We guess we don’t have to tell you guys that it is illegal to download copyrighted music, movies, books, software, and etc. from torrents. At the same time many people still do because they think that they can get away with it. Well the next time you’re thinking about pirating any of the songs from the Billboard Top 100 charts, you might want to think twice.
According to TorrentFreak, they have reported that due to a new scheme setup by Rightscorp, more and more rightsholders have begun to target BitTorrent pirates. As it stands, Rightscorp boasts that they are protecting over 1,000,000 copyright, some of which are songs from the Billboard Top 100 charts.
Basically what they do is that Rightscorps will send settlement requests to US-based ISPs who then will forward the email to the owner of the IP address. This will cover individual users to universities and even companies who have accounts registered in their name.
Each settlement will cost the downloader a fine of $20 per track, which is around the price of an album already. What this means is that if you’re caught downloading an album of say 10 tracks, your fine would be set at a whopping $200.
In the settlement email sent to users who have infringed upon the copyrighted material, it informs them that they could face up to $150,000 in civil penalties. Yikes! Really makes you think twice, or thrice, the next time you fire up your favorite torrent client.