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How do people find out your IP address?

How did the RIAA find people's IP address' (to sue them for illegal downloading via Limewire)?

  • Answer:

    When you download something, your computer makes a connection to another computer(s), server, etc, and it is identified by your IP address. So, when you download something, they can see that you're downloading that file, and since your IP address is unique, they know who it is.

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Clustering downloaders, by design, share the IP address of everyone downloading from them. How else could you share files?

Easy. They don't. They see the IP addy that belongs to your provider. They then let the provider know that one of their IPs is being used to steal media or copyrighted material. Your provider keeps a constant log of whatever IP was asigned to every customer they have and the time and date it was used. If the RIAA wants to pursue the matter, they get a court order and your ISP has to give them your name, address, phone number, etc

Hi Hal. This sounds like something new to the already investigation of Limewire. I wasn't aware of users getting tagged in this Limewire case. To have Limewire up on charges for copyright infringement all the music and movie industry has to do is use Limewire to get a download of protected material, which is easy since Limewire didn't monitor their users downloads but holds, that, would be invading the privacy of their users and would cease the internet from being free. As far as to how users can get tagged is that websites use the users IP address to identify the computer, though it takes some investigative work to use that IP to get any personal information. This is an ongoing process for both industries to make illegal all P2P sharing software. I don't know where the US will draw the line on this one. Cheers...gwb56

They hop on a p2p file share, and see what ip address they are connected to. Find the user's isp from the ip address, then force ISP to give up the name and address of the user (usually through court order) proceed to lawsuit.

so basically when you download a file your computer connects to the server of whoever you are downloading the file from. and when you do that your ip address is read by the server and recorded. so i am guessing that the RIAA can look through the files and see what files you have downloaded and if they find something that is copyrighted they will sue and make a s*** ton of money which really pisses me off. because the cost of a song is only 99 cents and they try to get more

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