Hmmm. Eric Bangeman of ArsTechnica was following the RIAA copyright infringement trial against Jammie Thomas, and writes:
Perhaps the most damning bit of evidence was the username for the KaZaA share flagged by Safe Net, tereastarr@KaZaA. Thomas had a 13- or 14-year history of using that name online for everything from e-mail addresses to Match.com profiles. [From How the RIAA tasted victory: a perfect storm which might not be repeated: Page 1 ]
Not that I'm in any danger of being sucked up in an RIAA lawsuit, but I now would change my online name to something else before connecting to a P2P service. Also this:
The RIAA also made a point of showing that much of the music in the KaZaA share was likely downloaded from P2P networks. They did this with the help of Mark Weaver of SafeNet, who walked the jury through the company's investigative techniques and explained the significance of MP3 file metadata to the jury.I just checked my files, and did find one that still contained a 'uploaded by' text (Play That Funky Music White Boy, by if you really must know). Wild Cherry – Play That Funky Music
Highlighting the ID3 tags from a handful of the songs downloaded by SafeNet, Weaver made a case that much of the music offered in the shared folder came from illicit sources. One of the metadata fields from a Dream Theater tune downloaded by SafeNet contained the text "uploaded by 0ffs3+"; Weaver said that this meant that 0ffs3+ was "claiming props for being the one to upload the song."
