I'll admit to being a muppet regarding P2P. I live in a small village in Leicester UK. A parent here was visited by the performing rights people because his daughters had downloaded thousands of songs.
They threatened to prosecute but settled out of court for £2000 ($4000).

How did they get his address and how did they know his daughters had downloaded the files??

Are Limewire legally bound to allow access to their records or is this something that is easily found out by anybody who knows their way around the Limewire system??

I tried searching the forum but couldn't find a thread that covered this

Limewire is not the place somebody would get information about people downloading files. It is the ISPs (Internet Service Provider) that could release information and data regarding people downloading and sharing files protected by copyright laws.
I have no idea about the respective laws in the UK, but for me it seems the girl was caught due to sharing thousands of files and the circumstance that there are people around that try to find those who share masses of files to make an example out of them and scare others away from file sharing.
You can read here to get a clearer picture:
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/RIAAatTWO_FINAL.pdf

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"Never Argue With An Idiot. They Will Drag You Down To Their Level, Then Beat You With Experience"

Many thanks for that speedy and interesting reply.

Its a wonder that someone hasn't come up with a way of downloading via a third party that doesn't involve your isp address address

I do it rarely. My library is only 120 strong. I try to keep it below 150...I like music, but i don't steal, and I don't sell it.

The only way the RIAA can get you is if they do a search for one of "their" songs (just like you do) and find you as a source for downloading.

They then browse your computer to see what all you have to offer. If you are making a lot of copyrighted material available for others to download, you may wind up getting a certified letter in the mail.

Allowing the files to be downloaded from your computer by others is not unlawful. You are not obligated to protect "their" songs from other people. However, if you have a large number of "their" songs on your computer, they may feel confident that they can convince a judge that you did not buy all of them and put them on your computer, but instead, downloaded (copied) them illegally.

They can't get you for downloading files from their own source computer, because they would be knowingly making those files available over a P2P network.

I've wondered if they can trace people not just by doing searches and getting an uploader's IP but through setting up their own ultrapeers and monitoring traffic that way. Since we can browse these ultrapeers, I wonder if we should not trust any that don't have any music files of their own and remove them from the list?

Couldn’t all this be fixed if ISPs and P2P networks didn’t keep records of their clients as to how many songs they download, share, and what not? I think with all the record-keeping its almost borderline privacy issues. Being the b*tch I am I would sue back and not settle. Than again I don’t share music. I only download once in a while for DJ’n and what not.

This "They will get you FUD" is utter nonsense. It doesn't even matter whether you're talking about file-sharing or real crimes. Either stop spreading such nonsense or show us your RIAA paycheck. Either use Gnutella or don't but don't scare people away. Planet earth (the funny blue sphere you're living on) is a bit larger than the USA.

In all honesty, should you share any copyrighted material that you don't have the rights to share they can bust you for it. Simply put, don't share copyrighted material, and keep your numbers low. I share about 50 songs, all of them are my own compositions, as well as a couple of short stories and poetry, so I have no fear. Plus I download stuff that I have on cassette tape or cd when I don't want to take the time to burn it to my computer. You just have to be careful and not be greedy. On a side note, record sales have not dropped since filesharing occurred...go figure?!? Anyway that's my two cents... BTWRight now there is a lawsuit against limewire(according to yahoo news.)

Fulgar.

Can you explain this? Can anyone else verify it? If it's "legal" to share CDs I've bought then I'm home free.

Eliana