Parents Get Sued for What their Kids do Online

Scary headline? Well it’s not make-believe. Have you ever heard of Peer-to-Peer file sharing?  Peer-to-Peer software allows you to share files on your computer with others on the Internet. In turn you have access to their files. The first mainstream Peer-to-Peer program was Napster (remember that one?) and you could only download music with it. 

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing programs have come a long way since the days of Napster. Now you can download all kinds of files with P2P software. Files like movies, software programs, TV shows, music videos just to name a few.  The problem is that downloading copyrighted material is illegal. Some of the examples of P2P software programs in use today are Kaaza, Morpheus, Limeware, eMule and BitTorrent. 

So why should parents be concerned about all this? If your kids are using P2P software to download copyrighted material and get caught parents are the ones who pays the price. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) are aggressively protecting copyrighted material by suing those who have illegal copies of movies or music on their computers. How do they know if you have illegal copies? I won’t get technical here so lets just say they have ways of tracking what computers are using P2P software to downloading copyrighted files. If you’re kids are downloading copyrighted movies or music you could be on the hook for big money. Many lawsuits brought by the RIAA against individuals have been for tens of thousands of dollars. Ouch!

If all that isn’t reason enough to get any P2P software off your computer here’s another. The Special Investigations Division of the House Committee on Government Reform said that X-rated files are so readily available on P2P networks that it is almost impossible for users to avoid explicit material. In other words there is so much porn available that no matter what your kids are searching for they’ll end up finding porn. I tested this out and they were right. I searched on the term “Bible” using a popular P2P program and I found a number of full-length porn movies. I typed in “Sex” also and you would not believe the number of porn movies that were available. Now just imagine your son having P2P software on his computer in his room. He could download a full-length porn movie, watch it, delete it and you’d never know it happened. 

So what do you do to protect your family from all this? Get a filter that blocks P2P software. SafeEyes will do the trick. You can get a free trial by clicking here. 

Suricou Raven wrote on May 21st 08 at 04:19AM

Minor correction: The RIAA has never actually sued anyone over this and won. That would be expensive for them, and time consuming. Instead they offer people a settlement: Pay up a large sum of money (Usually around $5000, sometimes a lot more though) *or else* they will sue. So far almost everyone has paid up - the only people to refuse have been those who were so clearly cases of error (One person sued had no computer) they have nothing to fear in court.

Regarding porn, then if that is what you seek you will certinly have no problems finding it - but this is true of the web too, so I wouldn't consider that a problem. More seriously is that many porn distributors on P2P are very aggressive in their marketing, so you do find a lot of porn mislabeled as other material. There are tricks to avoid this, but until a user has learned them all then it is true that some accidential downloading of pornography is unavoidable.

Also, your list is *way* our of date. Kazaa and edonkey have been obsolete for a long time.

Kevin Outland wrote on May 21st 08 at 10:13AM

@Suricou Raven:

Minor correction to your correction: The RIAA has sued. If you'd like to read a couple articles about their lawsuits here are some links:

www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,118028/printable.html

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023_3-5072564.html

So as I said parents are getting sued for what their kids do online. If the parents decide to settle the case, for $5,000 or $10,000, instead of going to trial somehow I don't think they feel better about the situation.

You may not consider kids accessing porn a problem but I think most parents do. Parents may not be able to stop it 100% but informed parents can make porn harder to access. Blocking access to P2P networks is another thing parents can do to help keep porn out of the hands of their kids.

Regarding my list of Peer-to-Peer software you are correct on eDonkey, it should have said eMule. I've corrected it. I disagree with you on Kazaa's obsoleteness.

Suricou Raven wrote on May 21st 08 at 03:22PM

Regarding the suing: Ah, my mistake. Those are actually the cases I was thinking off, settled out of court. I forgot that in order to force the ISPs to identify the defendants to send those letters, the RIAA does need to file suit against them - just so they have a case to use to send a subpoena. They don't go to court unless the demand for settlement is rejected.

Most kids don't need anything so sophisticated as Tor - the basic CGI proxy is enough for them. The filters are local anyway, so they can be circumvented by finding a way to cut it out the started up sequence or break whatever hooks it uses. Or, if all else fails, a liveCD.

I use bittorrent and emule, mostly... but I do data-tracking work for people, digging up *really* obscure things, so I have software installed to connect to every major and many minor networks so I can search as wide as possible.

I am tempted to write a guide to 'what not to do as a parent.' Perhaps I should, and submit it here as a possible entry for the blog... Hmm.

Nick wrote on June 10th 08 at 09:25AM

Correction to your correction to your correction. Maybe you should get your facts straight before you post drivel. I'm an avid downloader. I know it's illegal but I do it as a form of social protest to change the system. The system which takes advantage of artists, holds their creativity hostage, and charges outrageous rates so that CEO's can continue to live their lavish lifestyles needs a rework. The only way to change the industry is to hit them where it hurts most, THEIR POCKET BOOKS. The job of the government is to punish evildoers and reward those who do good. Well, when that doesn't happen, what is the role of the citizen? Sit back and let things run their course or stand up and fight for change? I'm opting for the later.

Heath wrote on June 11th 08 at 07:32AM

Why are you all sitting here talking about piracy as if it's ok. There is no way to justify piracy and as someone who was in one of the largest piracy rings 10 years ago I know that there is no "legit" reason to be downloading piracy.

-Nick
Your method does hurt the CEO's but when you download an illegal CD do you directly send money to the artists to make up for what you stole from them? If no you are directly hurting the artists also and your arguement is invalid.

There is no legit reason to be on file sharing programs and few legit reasons for bittorrent.

Who cares if your l33t h@xor skills can pwn me, the bottom line is if you are reading this then you obviously have some sort of interest in a relationship with Christ and we should be looking at what we can all do to serve him instead of serve ourselves.

Suricou Raven wrote on June 12th 08 at 03:18PM

No justification, really?

- I have learned to produce artwork, and quite well. The software I need to achieve this has a commercial cost of somewhere in the region of a thousand pounds. Perhaps five hundred for the student edition. There is no way I could possibly afford that - so piracy has resulted in me producing some quite entertaining artwork.

- Piracy has more serious uses - I have obtained a large number of documentory programs which I redistribute whenever they are of interest to someone. I recently posted one of these on the prayer wall, in a discussion about shame. Used like this, piracy is a tool for education.

- This doesn't justify piracy in itsself, but does make the other justifications easier: The large content production companies, as many will point out with great enthusiasm, are not really that pleasant. Control freaks, over-commercialised.

- Piracy allows people access to works they could not obtain by any legitimate means: Works that are out of print, deliberatly surpressed by their copyright holders, not licenced for distribution in that country, a long way out of the price range, legally banned, extremally rare, etc.

- Even if everyone stoped buying their media tomorrow, this would not be the end of production. It might be the end of the multi-million-dollar superband and celebrity, or the blockbuster movie. Where those driven by profit leave, there would still be plenty of those driven by creativity. Noncommercial would florish without such competition from studios with marketing budget and contacts. Most of it is complete rubbish, of course - but there is still enough of value to be entertaining.

- The effect is exagerated, anyway - almost everything a pirate downloads, they would not bother to buy anyway. I downloaded such things as the new Transformers movie - no way I would pay to see that!

- A flexible schedule. When downloading TV, a pirate's schedule is no longer dictated by the networks. Pirates watch whatever programs they want, whenever they want. They never miss an episode.

Scott wrote on June 15th 08 at 02:33PM

Piracy is against the law, and no amount of reasoning will change that fact.

First of all, if you wish to make a social protest against the music industry then don't download the music at all. Downloading it without paying is theft. There are plenty of artists that distribute songs free of charge and you can always listen to the radio.

If you cannot afford a piece of software, then save your money until you can. I can't afford a new HDTV, but I'm not going to steal one.

You can tell people where to obtain material without making copies, etc. That's basic piracy 101.

Just because someone does evil things doesn't make revenge OK. We should love even those people to Christ.

Just because it's hard to get, doesn't mean it's OK to get it illegally. If it's truly important, though, be sure you're willing to accept the consequences. (Obtaining Bibles in places such things are banned, for example.

If you want to see something, but don't want to pay for it, why not borrow it? A friend probably wouldn't mind if you didn't do it constantly. Or, split the cost with friends to rent something. It's still paying, but not very much.

I can watch TV whenever I want without doing it illegally. Nowadays with DVRs, it's very convenient.

Suricou Raven wrote on June 16th 08 at 06:01AM

"Piracy is against the law, and no amount of reasoning will change that fact."

Eventually that law is going to need changing, if only because enforcement is becoming next to impossible.

"If you cannot afford a piece of software, then save your money until you can. I can't afford a new HDTV, but I'm not going to steal one."

Stealing is completly different - it deprives someone else of whatever you stole. Copyright infringement is usually completly victimless, and at worst results in one less sale.

"If you want to see something, but don't want to pay for it, why not borrow it?"

Evidently you don't consider one less sale to be a problem - download, borrow, the end result is the same: You watch without paying. What is the difference?

"Just because it's hard to get, doesn't mean it's OK to get it illegally. If it's truly important, though, be sure you're willing to accept the consequences. (Obtaining Bibles in places such things are banned, for example."

So, you would support breaking the law to obtain bibles? Wouldn't this invalidate your earlier argument that copyright infringement is unacceptable because it's against the law?

"I can watch TV whenever I want without doing it illegally. Nowadays with DVRs, it's very convenient."

For those that have DVRs, and want to pay for a subscription channel, and live in the US. I'm in the UK - by the time the latest American movie or show makes it's way over here, spoilers have already spread over the internet.