Maximum PC

i have recieved 2 letters from my isp. the first one, was sometime in October of 2009. it stated that i was sharing copyrighted material, and that i should remove the file. i moved it to another directory, on another hard drive, not shared. i got another letter in January 2010 again, from the ISP, only this time it was sent certified mail. it stated i was sharing another copyrighted file. i removed that file too, out of the shared folder. what are my options at this point? do i play cool? and dont use utorrent at all forever? or what? do i just not use utorrent? or does that even matter? will they still see stuff that is "shared"? or is that just with utorrent? which from what i understand, is how they are monitoring. because it is so easy for them to see it, in the shared folder, since you are forced to share to use utorrent. are there other torrent programs that are safer, more secure to use, then utorrent? should i uninstall utorrent and use something else?

im afraid they are basically monitoring me, watching to see if i use utorrent again. in both letters they threaten dropping me from the account. i remember reading something about ISP's sending out a lot more "stern" letters of warnings, but not actually following through with mass account removals.

so, what are my options, that do not involve losing my account with my isp? there are no other cable providers in my area, there is DSL but that kinda sucks.

i apologize if this topic is against the rules, ill admit, i didnt check. im not asking how to illegally circumvent the ISP or its methods of monitoring or anything. i just want to know what my options are at this point, and how i should be approaching this.

Since you are getting letters from your ISP, some one is tracking your activities online with ANY file sharing program you're using and that person/entity is filing complaints with your ISP. Either the RIAA or a particular artist/recording company is tracking you.

My advice to you is to STOP sharing ANYTHING that's copyrighted. It's against the law period. Don't download anything copyrighted and don't share anything. At best, the next complaint will see your ISP terminate your services. ALL of them. Like if you have cable Internet, you will lose your Internet AND you could quite possibly lose your cable TV too.

At worst, you will find a lawsuit being placed on you.

I cannot stress this to you enough. If your ISP is sending you letters, you are one step away from feeling a big, painful, cylindrically shaped object pounding your anus.

ive uninstalled utorrent in the meantime. it was my program of choice, for torrents.

so, would this include using FTP or IRC for downloading? no sharing would be involved in either case.

It doesn't matter what program you use. If you're under the gun, it's your IP address that is being watched. ANY program that is used to transfer files will be looked at. If you download pron, updates, play games, check email, all of that, you'll be fine. If you use a friend's temporary link to download a 759mb movie file, not even using uTorrent or the like, that file will be looked at by your ISP since you are already suspect. If you download a Flac, mp3, mp4, and so on, you will set off their alerts.

Common sense is needed here partner. When the cops are staring at you since you've a history of smoking weed while driving, does that mean you'll be fine to drink beer instead?

You need to drop off their radar scope.

ok, thanks.

Thats just wrong for a ISP to be monitoring what you are downloading and have on your computer. In my area AT&T is putting a CAP on the amount of GB's are downloaded, we also have Charter and Clearwire, but both of those are very unreliable, thats why i have AT&T, they have been great other then the first bill i got from them, but they told me that they do not look at the as they say packets of DATA being Sent in and out of my connection. The only thing they monitor is the amount of data. They aren't doing this in any other area which is really annoying! DSL isn't so bad, Charter is CABLE internet and is fast but kinda on the expensive side and there billing is horrible, Clearwire on the other hand had great billing and horrible Customer service, as well as a CAPPED Download Usage which wasn't as low as AT&T's but they also slowed your connection down, unless that was just because of the modem, CLEARWIRE Uses A wireless Modem to connect to the internet. Now on the Utorrent side, not sure what other people said because i didn't feel like reading all the the other Posts, but Limewire is pretty secure, you can also use Frostwire. But if you think that they are still monitoring you with those programs, you can go on google and look for a Forum that is MEGAUPLOAD Based, there you can pretty much do all that you do with a P2P Client and more....

I'm not sure if any of the above was against the Rules- sorry...

You can bet that if I got a letter from my ISP even remotely claiming that they've been watching what I download, I'd be yanking my modem so fast and using Eraser with minimum 7-pass wipes on the files and empty space on my drives that it wouldn't be funny. Then I'd be haunting nothing but sites like PBS.org for the next month out of raw fear.

I don't have the money to pay any RIAA or MPAA lawsuits.

A few things to do.

1) Switch ISP's immediately. No sense being on someones watch list.

2) Encrypt all traffic.

3) Don't share copyrighted materials.

If I were you I would approach it as a criminal and change my ways. But that's just me.

Hush. Let him get caught. Jaime Thomas is old news .. the masses need another thieving martyr.

I'm going to have to disagree with that statement base on what this month's issue of MaximumPC said, pg 54 "Content that people put online for free download-for example, anything on legaltorrents.com-is perfectly legal to download and is also copyrighted".

Not to mention no one seems to want to take a stand on the issue one way or the other. Read that whole article in this month's issue for more about that. There are safe way to use those programs, but if you're getting letters, you're not using them safely.

I put my comments into the contextual field for which the OP was downloading things. So it is a completely true statement. Sure, there are many copyrighted programs out there you can legally download, but those are not the types of programs he was worried about now was it?

And circumventing the LAW isn't something to delve into here. I will ban you immediately if you do. What is printed in the magazine is one thing. But elaborating on it here in the forums is against our rules for the forums.

That includes describing "safe ways" to use those programs.

I know this thread is locked but I am posting this for the benefit of anybody else who sees this. Yes, there is legal sharing of copyrighted material. However going to the piratebay and downloading Windows, Office, or Photoshop is NOT legal. Downloading the new Brittney Spears is NOT legal. Downloading Avatar, Transformers 2, or whatever is NOT legal. Don't do it. If you do you are tempting fate. Best cast you get away with it or just get a slap on the wrist with a cease and desist order, consider yourself lucky. Worst case you find yourself in court with 80k per mp3 damages, I don't want to think what it would be per movie!

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/0 ... ie-thomas/

Do you have 1.92 million dollars laying around? I don't think so. Don't be an idiot and spend $20 on that movie or CD. It is cheaper in the end.