Love the 103.4 version. Long way from the days of .80-.82- yup thats the last time I was a user. Gnutella has come a long way - I think its actually getting faster on a whole - but with the RIAA lurking I am worried about using the program - so does becoming an ultra peer increase your visibility and thus increase your chances of being caught?

Well, being an American, I would really avoid getting into that position. You're asking for it. The only danger is that they'd erase your hardrive.

Here's what I'd do:

Make backups of all your shared files on CDR or an external hard drive. Continue sharing. When they come to get you. Stash the external hard drive away, let them delete your files. And then go back to sharing.

The RIAA is really quite powerless.

Um, even as an unnamed law student who can't give legal advice yet, i KNOW that's simply not true.

The RIAA has some power to sue you in a civil suit for damages. Theoretically, that can get expensive fast (remember all those six digit numbers floating around?). The RIAA may also have other powers granted to it by specific federal laws courtesy of the moneyhogging grubs in Congress.

Anyway, just so you all know this: if the RIAA sues you (as opposed to the federal or state government suing you) it is a civil, not a criminal, suit. In a civil suit, which they would likely pursue in federal court, ALL THEY HAVE TO PROVE AS A LEGAL STANDARD IS "MORE LIKELY THAN NOT". That's only a 50.00001% probability that you're gulity, and you lose. That's all it takes.

Lots of people say "hey, all they have is my IP address. Sure, it may look like I'm sharing, and they may get a file from me, but by the time I get to trial my hard disk will be long gone". Do that if you wish, but be aware that if the RIAA can convince a jury that you were probably sharing, the reality doesn't actually matter that much. It's the wonder of our screwed up system.

Many laws, though not all of them, require a degree of conscious intent. That means that if you didn't know you were sharing a certain file streamed through your system as a peer, then you couldn't be held liable for it. I do NOT know if the relevant laws for the RIAA have this element or not.

Anyway, back to ultrapeers... I don't have the savvy to understand how an ultrapeer would "look" to an RIAA lawyer. And there's a possibility that you could argue that you had no files shared, they were all just coming from a peer.... but I suspect that as a high traffic node, you are more likely to attrct attention. once they do so, I believe (I may be wrong) that they can browse you in particular to see what YOU are sharing.

If you share no music files personally, AND if the law releases you from liability without intent, then maybe you can get off as an ultrapeer even if they're able to DL music from your IP. but maybe not. it's still a risk. If it were me (my speed is too slow anyway) I'd either be a UP or share music but not both; i'm doing the latter.

They don't sue, costs too much. Instead, they give you the option to sign a form, deleting all of your copyrighted files.

The ultrapeer mechanism was designed specifically to resist certain types of legal attacks. In particular, unlike Napster or OpenNap servers, they do not index the contents of their connected leaf nodes. Rather, they use a certain kind of non-unique hashing. They can say, only with a certain probability, whether a file matching a certain keyword is found on a leaf node. If you are interested, I would recommend reading the ultrapeer technical documents describing this (look for "Query Routing Proposal").

But, as for legal precedent, there have been no cases against anyone running as a gnutella ultrapeer. In contrast, there have been cases, if I recall correctly, against people running OpenNap servers.

But of course, if you are sharing copyrighted content, you are responsible regardless of whether you are a leaf or an ultrapeer.

they do sue

and just so i'm clear, am i doing anything illegal by being an ultra peer? i don't share music, nor do i dl music, so am i doing anything illegal?

I feel safer pirating music here in canada :D.

Originally posted by Xerxes
They don't sue, costs too much. Instead, they give you the option to sign a form, deleting all of your copyrighted files. Wrong. They most certainly do sue people. The option to sign a form and delete all your music is only available before you get caught. If they catch you sharing they can still sue you. Most of the time they just settle the case, but they will probably insist on settling for several thousand dollars at a minimum. Settling is probably your best bet, since you will almost certainly lose a lawsuit, but it will still be very expensive for you.

so anyone have an answer to my question?