people interested are Big Media and their gestapo cronies in the RIAA/MPAA.
Someday we will look back on these as the dark days of of the information Age. The days when greedy executives and their lapdog attorneys attempted to control access to something they don't even comprehend.
If anyone has an e-mail address for this poor woman please share it so we can all offer our thanks to this brave hero.

Here is a link to

Recording Industry vs The People

A blog devoted to the RIAA's lawsuits of intimidation brought against ordinary working people.
http://www.recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

These are referred to in peer to peer ("p2p") file sharing actions brought by the RIAA. Although some have referred to these cases as "music downloading" cases, I find that terminology inaccurate. Based upon the cases I have seen, the RIAA does not know of any specific conduct by the defendant, or of any specific instances of copyright infringement. The complaint simply alleges that the RIAA 'believes' the defendant has engaged in 'uploading, downloading, and/or distributing', and attaches (1) a short list of songs which the RIAA has itself downloaded and (2) a long list of songs which were found in a shared files folder on the internet, which is associated with an IP address that is associated with the defendant. The complaints do not refer to any known acts of copying. Accordingly, I prefer to term the cases 'peer to peer file sharing' cases, since that is what they are, at most. -R.B.

Remember no matter what anyone says the law is ALL about interpretation. If it weren't so then African Americans would still be valued at three fourths of a White Man, women and children would still be property, and there would be no safety nets for poor and elderly Americans.

[Dv8ted2]

She will unfortunately lose.

There is no way under the sun that the I don't know how they got there defense will fly.

[MOVIEGEEK]

She will unfortunately lose.

There is no way under the sun that the I don't know how they got there defense will fly.

As much as I dislike the RIAA I have to agree with you,ignorance is no excuse.If the kids(minors) used her computer to download illegal music and the ISP address is in her name then she is responsible.

[gll99]

She will unfortunately lose.

There is no way under the sun that the I don't know how they got there defense will fly.

I think she has more ammunition than she knows. She can ask to suppoena the records of the investigator and RIAA. Go through step by step how such things are done, names, places, dates etc.., find the loopholes in the evidence and make it all a mattter of public record. If anything is transcribed then human error needs to be factored in.

If he tracked her through isp records she can get those private records too. Push for as many private records as she can get because her ip address likely changed with time so she could ask to see who else had that ip number. The isp wouldn't be too happy to release those pubicly. She could basically put the isp on trial by going through their records, history, who has access to the servers, how are records maintained etc... Even a hypothetical scenerio which says could an employee possibly do this with an ip number etc..

She can grill the investigator on his expertise and background. Where he works and colleagues. His hacking practices, education, and experience in the field and how he is paid. Whether there is financial advantage, promotion or other benefits for him to find so called infringements. Is he paid per case or salary. Any bonuses and focus in on what is the incentive to do his job better. Play him a bit and then make him out to be overzealous to succeed. She could create a doubt that he could have planted the files by manufacturing fake information. She could have many family members testify that no such files were ever on her computer. It's their word against the investigator and his made up evidence.

In another scenario, even if he proves the files were on the computer there is no proof that anyone was authorised to access them. She could say he hacked her computer to get them which is the real infringement since he did not have permission to go into her personal files. He can't say that she has no right to the files because she may own the cd, album or cassette and no one questionned that aspect.

College/University law students might be willing to advise her privately on some court proceedings and how to prepare her case. She may even check computer clubs to see if anyone would testify on trojans, computer hacking, ip masking, ip redirecting, and faking, data crosstalk, wireless router hacking etc.. to show that such practices are a reality in the internet world. Even the Sony rootkit situation could be used as evidence and play in her favor by showing how it might be that someone hacked her computer and used it as a mule with a hidden folder of which she had no knowledge or defence.

She has little to prove just create suficient doubt so that the judge can rule in her favor. Heck she can probably win back the money she has had to spend on her lawyer.

This lady needs technical advice as much if not more than a general practice lawyer. Once she has access to inside information for her case she has to publicize the heck out of it. Post it on every public forum.

[GullyFoyle]

First we need to look at this quote from the EFF related legal site above

Based upon the cases I have seen, the RIAA does not know of any specific conduct by the defendant, or of any specific instances of copyright infringement. The complaint simply alleges that the RIAA 'believes' the defendant has engaged in 'uploading, downloading, and/or distributing', and attaches (1) a short list of songs which the RIAA has itself downloaded and (2) a long list of songs which were found in a shared files folder on the internet, which is associated with an IP address that is associated with the defendant. The complaints do not refer to any known acts of copying.

That doesn't look that flattering to the RIAA. The problem all along is few have challenged their claims.
This quote agrees with the first

Jon Newton, founder of an Internet site critical of the record companies, said by e-mail that with all the settlements, "The impression created is all these people have been successfully prosecuted for some as-yet undefined 'crime'. And yet not one of them has so far appeared in a court or before a judge. ... She's doing it alone. She's a courageous woman to be taking on the multibillion-dollar music industry."

With Santangelo's attorneys saying

Her former lawyer, Ray Beckerman, says Santangelo doesn't really need him.

"I'm sure she's going to win," he said. "I don't see how they could win. They have no case. They have no evidence she ever did anything. They don't know how the files appeared on her computer or who put them there."

This is the case to watch. If she can prove any of what the attorneys quoted above it will shoot the RIAA down big time. Sure scared parents will settle quickly. But those with the access and knowledge to understand this case will use it against the RIAA and win.
A win has the potential to overturn past RIAA cases as well. A win opens the door to civil suits against the RIAA.
Who doesn't want to see the RIAA payout multiple millions of dollars for fraudulent claims and character destruction?
What most people fail to grasp is the RIAA/MPAA have already lost. Recent polls suggest no one cares about the legality of how files are transmitted. Filesharing will become more and more sophisticated. There are even open discussions of which are the RIAA/MPAA servers and ipfilters to block them.
This isn't even a holding action for them. These are nuisance suits brought about by people with more money than they know how to spend.

[hiptune]

People here seem to forget what this is about. The woman is not in deep shit for downloading, but her computer was offering songs to downloaders.

You never get into much trouble for downloading all the top hits from ALL THE ALBUMs, but for offering up the tunes as a server, and that is where they find them on your computer/server.

So they know that she had the songs there regardless of how they got there. This is not about the kids downloading, but the kids serving up the tunes!

[jimmalenko]

People here seem to forget what this is about. The woman is not in deep shit for downloading, but her computer was offering songs to downloaders.

You never get into much trouble for downloading all the top hits from ALL THE ALBUMs, but for offering up the tunes as a server, and that is where they find them on your computer/server.

So they know that she had the songs there regardless of how they got there. This is not about the kids downloading, but the kids serving up the tunes!

Downloading is theft. Uploading is unauthorised distribution. They're both as bad as each other IMHO.

[whitejremiah]

that's true, but its a LOT easier to track uploading of stuff than it is downloading, from what i understand...im not saying that it makes it any more "right" just a lot harder to be caught....

[celtic_druid]

Neither is theft. They are both just copyright infringment. They might like you to think that copyright inringment = theft (ie. ads with people stealing old ladies hand bags), but they are not the same.

[hiptune]

People here seem to forget what this is about. The woman is not in deep shit for downloading, but her computer was offering songs to downloaders.

You never get into much trouble for downloading all the top hits from ALL THE ALBUMs, but for offering up the tunes as a server, and that is where they find them on your computer/server.

So they know that she had the songs there regardless of how they got there. This is not about the kids downloading, but the kids serving up the tunes!

Downloading is theft. Uploading is unauthorised distribution. They're both as bad as each other IMHO.

That is not the point being made here, just so you know.

[smearbrick1]

People here seem to forget what this is about. The woman is not in deep shit for downloading, but her computer was offering songs to downloaders.

You never get into much trouble for downloading all the top hits from ALL THE ALBUMs, but for offering up the tunes as a server, and that is where they find them on your computer/server.

So they know that she had the songs there regardless of how they got there. This is not about the kids downloading, but the kids serving up the tunes!

Downloading is theft. Uploading is unauthorised distribution. They're both as bad as each other IMHO.

Drugs are bad... mmkay...

Alcohol is bad... mmkay...

Bad? I wouldn't say bad. Bad is such an ugly word. It implies malice. There's very little, if any, in downloaders heart when are downloading their favorite tunes. In fact, I imagine they may feel glee. Unless your one of those serial downloaders with a penchant for S&M.

[BobK]

Bad? I wouldn't say bad. Bad is such an ugly word. It implies malice. There's very little, if any, in downloaders heart when are downloading their favorite tunes. In fact, I imagine they may feel glee. Unless your one of those serial downloaders with a penchant for S&M.

I would guess that there's very little, if any, malice in the heart of people who are drinking or taking drugs. I'm fairly certainly that the majority of my life when I've seen people drinking (alcohol), most of them were feeling pretty gleeful at the time too.

[smearbrick1]

Bad? I wouldn't say bad. Bad is such an ugly word. It implies malice. There's very little, if any, in downloaders heart when are downloading their favorite tunes. In fact, I imagine they may feel glee. Unless your one of those serial downloaders with a penchant for S&M.

I would guess that there's very little, if any, malice in the heart of people who are drinking or taking drugs. I'm fairly certainly that the majority of my life when I've seen people drinking (alcohol), most of them were feeling pretty gleeful at the time too.

The drug/alcohol reference was more sarcasm than an actual opinion. I don't believe people who use drugs or alcohol are more or less susceptible to fits of rage/violence generally. Of course, drugs and alcohol was not the point of my post either.

[ROF]

Bad? I wouldn't say bad. Bad is such an ugly word. It implies malice. There's very little, if any, in downloaders heart when are downloading their favorite tunes. In fact, I imagine they may feel glee. Unless your one of those serial downloaders with a penchant for S&M.

I would guess that there's very little, if any, malice in the heart of people who are drinking or taking drugs. I'm fairly certainly that the majority of my life when I've seen people drinking (alcohol), most of them were feeling pretty gleeful at the time too.

Most drunk drivers also gleefully drive down the road singing the tune in their head with a smile on their face as they kill an innocent family of four. It will be interesting to see if this woman can beat the MPAA.

[mats.hogberg]

Not a video related topic (see sticky in this forum).
Moving to OT.

/Mats

[Doramius]

There are some new lawsuits for people who didn't know how to setup their WEP security for wireless internet. Someone else connects to their network and downloads music and the owner of the wireless router gets sued by the RIAA. Another issue is security. The RIAA knew what and how many songs were on her HDD? I may be behind times, but I thought that invaded privacy laws. I understand the purpose of the RIAA & MPAA, but they are way out of hand in their pursuits of illegal pirating. I really think they need to put a monetary limit on it, just like there is with SPAM, viruses, etc. Something like, 'You have a $500 Walmart PC special and you get a spyware on your comp. but you can't sue them because you have less than $5000 in affected equipment.' So pass law that says something along the lines of 3 min. music is equal to something like $1, and if the amount of illegal downloading exceeds $1000, the RIAA or whomever owns rights to the song can sue. It only makes sense.


Here's my opinion on such associations:

[adam]

Doramius when you are logged into P2P programs you broadcast to anyone else on the network the contents of your shared directory. Since it is accessible and viewable and in fact shared with anyone in the world who wants to look at it, there is no expectation of privacy in it and there are court cases holding as such. The same is true of your ip. You are broadcasting it to the world.

Regarding minimum amounts in controversy required to sue, there is simply no required jurisdictional amount for federal cases when dealing with a federal question (federal statute.) The min of $5,000 you are talking about is a requirement of a specific CRIMINAL statute which deals with fraud related to computer activity. Its no different than how the MPAA could not press criminal charges against you unless your copyright infringement exceeded $1,000 in any 180 day period. Any given statute of any kind may have specific monetary requirements, but if you have any compensable damages whatsoever, even if it is $1, then you can always sue for actual damages, you'll just have to bring your case in the appropriate court.

Also the whole point of the copyright system is to avoid the valuation of damages caused by infringement because it is basically impossible to do. If someone uploads a song to 50 people, which is probably a very modest estimate, how much did the copyright holder really lose in dollars? It could be lots or it could be $0. There is simply no way to know. So copyright law ignores it and grants statutory damages per infringement. Whether uploading or downloading, just one song swapped already exceeds your suggested $1,000 min in damages.

[Doramius]

I'm with you on the first part, but when you say

ow much did the copyright holder really lose in dollars?

there is the ability to fix a dollar amount to music & video. I'm not talking about to copyrights itself. I'm talking about copyrights on items that fall under the DMCA. The talk about specific items which means they can place specific amounts for things such as length of movie or song. If you fix $1 per 3 min. of music (or even video) regardless of quality and upload to 100 people, that case would be for $100 in damages.

I though statutory damages per infringement was like creating a document and someone else sees it. They don't make a physical copy, but reproduce it by memory. That would be a copyright infringment subject to statutory damages, because there's too much potential to reproduce the item. Audio and video is different. How are you going to try and reproduce the song or movie from your mind and pass it to someone else? You'd have to write it down and the most they could sue is for written violation of copyright. If you have an actual disc or media in which you make copies with, for each 3 min of copied music or video, you can sue them for $1. IE: 10 3min discs = $10 + the original illegal download which adds another $1.

[adam]

Statutory damages apply to everything that is copyrighted so long as you registered it prior to infringement. It gives fixed damages per infringement regardless of the medium the work is embodied in and regardless of how it is infringed. Its actually a range, from $750 up to $150,000 at the discretion of the judge.

Well your $1 per 3 mins assignment is exactly what statutory damages does except that it applies to everything and leaves some discretion up to the judge and there is no minimum amount required to sue on a federal question but that applies to everyone not just corporations. But both are just arbitrary assignments of value so that you don't have to prove how much was actually lost, your numbers are just extremely conservative compared to those used by the courts. I think 1$ for 3 mins of music is kinda naive, no offense.

Also consider that when you upload a song to 50 people they may further upload it to another 50 people, and so on.

I can also tell you from personal experience that actual copyright damages are in fact virtually impossible to prove. The only way to do it is to spend a fortune (~$15,000-$150,000) on a survey and then you've just made the suit nonprofitable. Talk to any copyright lawyer and they will tell you the same. Unless your work is raking in millions, its not worth it to sue for an infringement that occurred prior to registering. Even if you win the suit costs more than your costs.

Your description of showing someone information and them memorizing it sounds more like a trade secret or just a breach of some kind of express or implied confidentiality agreement. This is not copyright law and its the person doing the showing that is in violation. There's nothing wrong with memorizing something. I wish I was better at it.

[Doramius]

I also thought the $1 was kind of conservative, but how would you actually determine the cost of a 3 min song. If someone says you can't, then why do they sell a single for $3.95 at Walmart? Obviously someone has determined the cost. And can you really sue someone for the other 50 people that downloaded the song. The violation was in the person's own downloading, copying & selling, and uploading the song themselves. You're talking a butterfly effect. You can sue for 3rd party intent as well? That doesn't sound right. You'd have to sue each Downloading individual because its all seperate infringement, though only the download string the song traveled is related.

I was pretty sure the judge would have had a deciding factor in the first place, but the RIAA has money and can appeal until they find someone who's willing to side with them or pay off high officials. If a judge sides with them, Who can appeal against the RIAA if they don't have money? The RIAA wins either way.

Going back to the money making, How much does it actually cost to make the disc? How much do they sell it for? What's the actual Net Profit they make off the sales? Excuse my repeat of a favorved phrase, "They're f**king people in the a** with a pool cue 3 ways never heard of." And they'll make every penny off of it they can. What happened to making money off of the concerts. Dammit, If the artist is good, people will pay more money to go see the concert. Of course much of that money actually goes to the artist instead of the BIG Record Companies.

[adam]

You value the infringement not the item infringed. There are damages inherent in having an artistic work distributed without your permission and the simple truth is that there is no such thing as a single download of something on P2P. Just having it put there is damaging beyond any initial upload or download.

Copyrights do not protect individual copies of the work, that's done by laws covering theft and conversion and that is where you would apply actual values to the goods themselves. You stole a $10 CD, give it back or pay them $10. Rather, copyrights are intended to protect the underlying work itself and when that could involve a movie that cost $100 million dollars to make, you can understand why the damage amounts can be valued so high. Its a hard concept to swallow when you're talking about someone caught downloading some mp3s and then learning that they'd have been far better off if they had just gone to the store and stole the actual CDs instead. In my opinion, this is really just one of those areas where technology has grown much faster than our law can handle. These types of infringements used to go unnoticed and that was largely by design. Why clog the courts with insignificant copying like this? But file sharing really has become rampant and there's just no good way to legislate it yet.

Yes actually you can hold an individuals liable for 3rd party infringements later on down the line. This can be done on a theory of contributory infringement or inducement to infringe. Most causes of actions have 3rd party theories as well.

Regarding repeated appeals, in a sense this can be true simply because these organizations can afford to appeal automatically whereas the average file sharer will probably go broke before the initial trial is even over. This can cause them to settle to avoid appeal. But in a general sense, this is just not how the legal system works. You cannot just appeal until you find a favorable court. You can only appeal error on the record, generally mistakes in law on the part of the judge. If there are no real errors then your appeal will not be granted. And winning on appeal is substantially more difficult than trial, and once you lose you can only then appeal errors that the appellate court made. If you do in fact win on appeal 99% of the time it is remanded back to the court you just came from to re-hear that issue or in some cases the entire case. So there is really no way to shop around for a favorable court by manipulating the appeals process.

As far as profit from CD sales they actually make alot less than you'd think. For a $17 CD, the studio actually makes a profit of only $0.59 per disc and of course they still have to recoup the costs of producing the album in the first place. The vast majority of albums released never do turn a profit. Its the same way with the motion picture industry.The blockbusters fund all of the other releases.

[Doramius]

That's odd on the numbers though. $17 CD where the actual store only makes an average of $0.39 per disc. Sure there are stores with mark-ups. Go to Camelot and buy the same disc for $20 and the store pockets $3.39. But still, where does the rest of the money go. If it is for funding other products, it is still a profit for the original album. the profit has just been passed for reinvestment.

As for the appeal process, I do see how it works, but why is it so many errors are found? If a person appeals, they may not get a different court, yet a big company has lawyers that nitpick everything down to the positioning of a period & comma.

So where's the justice involved in a case like this woman's? It just seems now that companies have found some loophole in which they can use the court system to make more money (saying it's justice to the company). Or does the woman win and new laws are written? From what I see, the woman doesn't have much of a chance.

[adam]

The average store makes much more than that. Here's a breakdown of the money from the statistic I mentioned.

Sale price of $17. $6.23 of this goes towards retail markup. $3.34 to overhead and shipping. $1.99 to royalties. $ .75 to CD printing costs. $0.59 goes back to the studio. This return pays off the cost of recording and marketing the album. Only after this is paid does the album start to turn a profit and this is the money that is also used to offset the albums that do not turn a profit. Only 10% of albums released become profitable.

As for the appeals process, there are not many errors found at all. Most cases brought actually settle (97-98%) and of those that do go to trial the vast majority are not appealed. It also doesn't matter if there are errors at trial, this will only matter if they cause harm. The error has to be substantial, something that, if it had gone the other way, could have changed the outcome of the case.

As for this case, I do not think that the suit is being brought for money at all. This is a propoganda war. These companies want people to know that you are gambling when you fileshare copyrighted content. If you get caught you will have to pay substantial amounts of money because the law is clearly on their side.

I don't see how this woman can possibly win either but mostly because she will not be able to adequately represent herself. If she did have counsel she could maybe prove that it was some other person, like her kid's friend. But win or lose with a defense like this, it doesn't change the substantive law. When it comes to situations like this, it takes a new law to bring about change. In the meantime the balance is shifting toward the copyright holders. They have gotten a Supreme Court ruling significantly increasing the liability for filesharing applications, and it is only a matter of time before suits are filed to hold each of the major networks accountable under this standard. So expect networks to go down or implement filters/safety measures. And of course filesharing suits are filed almost everyday against individual users, which according to many sources has resulted in an overal decrease in filesharing. I think eventually a law will be passed to carve out some sort of compromise because that is actually the main goal of legislation, to limit litigation, and right now the courts are being flooded with these types of cases.

[BJ_M]

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=16221

and dont think you will not be watched even more

[Supreme2k]

Downloading is theft... IMHO.

Neither is theft. They are both just copyright infringment. They might like you to think that copyright inringment = theft (ie. ads with people stealing old ladies hand bags), but they are not the same.

Downloading isn't theft nor (necessarily) copyright infringement. I have done some work on cases that involved downloading only, and the winning argument was that the prosecutors failed to prove that the "distributor" was not authorized to do so (or at east show that the downloader would reasonably know that). I'm not saying that you can download everything free as long as you don't share, but that has won as a defense 7 times so far (3 judgements, 4 drops).

EDIT: for syntax

[Doramius]

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=16221

and dont think you will not be watched even more

That's going to be a difficult one to follow. Maybe if you have a copyright on a song called 'Xanadu' and it got an overly abundant amout of DLs, you might take a peek at it. But for a song called 'Homebrew', you're going to get a TON of DLs and they'd probably be 90% legal and maybe only 10% of those would actually be the song DL. I've seen file extension changes and format changes enough to know that it'll be hard to find what the people are downloading by content unless you download it yourself, find the correct extension, and play it to prove it actually is a song. It can be done, but its not a quick process. That's a nice software, but It'll only keep those really honest people honest, just like having a warning display pop-up, but you still are allowed to DL the item. Many people aren't even going to pay attention to it after the first 50 DLs.