Average Teen's iPod Has 842 Stolen Tracks

It's hard to say. Some people and I would bet students in particular can sometimes be a bit silly about collecting 'stolen' mp3's that they don't even listen to or care that much about though as they trade collections with others. This can and almost certainly does lead to a few people with ridiculous amounts of 'stolen' music (much of which they don't even listen to) skewing such averages.
 
For all the people that think this is a legit number (or calling BS on me calling BS ;) ) why aren't more kids being sued by the RIAA???

The facts are currently that, out of thousands of kids at each school, the lawsuits hit 15 - 20 kids at each school and NOT the biggest offenders.

So, if the average kid has 840+ damn songs that are illegal on his MP3 player...why not more lawsuits by the RIAA? You'd think with odds like these (every school / half the kids....or according to some of you...100% of everyone you know) the RIAA would be in litigation heaven. Yet we only see a couple schools hit with a max 20 or so John Doe affadvits.

If this info were true we'd have HUNDREDS of lawsuits a week against students in all 50 states. Don't you think?


I'll tell you why more kids aren't being sued by RIAA. The universities intervene for one reason or another.

Where I work, in the early days, we took deliberate steps to curb bandwidth usage from our handoffs because the costs were killing us. We basically did everything we could to lockdown filesharing traffic to the outside world, but let them trade amongst themselves. This shut the kids up, while keeping their trafic away form the outside world and prying eyes.

We have also been to arbitration a number of times on behalf of the student body with various odd results of various durations.

For example one had us selling discounted ipods to the students while having a special iTunes arrangement.

The current deal from the latest go around has us hooked up with ruckus. Since the kids can get pretty much any song as long as they are students and as long as ruckus can pelt them with ads. All we have to do is host a ruckus appliance on our netowork, and RIAA agrees to leave our 60,000+ student body alone.

Of course the kids without ipods just download the wma files and strip the DRM. They are protected form lawsuits and have access to a catolog of tens of thousands of songs that they don't have to ccruise p2p for.

Of course we also went to bat several times fighting soebpenas. We have also implimented a very short retention policy for backups and logs. It's long enough to cope with most criminal investigations, but not the usual wait for a civil court date to sue us.

Sure, the law would let us leave the kids swinging in the wind with little to no responsibility, but the net result would be us having to constantly monitor everyone for copyright violations. We can't bear the net cost of that, so we intervene. Long term, the relatively brief lawyer involvement each year or two is less costly than effectivley losing the services of all our IT staff and infrastructure to snoop the students on behalf of the RIAA.

THAT's why you don't see more kids getting sued. And on a scale from RIAA lapdog to glorious freedom fighter, we are MUCH closer to the riaa lapdog end of the spectrum as far as universities go.

Now the overall fight has moved on to DVD rips and the MPAA. Fortunately they are less aggressive than the RIAA so far, as that is a harder problem to solve.

Then of course there has been the proliferation of the cheap commodity wireless router. As long as they stay off our official channels and don't cause us support issues, we don't care what they run. So lots of kids wind up creating ad-hoc wireless networks where you essentially wind up with entire dorm floors sharing their entire CD and MP3 collections. This doesn't attract RIAA attention, but if you surveyed them, you'd get very high counts.

It definitely isn't all the kids stealing, but most of the ones stealing have collections large enough to take up the slack for entire amish villages.

From a harm to the industry standpoint, I think it is all stupid. The reality is that for the most part, they have only so much time on their hands, and the net sharing that actually gets listened to is probably no worse than mix tapes were, and the quality certainly is no better (wuite often worse). Mostly the only harm is our bill for the bandwidth they use up on stuff they might get around to hearing in a couple years if they never restart after hitting shuffle all.
 
I have thousands of songs, none "stolen". My teenage son has access to the same library. Again, none "stolen".

However, as an on-site computer tech, I do see borked computers all the time. And I do see other teenage kids iTunes libraries often. Very often, those libraries are filled with LimeWire-downloaded songs.

While I take issue with the use of the word "stolen" to refer to these, their meaning is accurate from my experience.
 
Well I am going to say out front that I have alot of illegal songs if dictated by the UK since I listen to alot of asian music that I can not Download from a service I have to rip it from cds I buy, if that makes me a fing criminal so fing be it. I should be able to listen to my music with out being called a criminal if I already paid for it.
 
I have thousands of songs, none "stolen". My teenage son has access to the same library. Again, none "stolen".

And when you son moves out and no longer has legal access to the library according the definition of the providers, I am so sure he will delete all the music and start over at zero.

The numbers that provided by these organizations who exist mainly to lobby the government are always somewhat suspect. But obviously there is a fair bit of sharing going on.

Either way. I don't really care, this is tiny crime on the order of speeding. Not the big crime that it is painted as. This is an industry that fights every change instead of adapting. They fought cassette tapes (later made gobs of money from them), they fought VCR and likewise made tons of money despite themselves. The actually succeeded in killing DAT.

They mucked up display standards with HDCP screwing BluRay playback while doing nothing to curb actually copying.

Get with the times. Provide a decent value add for those who want to buy, not extra encumbrance (DRM) that file sharers quickly do away with, so those sharing actually have the better product. Likewise provide decent add supported downloads for those who won't buy.

This nonsense of locking content for purchasers doesn't work and only alienates those who purchase. Suing fans and sharers is just bad buisness.
 
i believe this study 100%. as people stated before, people use things like limewire without even knowing it's illegal. my girlfriend's uncle, who works in the IT department of his company, did even believe me when i told him that downloading movies as torrents was illegal, and this is a guy that works with computers as a living!
 
So wait, 842 stolen songs and it's only 50% of the music on the average player?! That means the average player has 842 legit songs?
 
sounds about right - I am usually @ about 100% stolen tracks on my mp3 player (I am anti-ipod), so only 50% ain't bad :D
 
most the time I am too lazy to rip the songs off my cd so I DL them becuase it's about just as fast and much easier, for instance I have the Asian box set of Nirvana and I also downloaded all of nirvana's songs becuase I was too lazy to rip all the cd's.
 
most the time I am too lazy to rip the songs off my cd so I DL them becuase it's about just as fast and much easier, for instance I have the Asian box set of Nirvana and I also downloaded all of nirvana's songs becuase I was too lazy to rip all the cd's.

I wouldn't consider that illegal though. You own the cds. That is a lot different than people who don't own the disk and download the songs.
 
I believe those stats, b/c people share music.

I know people with thousands of legal (purchased) music, and on the other hand I know people with thousands of downloaded or shared music. So averaged out it probably is several hundred songs per "teen's ipod".
 
I wouldn't consider that illegal though. You own the cds. That is a lot different than people who don't own the disk and download the songs.

If he torrented it, he also seeded it while downloading it which means he had it available, which means it was illegal. Sucks but that's how it is.
 
If he torrented it, he also seeded it while downloading it which means he had it available, which means it was illegal. Sucks but that's how it is.
Actually one of the RIAA's recent lossless that making available isn't necessarily wrong. Though he didn't elaborate.

My guess is he was think of it as putting money on the counter. Just because people have it available doesn't make it okay for someone to copy it, and putting it in a spot where people can copy it easier doesn't imply that the user was saying it was okay to copy it. This stems from the Napster, Limewire stuff. These programs auto shared lots of directories.

Think of it this way, I download music. I share it on My PC so I can stream it to any of my PC's. If a friend comes over to play games happens to copy all my music. Should I get sued by the RIAA?
 
WOW that figure is WAYYY lower that I'd have expected.....

I suppose that most people don't admit they have illegal tracks on their ipod.. how else could you explain the average being only 842 tracks per user??

every song you legally buy puts more money in the RIAA for more frivilous lawsuits.... download your way to freedom today!!! hehehehhe
 
I think it's illegal to down load a song even if you own the song becuase the physical copy you bought isn't the same and the one you downloaded. I know that is the way it works for games anyways I own Toejam and Earl on segagen but the downloaded rom I have of it is still illegal even though I own the original game.
 
I think it's illegal to down load a song even if you own the song becuase the physical copy you bought isn't the same and the one you downloaded. I know that is the way it works for games anyways I own Toejam and Earl on segagen but the downloaded rom I have of it is still illegal even though I own the original game.

You are allowed though to make a copy of music and movies for backup purposes. Games didn't fall into that group.
 
You are allowed though to make a copy of music and movies for backup purposes. Games didn't fall into that group.

Yes you are allowed to make a copy of your music but you are not allowed to download a copy of music you own. What I do with almost all of my music is I buy the CD but never open it(I like to have unopened copy's of things for some reason). I download the same cd I just bought and burn a 2 copies one for my car one for my house. I am pretty sure this is illegal even though I own the content.
 
I think it's illegal to down load a song even if you own the song becuase the physical copy you bought isn't the same and the one you downloaded. I know that is the way it works for games anyways I own Toejam and Earl on segagen but the downloaded rom I have of it is still illegal even though I own the original game.

Most of the ROM sites say that it is illegal to download the ROM unless you own the original hard copy. I'm not arguing that you are wrong (because I don't know), but just bring it into the discussion. Who is right? Can I download ROM's that I legally own the originals of? I own a lot of older games, but want them on the HTPC and emulate them. So, is that illegal for me to do?
 
Most of the ROM sites say that it is illegal to download the ROM unless you own the original hard copy. I'm not arguing that you are wrong (because I don't know), but just bring it into the discussion. Who is right? Can I download ROM's that I legally own the originals of? I own a lot of older games, but want them on the HTPC and emulate them. So, is that illegal for me to do?

While they say that I think they are wrong. I actually think that stevedave is correct in that it doesn't matter if you own the game or not, the rom version isn't legit. I know the law that allowed backups use to not apply to games, so unless they have changed it at some point, you can't do that legally.
 
Most of the ROM sites say that it is illegal to download the ROM unless you own the original hard copy. I'm not arguing that you are wrong (because I don't know), but just bring it into the discussion. Who is right? Can I download ROM's that I legally own the originals of? I own a lot of older games, but want them on the HTPC and emulate them. So, is that illegal for me to do?

I think if you made a rom out of your original copy of the game it would be legal, but if you download a rom that isn't from your copy of the game it would be considered illegal.
 
Yes you are allowed to make a copy of your music but you are not allowed to download a copy of music you own. What I do with almost all of my music is I buy the CD but never open it(I like to have unopened copy's of things for some reason). I download the same cd I just bought and burn a 2 copies one for my car one for my house. I am pretty sure this is illegal even though I own the content.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this statement. You'd rather have content downloaded and encoded by someone that probably doesn't have a clue about doing it instead of doing it yourself from the original CDs that you actually buy? Wow... that's just... just too weird for words.

Personally I've always been of the argument that an mp3 has nothing in common with the original digital audio data as it exists on the CD, and from a legal standpoint, that's entirely accurate. The digital audio data on the CD (if that's the source material) is subjected to a mathematical algorithm that tries to replicate human hearing and ends up throwing away (literally) 90% of the content - that 90% is simply discarded and never used, never making it into the resulting file. So what you end up with is a haphazard emulation of the original content in the long run.

It's not the same file, not even close so saying it's stealing is a bit ridiculous, regardless of how one might define it. I always laugh when I see this bumpersticker that says "I'm not a software thief, I'm just a software copier. Copying != Stealing." or words to that effect. With psychoacoustic audio compression, the end result is not even a digital perfect copy of the original.

This would be akin to someone copying the Mona Lisa without using black ink, without giving her eyes or a mouth, and without most of the background in the original image. Sure, you can tell it's still supposed to be the Mona Lisa considering how burned into most people's minds the original Mona Lisa painting is, but the "copy" isn't exact, it isn't precise, so how can it be a "copy" in the first place? The proper terminology would be something like "rough approximation."

Same principle with psychoacoustic audio compression - the end result is a file that's not the same, doesn't match in a bit for bit comparison, is missing literally upwards of 90% of the actual bits the original file has, etc.

How can you have a "copy" of something when you've only got 10% of the original - considering all the major lossy compression schemes work on a ~90% discard ratio (they toss out ~90% of the original content)?

Maybe someday this will get tested in a court of law someplace. As it is, I gave up caring decades ago. People keep copies of stuff they don't own anymore (audio cassettes, LPs, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, etc), it's so common practice it's not even funny.

Going after someone for having mp3 files on their portable audio device is about as meaningful as going after everyone that drives 26 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. It serves no legitimate purpose and is a waste of resources - as if the legal system in any given country isn't strained and non-functional enough as it is.
 
I would do a hand stand and shit in my mouth in even 10% of people could tell the difference between the original or MP3 on basic sound systems, I only have basic sound systems and aside from very poor quality mp3's the difference isn't noticeable.

Also it may only have 10% if the original content but it has 100% of the lyrics.
 
Listen to a crappy heavy metal mp3 for 2 hours and then again in lossless for 2 hours. Then tell me which one gives you a headache.
 
sigh...

Heres a quick test for owners of The Black Album (Metallica), on actual CD: Rip "Sad But True" on your computer. Encode the file as a wav, and as mp3; any bitrate mp3, it doesnt matter.

Comparing the first 5 seconds, there will be a very obvious difference in sound quality. Listen to the cymbals. It should be PAINFULLY obvious.;)
 
I wouldn't consider that illegal though. You own the cds. That is a lot different than people who don't own the disk and download the songs.

Maybe. To my understanding, downloading music isn't the highly illegal part; the worst thing they can do if you are caught downloading is being force you to pay the cost of what you stole. Uploading is where they get you, since you upload it to others, who upload to others, and it exponentially makes its' way out over the internet from there; this is where they get the astronomic dollar amount per song in damages.

So if he just downloaded it, and can prove he owns the CD's, they probably couldn't do anything to him. If, however, he uploaded it to others on Limewire, or seeded the Torrent, they can get him for huge damages even though he legally owned the music.
 
I think the study is probably wrong, however I am sure the number is probably higher.

I don't even have an MP3 player, let alone a music collection that would even have that many tracks. However it does seem silly to me that the RIAA seems to think that somehow they can prevent "stealing" of a product that they have no actual control over. If something is free, everyone will take. If its not demand drops off fast.

I buy albums only because I am an upstanding citizen. My purchased albums do little to support the artist as much as the label. To be honest the whole deal with the RIAA smacks of greed.
 
its funny because they basically wont be happy until people are forced to pay-per-munite of all music they listen to.

but in reality its so simple i just dont understand why it isnt this way- you sell official pressed albums with artwork and other collectibles, and mp3's are sold cheap and drm free. the revenue from the mp3's would probably still be greater then album sales, but at least people could pay a premium for a band they like and still feel satisfied they spent the extra money.
 
Alright, I’m calling BS on this one. I personally have a total of over 13,700+ songs on my PC and none of them are stolen. I find it damn near impossible to believe that 50% of all kids with MP3 players have 840+ stolen songs each.

You're....


not a "teen".
 
This statistic is from the same country, which has deemed it copyright infringement if someone else can hear a radio playing in a place of buisness? I really dont see the average teen having $1k+ worth of music, but then again ive seen how many parents bought their children an iPhone, back when it was $500.

I don't steal music anymore
I never started, mostly because the alarms at the entrance/exit doors at most stores are fairly loud/annoying. Plus, people tend to notice if you are standing in an isle, shoving cds down your shirt/pants. Going to jail or doing community service for larceny is especially lame, if you were caught stealing.

(yes, I know you mean downloading and copyright infringement)
 
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