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Originally posted by Mav 3000
Downloading copyrighted material without the copyright holders permission is illegal and I'd think any thread endorsing it or showing endorcement to do so would be binned.

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How is copyright infringed?
The Act grants to the first owners of copyright the exclusive right to do certain acts, called 'the restricted acts', in relation to their material. These include copying the whole or a 'substantial part' of a work, giving public performances, adapting the work and broadcasting. A 'substantial part' is not defined in the Act but has been interpreted by the courts to mean a qualitatively significant part of a work even where this is not a large part of the work. Therefore, it is possible that even a small portion of a whole work could be considered to be a substantial part.

Anyone other than the owner of copyright who wishes to do any of the 'restricted acts' must obtain the copyright owner's prior permission, or be covered by an appropriate licence, or be covered by one of the exceptions in the Act.

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short summary of the situation in the UK:

Downloading copyright material for personal purposes only (in the UK) is not illegal and is not (and never has been) the subject of even civil action - and never will according to the BPI (the British version of the RIAA)

Sharing or uploading for personal purposes is also not illegal, and has so far not been the subject of even civil action. However, people have been threatened with civil action and a percentage have settled financial demands. Common sense should be used and reasonable precautions taken.

The background....

As far as the UK, most Commonwealth countries and a fair part of Europe, it is not (and never has been) a criminal offence to download copyrighted material specifically for personal and domestic use. (In general terms, a “criminal offence” is the sort of thing that the police are involved with).

Laws in the USA are completely different and although they are often referred to on international forums such as Slyck they should never be confused.

Downloading could theoretically result in civil proceedings, but the copyright holder would then have to quantify (prove) their actual loss. (in some other countries they have "statutory damages" but not in the UK) This has never happened, and I think it is extremely unlikely to ever happen given that Matt Phillips of the BPI (the UK equivalent of the RIAA) has stated they have no plans to carry out such an action.

In the UK the recipient of a file in a non-commercial transaction would be under no obligation to prove that the person distributing that file had the authority to do so.

However, be warned that uploading, sharing or seeding is regarded very differently from pure downloading. It is vital to distinguish between downloading only, uploading/downloading (sharing), and so forth.

In this respect, many P2P applications download and share data simultaneously, and you are therefore technically redistributing the same file at the same time as you are downloading it. In legal terms you are "distributing or making available to others"

Despite the fact that uploading for personal purposes (in the UK) should theoretically be treated identically to downloading, it is far easier for copyright enforcers to exaggerate the potential loss of earnings and therefore more likely that they may pursue civil action. Courts just about everywhere may take an altogether more robust view of this, although it seems the risk of being caught if sharing only a few files is relatively diminutive. To my knowledge, no actual cases have been brought against anyone (for personal uploading) in the UK to the present time.

Commercial transfers amount to a very serious criminal offence, with very real risks of imprisonment

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