If the RIAA Comes Calling, Here’s What You Do…

If you get one of those nasty RIAA letters for paying up for infringement and you decide to fight it you have some work to do. Nor is it legal work I am talking about either. You have a technical task as well. Here’s what you need to do in a nutshell —

• Buy yourself another hard drive immediately.
• Clone the original HD to the new drive.
• In the presence of a third party or notary or alternately somebody like Geeks. You need someone who will certify that they observed you removing the HD and placing it under seal.
• Place the hard drive under seal and give it to your lawyer.
• Install the new HD as your new boot drive.

What you WILL NOT DO is reformat the drive in question. That could be construed as evidence tampering. An offense in its own right. For more on this go here.

Take heed.