The universities are doing their best to get piracy out of the campuses. The problem is that quite a number of students aren’t cooperating for a variety of reasons. Well the hunt for pirates has just gotten a boost. Students who are still downloading illegally beware.

Many universities hire IT security experts to help keep their system clean. They have also hired specialists to do nothing but track down anyone using the network to illegally download music. Sounds like a tedious task? Yes it is! Thanks to a new device called Locate it has gotten a whole lot easier.

Locate was invented by Alan Schunemann, co-founder of eTelemetry which is an Annapolis based company. Once plugged in, it zooms in on computers that are downloading copyrighted songs in less than ten seconds. They will know exactly which computer is being used and its location. They will also have the username. This is a major improvement on when all anyone had was an IP address and a time stamp.

That does mean that in less than ten counts, any illegal downloader on campus can be spotted, and faster than many of them hope. Since many colleges are strictly enforcing the copyright laws, students who are stubborn may just find themselves suspended (or worse) if they don’t shape up. It really doesn’t make sense for

So don’t wait to get Located. Quit downloading illegally. With the many sites where you can get your music legally, there really is no reason to keep being a pirate.

Technorati Tags: piracy, University, campus, illegal downloading, Locate

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music

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You’ve probably heard the term DRM used quite a bit in association with digital content. DRM stands for digital rights management. It basically refers to the technology or protection on the music that prevents people from copying the music onto other players. This usually means that you can download it to your PC then transfer it to your music player.

Now here’s the thing: there are two well known protection formats in use. One protects iTunes so that the music (aac files) will only work on an iPod. The other protects window files (wma) so that they will not play on iPods. Its a competition among the producers that is very customer unfriendly. People want to be able to play their music anytime, anywhere on any available gadget they’ve got. The manufacturers on the other hand want to drive people into their enclosures – makes one think of sheep being herded into pens; only instead of dogs they use your preferred music to get you in there.

Thankfully, there are some sensible people out there. Once in a while they release a song or tune without DRM. Early this year they did that with a Jessica Simpson song. Now they have a track from Norah Jones’ upcoming album available for download without DRM. You can download her single “Thinking About You” from yahoo. The album is set for release next month.

The Grammy award winner’s record label, Blue Note, says that this is by way of an experiment. They feel that since her fan base is mainly adult that are likely to be more responsible and not pirate her music.

Hopefully there will be more music DRM free soon.

Technorati Tags: download, legal, Norah Jones, DRM

Categories: Downloading Legally, ipods, Music

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While talking with some students about legal downloading, one of them asked, “What is legal downloading anyway? Is downloading a song for free illegal?” Good questions. It also just highlighted the fact that people still don’t understand what the heart of this concern is, so lets get back to basics.

Music and videos, even books, are ideas of various people. Just as it takes time and skill to build a house or a car, it requires a gift, skill and talent to create and produce the songs and shows that we love and enjoy. To get the music or videos from their maker to our eyes and ears takes money, time and effort. The recording companies, or even the artists themselves will go to a lot of trouble to make their music or video really polished so that people will love it and hopefully pay them for the joy of listening to it. Still pretty simple right?

Now, people do indeed want to hear their music. So they have choices. They can go to a record shop and buy the artists CD or DVD . This is a legal purchase. It is a straight sale.

Enter the digital world. The music or videos are made available online. The question is, was it done with or without the consent of its creator or distributor? This is what will determine if the download is legal or not. Keeping in mind that this is a source of income for people, this usually means that they need money. If you are getting it for free, that means less money for them.

Imagine someone with a stack of CDs of his music. Each person who approaches him pays for a copy of his disc. Now one of them copies it and puts the copy online for everyone to copy (download) for free. The poor artist with his stack of discs will now be standing there with fewer sales because people would rather get his songs for free online.

Now, some artists do give free downloads of their work but the site will usually specify it as such. These will not be on a peer to peer network. These will usually be on the official site of the artist or from their recording company. An example of this is Tyrese‘s Ghetto Royalty.

So, to put it bluntly, unless it is the person who created the song or the producer/director of the video who is sharing the download with you, it is illegal. So please don’t be a pirate and download legally.

Technorati Tags: download, legal, Tyrese, Ghetto Royalty, piracy, free music

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Videos

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What with all the fuss from companies and people getting sued, more and more online video sources are going legal. The faster they do it, the bigger chance they have of getting a larger share of the pie. Now if only the rates are reasonable as well, everybody will be happy.

The latest company to join the bandwagon is Azureus. Now they have been in the peer to peer business for a while with people downloading files using their software of the same name. They are now going to carefully insure that all the materials are legal.

They say youtube has nothing on them. Anyone will be able to watch videos in full mode and still get clear images thanks to high definition. Those who are interested merely have to go to the company website of Azureus or simply download the latest web- enabled version. It is an open source java application so there is definitely no cost to downloading it.

Thanks to agreements they have reached with 12 TV and movie companies, the library of Azureus will be well packed. They are committed to complying with the copyright law and will ensure that all DRM agreements are followed.

Definitely people will still be able to upload their own clips and films to share with their friends. They’ll even have the option to make them private “trackerless” content to keep it from being viewed by anyone but their chosen viewers. That’s a good addition to the service.

The videos will be ready for download to an iPod or VC-1 format (this what windows media files use). The files can be transferred to a portable or a PC as you prefer.

Technorati Tags: download, legal download, Azareus, peer to peer, youtube

Categories: Downloading Legally, Freeware, Videos

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Is file sharing illegal? This is the question on the minds of many. With so many peer to peer (P2P) sources online, it gets very confusing. They all seem legal, yet one after the other they are being shot down. File sharing is not illegal if you own the rights to what you make available for others to download.

Usually somewhere on their site, these P2P’s address the question of legality. They will tell you that what you pay them for – if they do charge you a fee – is access to their network. They specify that it is still the responsibility of the user to make sure that the person from whom they are downloading a file has legal right to share the said song, album or movie. As we all know, the only way that that will happen is if the artist who recorded it or the recording company themselves put it up for free.

Since we all know that what people are looking for are the most popular, if not the latest music and videos, what do you think makes up the millions of content that flows through a P2P site? Would they indeed be legal? With the way the RIAA and various production houses have been reacting, not likely.

So how can these peer to peer sites claim that they are legal? They can do so because there is a portion on their site that says that they do not condone piracy and reminds you to obey the copyright law. It’s your look out from there on. They have warned you and now they wash their hands off you.

Technorati Tags: peer to peer, download, legal, file sharing

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Videos

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