# RIAA Messing with Kazaa Downloads and Such

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-messing-with-kazaa-downloads-and-such/234995>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 18, 2004, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-messing-with-kazaa-downloads-and-such/234995 "2004-03-18T06:10:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![caphis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19adc/32.png) [@caphis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caphis)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-messing-with-kazaa-downloads-and-such/234995/1 "2004-03-18T06:10:49Z")

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A friend was complaining earlier about how it’s difficult now to find a good, uncorrupted download on KaZaA thanks to the industry’s (RIAA?) flooding the network with corrupted versions.

This got me thinking… I know the basic idea is that whoever corrupts the files just inserts a bunch of crap into the file itself (when I last saw such a file, it was something like ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ… etc), but my question is, how do the majority of users end up with this? Don’t people listen to the download, realize it’s bogus, and delete it, thus ending the distribution of a corrupted file?

Or are there just 200 RIAA users seeding that file?

Does anyone have the Straight Dope on these anti-piracy tactics?

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**Author:** ![caphis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19adc/32.png) [@caphis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caphis)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-messing-with-kazaa-downloads-and-such/234995/2 "2004-03-18T06:20:24Z")

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Hmm…

A more detailed search on the boards showed that this has already been discussed, [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=240455&highlight=kazaa) and [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=4470402), specifically.

That will teach me to look back further next time. 🙂

Mods, feel free to close this.

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**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-messing-with-kazaa-downloads-and-such/234995/3 "2004-03-18T06:21:57Z")

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Piracy is illegal and we are not going to discuss ways to defeat anti-piracy tactics on this board.

This is closed.

**DrMatrix** - GQ Moderator