Quote:OK, well, NOW I'm confused.
Don't be.
Quote:From what I've heard, people downloading software (not distributing or running massive bulletin boards) were not really the target of the laws that make it a felony. Also, you have to establish willfulness, and if you thought you had to be making money off the deal, and destroyed the copies you had when you found out that wasn't true, lack of willfulness may come into the picture. So maybe it's a felony, but its a felony that millions (maybe tens of millions) of people have committed through Napster, Kazaa and other file sharing methods.
Let's set aside the legality/illegality question of your past actions for a moment and address the heart of the matter. Unless you wrote somewhere in your application form and questionaire that you downloaded music in possible violation of copyright laws, YOU set the tone for your reactions to questions concerning illegal past activity, not the polygrapher.
George has an excellent suggestion. Should your polygraph interrogator lie to you and bluff that you're having some sort of reaction to the sets of questions regarding criminal activity, at that point you could really reflect for a few moments and say words to the effect that you downloaded some music from the Internet once, and could that be the problem? [Earnest look].
Quote:Anyway, in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, copying music might be seen as one of the things a person might react to in a control question, since it's so common. I'm not sure I trust Polycop, either, but really, wouldn't this be the sort of minor admission one could make to a pre-test control question? If the NSA or CIA are looking for people who've never downloaded music or software (especially tech people) they're going to have a mighty small applicant pool.
Of course, only make minor, non-substantive admissions.