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dav3, not really. downloaders are breaking the law just like the uploaders, but the ability to prove the violation is a little bit harder with music. Music is very different from other forms of entertainment, because there are many ways that a user could end up with a file. He could buy the CD (pretty rare these days, apparently), he could buy a track from Itunes or similar, or he could have a friend play the disc on his computer and have the files downloaded onto the machine.
It also isn't the big end of the game. The end user downloading a song isn't anywhere near as important as the original seeder sharing that file with hundreds or thousands of other people. That is where things become a real issue. If you stop the one seeder, you have stopped potentially thousands of copies of the music being made.
It was also clear that the woman in this case was offered the standard "low cost" deal, probably a couple of thousand dollars, and she turned it down and went to court. She got nailed good and solid, and in doing so, set a very strong precedent that will almost certainly be used in other cases. I know if I was a US citizen getting served by the RIAA's lawyers right now, I would be much more likely to settle than I would to go to court with that clear loss on the table.
One other thing that I have noticed about most file share networks or protocols is that in downloading a file, you automatically become a download source as well. uTorrent software, as an example, automatically makes your PC into a seed for that file as well. Even as you download, you are peered to others who are taking the pieces you have already downloaded. Effectively there is no way to download without doing at least some outbound traffic as well, from what I can tell.
It's just like that.
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