Re: RIAA Notices (what do they notice?)

[Bob Bayn <Bob.Bayn () USU EDU>]

rick.holland () UTDALLAS EDU wrote:
> Anyone see this?
> Mysterious Multiplication of Copyright Complaints
> http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/05/06/riaa

A statement in the article led me to doubt what I thought
I understood about this whole process.  Please help me out.

"college technology experts - lacking an explanation from
industry officials for the upturn - suspect that the recording
industry has altered the standards it uses to allege illegal
behavior, targeting not only instances in which computer users
have actively shared music illegally, but instances in which they
have stored downloaded music in a folder visible to other users,
opening the way to a potential violation."

I was always under the impression that the RIAA et al complaint
alleges that the music is _available_ for download as detected by
their (automated?) implementation of the same p2p protocol and not
that they were documenting an actual unauthorized downloading (with
the possible exception of their own download of the discovered
file).  I was not aware that they ever had any means of detecting,
as a third party, any actual downloading actions between other parties.

Am I confused or is the reporter?

--
Bob Bayn  ride-a-bike (435)797-2396
Network Security Team coordinator
Office of Information Techology
Utah State University