From Issue #1 , Page #30 | By Mindy Kauppinen

Music and movies for free? There's a high price to pay for downloading some digital content.

There's a good chance that your kids are getting Britney, Beyonce and OutKast in the form of MP3 audio files for free on the Internet. Free beats cheap any day, but the Internet is no longer one free-for-all virtual playground. And if you think it is, you're in a giant state of ignorant bliss—one that could cost you a small fortune or even land you in jail.

About Downloading
The Web and MPEG technology have placed an incredible amount of digital media right at our fingertips. The content sites are broken down into two categories: free and pay. The sites that charge for their services, such as Napster, iTunes and Movielink, charge by the song, album or movie, or assess a monthly subscription fee. Those that help you access music files for free, such as Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and LimeWire, are actually peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing programs that you must download in order to get to the music.

Once you've got the goods, digital music can be taken on the go via a portable MP3 and/or video player. It can also be enjoyed through home audio systems, thanks to the plethora of digital music servers currently available. And, of course, downloaded material can also be taken anywhere you bring your laptop computer.

The High Price Of Free
P2P programs provide the means for anyone to access "free" music. These programs turn your computer's hard drive into a server, giving all other users of the same program direct access to all music files stored there.

Unfortunately, there's this little thing called a copyright that protects music, movies, books and other forms of creative entertainment from being copied, distributed or exhibited without the copyright holder's permission. To boil it down, when you make a copy of a song or a movie without permission from the copyright holder (permission usually comes in the form of payment), whether it's a physical duplication or a digital download, you are stealing—and stealing is illegal.

But what's the harm—nobody will find out, right? Not exactly. Earlier this year, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began using a subpoena provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force Internet service providers (ISPs) to disclose the personally identifiable information of their subscribers they believed to be violating copyrights. The RIAA has identified its targets based on the unique IP addresses associated with individual computers.

In an effort to preserve privacy rights, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) introduced the Consumers, Schools, and Libraries Digital Rights Management Awareness Act of 2003. The legislation would have required the RIAA to file a "John Doe" lawsuit to obtain the identifying information of an Internet user, rather than simply requesting a subpoena.

"The DMCA subpoenas permitted anyone merely claiming to be a copyright holder—including abusive spouses or stalkers—to obtain personally identifiable information about an ISP subscriber, using just the subpoena," explains Kevin Krufky, former legislative aide for Brownback. "This bill sought to protect the privacy of Internet users by forcing the RIAA and other copyright holders to appear publicly before a judge, in order to discourage unintended parties from trying to use the subpoena. It would also have given someone accused of a copyright violation the opportunity to defend themselves, using court processes to not only protect themselves from potential bad actors, but to protect their privacy in the face of incorrect accusations of copyright infringement."

Following the introduction of Brownback's bill, a federal appeals court ruled that the RIAA cannot use the DMCA subpoena provision to identify P2P program users, but would instead have to file a John Doe case in court as an alternative means of identifying ISP subscribers they believe are pirating music. The court decision put into place the privacy protections advocated by the Brownback bill. The RIAA now has to file individual court cases against ISP subscribers suspected of P2P file-swapping in order to identify them. According to Krufky, this translates into much higher copyright enforcement costs than use of the DMCA subpoena and, while improving privacy protections for ISP subscribers, may ultimately mean far pricier settlements.

Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You?
If you, or someone who uses your computer, have been downloading digital content with the help of P2P programs, it's not too late. There are some things you can do to stack the odds in your favor.

For starters, you can disable the P2P program's sharing component. By flipping the switch, you are opting out of sharing. This means you can still collect new music files but you are no longer uploading, thereby preventing access to the files you have on your hard drive. If that still doesn't sound on the up and up, well, that's because technically it's not. It only fixes half of the problem, but it's the half the RIAA cares most about, as it claims it is only pursuing users who share music files—for now.

You can also take advantage of the RIAA's offering of amnesty, called the Clean Slate Program. In exchange for turning yourself in, deleting all illegal music files from your computer, and promising to never engage in illegal downloading again, the RIAA will keep your personal information to itself and won't monitor your activities. The deal is good only with the RIAA. It doesn't protect you from lawsuits filed by other copyright holders. It's a gamble predicated on trust—how much you trust the RIAA to keep your personal information, and admission of guilt, confidential.

The Straight And Not So Narrow
Want to load up on the latest tunes and movies without finding yourself on the wrong side of the law? Get your fix without fear of facing lethal injection…

Apple iTunes: There are more than 400,000 tracks available for $0.99 each. Allowance Accounts let parents apply credit to their kids' accounts for managing complex chores such as changing the kitty litter.

RealRhapsody & RealPlayer Music Store: RealRhapsody allows subscribers to "rent" music for $9.95. Once you stop paying rent, you get the boot. For an additional $0.79 you can convert your lease into a mortgage and burn the music to CD. RealPlayer Music Store has more than 400,000 songs ready to be purchased for $.99 each (or $9.95 for most albums).

Napster: Formerly jailbait, Napster now offers two options for accessing its more than 500,000 audio tracks: a pay-for-play store and a subscription service. Individual tracks are $.99 each, or an entire album is $9.95. Get unlimited streaming and downloading for a little less than $10 per month.

Liquid Audio: Log onto the site and help yourself to a musical smorgasbord of hundreds of thousands of songs. Single tracks range from $.99 to $1.18 each, and full albums start at $9.99. There's no proprietary software to download, and the site even offers gift certificates.

Wal-Mart: It's no surprise that Wal-Mart offers the same goods at the cheapest prices anywhere. Pay-for-play downloads are a mere $.88 per song, and albums start at $9.44.

Movielink: Movies -- from new releases to mainstream to indies -- are available for download 24/7 for $2.99 to $4.99 each. The "rental" period is usually 30 days and allows for unlimited viewing. The catch? The unlimited viewing must occur within a single 24-hour period, which begins the moment you first hit PLAY.

MovieFlix: MovieFlix offers a bizarre yet oddly appealing collection of full-length movies, short films, TV shows and video interviews available online for download. Many of MovieFlix's offerings are free; however, the company offers premium content called MovieFlix Plus, available to subscribers for $5.95 a month.