Can I sue the RIAA for this?
 

I was driving home tonight and I popped in a CD that I had burned off a friends computer earlier tonight. Anyway, I'm driving home and all the sudden I hear that GAWD FUCKING AWEFUL screeching sound that comes from some of those corrupted kazaa downloads. And guess fucking what! It blows out the tweeters on my Focal components! I almost lost control and crashed my car too it scared me so bad. Ok, rant over. I know I cant actually sue those assholes for this, cause they would just slap me with an illegal download lawsuit anyway. I just wish someone would teach those fuckers a lesson. SO! Do any of you know a way to avoid downloading those corrupted files?

the best way i'd say is stay away from kazaa. try other clients that aren't so closely targeted: there are many out there!

if you must use kazaa, try the following: (1) run peerguardian or the kazaalite blocklist or your own firewall list of banned IPs; (2) stay away from popular music or newly released albums; (3) only download files listed as excellent; (4) download different bitrates, especially VBR.

Listen to the song right through before burning it.

Every one knows how to screen the corupted songs on kazaa right?...and am I allowed to talke about that kind of stuff on this forum?

why couldn't you talk about it in the forum?

Best advice there is. I have a TON of downloaded music and I'm in the process of burning it onto CDs. Nonetheless, I listen to every single song all the way through before burning it. You never know.

Yes, I ususally listen to the song through, but sometimes I get lazy and just skip around and check most of the spots. This wasnt even some super new popular song...it was some old Deep Purple for gods sake. And it was one of those that plays perfect all the way through untill the last 25 seconds then switches over to the computer noise for a few seconds. Long enough to out me 250 bucks for speakers though...

I dont think its a problem if it helps us out. Plus I really want to know.

Well its actually quite simple and I am sure many people already know about this.

I am using Kazaa lite.

The RIAA corupted downloads will always have the same bandwith, not really sure why. This changes every now and then. For example for the past few days all downloads with bandwith 989 are corupted. Last week i think it was 1014. Pretty easy to spot since about 50-95% off all downloads will have the same bandwith.

It's not fool proof, sometimes people forget to check the songs and rename it, making it look like its clean. So it's still a good idea to check every song, but this will save you some time from re-downloading.

Buy the CD.

Too true, then rip it and return it, quality guaranteed! ;)

i find that if you try sending the user a personal message and if it bounces back you can bet that they files will be bunk. i found that mainly they are just only 35 seconds long....sometimes they just loop over and over.......

mr b

even better than using a p2p client is Usenet. there are literally hundreds (thousands?) of mp3 (and other sound format) groups where you can get just about anything you might ever want. sure, usenet is not quite as quick and easy as a p2p program, but you will get better quality rips and rarely, if ever, get that RIAA looped/corrupted shit.

Thanks for the tips guys.

how do i get into this usenet thing.....i've never done it b4.

mrb

Most song files are about 3000-4000kbs and i find that if they happen to be like 6000-7000 then they are corrupted.

Besides, if you're gonna spend the time to download a song why don't you spend the time to listen to it (before burning)?

I haven't been around the music DL scene in the last few years and I hadn't heard of this problem. Could someone elaborate as to what exactly the RIAA is doing?

It seems like that if they were deliberately distributing files with the intent to damage a computer/and or speakers that they might run into some legality problems. Essentially, this should be considered a form of vigilantism which I think is generally prohibited. Also, a good attorney could probably find a way that this action would be in violation of either the DMCA or the Patriot Act in regards to being an attack on electronic property. A really clever attorney with a vengeance for the RIAA might even be able to construe it as an act of terrorism and be able to arrest individuals as enemy combatants.

Hey, now that sounds like fun! If I wasnt a poor college kid I'd give it a run. I dont think they're actually doing it with the purpose of blowing up kids' stereos, but someone could probably pull it off.

Downloading takes relatively no time for me, and I was just making a mix for the drive home...

I just use IRC. All of the fullversion albums that i have downloaded off IRC have been normal, without that shitty screeching sound. Fuck RIAA.