Colleges catching illegal music downloading?

Question

http://www.komonews.com/news/26850729.html

This article states that UW a university in WA reported to the RIAA that a student was illegally downloading music from Limewire. It also states that many other colleges have done the same thing, my question is, is how do these universities and such know their students are illegally downloading music?

Answer 1

they track their computers, for example if the college is providing wireless. and they can see what websites each student visits, and what they are downloading. my sister almost got caught. it can cause you to get expelled from colleges, or they can take away your scholarships.

Answer 2

The IP addresses. If it's in your dorm or anywhere on campus, you can get caught. You can download music from Limewire and such places, but what most people don't know is that they're are sharing their own music and files on their computer. There's an actual feature in it that you can turn off, but of course no one knows that.

Long story short, all the RIAA has to have is the IP address (where the connection is) and the info on what ever it was that you downloaded. They specifically target college students near the end of semesters, so be careful. They do it at my school, too.

Answer 3

Kiwi is right on the money. Colleges are easy targets for the RIAA because if they subpoena the school's internet usage records, the institution has to give them up, and those IP addresses show which room shared files on which date and time. When you connect to the internet on campus, all of your activity can be monitored by the school network.