How To Avoid Getting Sued by RIAA

Being sued is lame. Getting music for free is not.

After the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed lawsuits against 11 Harvard students last month, most users have wisely shied away from i2hub, the once-popular peer-to-peer firesharing program. And those who illegally download material are just plain dumb, according to everyone who doesn’t like large fines and prisons.

What’s a jail-fearing music lover to do? Four tips, because we care:

1. Be mildly sneaky and start using untapped, closed-network downloading programs. By downloading OurTunes, a Java-based program that piggybacks off of iTunes, you can raid your neighbors’s music collections without Big Brother knowing. Yes, OurTunes is still totally illegal, but there’s only one other drawback: you only have access to the music on the files of people on your wireless network. Better hope your entryway isn’t into Yanni.

2. Hit up those foreign connections. While some countries, such as Denmark and Germany, have started to join the lawsuit bandwagon, file-sharing paranoia hasn’t taken over most foreign countries.

“I get my sister who lives in London to download any songs that I need and then have her e-mail them to me,” says one freshman who reverted to this method after receiving threats from FAS Computer Services for downloading Tyrese songs off of LimeWire, another peer-to-peer filesharing program.

3. Waste your time checking out record label websites instead of stalking people on thefacebook. Websites such as epitonic.com have thousands of free and legal MP3s that would look good in the most discerning indie snob’s iTunes library, while more mainstream music like Lil Jon can be procured at music.download.com.

4. Spend the $13 and buy a CD. Really, it won’t kill you.