?

As long as you remove the file from the program it's fine because it's only illegal to distribute not recieve and once you remove it from the dowloading program your fine

they don't keep records of IP addresses?

denis's solution to the free-riding problem seems to be to free-ride off a second group of people :laugh:

denis you leacher! i dont know the MPAA but im guessing its the motion pictures association something? hmmm i use torrents (for tv shows) a lot but then im in a non english speaking country and i cant really get access to all the tv i want to see over here- i dont think anyone has gotten into trouble DL tv shows. Music, yes that can get you sent a scary letter in the States ive heard. Movies- , new movies are not really worth DLing anyway, cam and telesync jobs, dont bother, movies that have come out on DVD i DL a lot, i dont think the MPAA will come down hard on that. they are mainly concerned with new movies being leaked and that having a negative effect on the 1 st months takings at the cinema. that all might change in the future but

"it's only illegal to distribute not recieve and once you remove it from the dowloading program your fine"

This isn't technically true. Recieving is illegal, but you're extremely unlikely to be tracked/prosecuted unless you distribute. Still, I don't use torrents, they're too invasive, I prefer sites like rapidshare, where it's a simple download.

I've never gotten caught, but I only do it very occasionally. I also usually only seed while I'm downloading, although then I seed everything that I've every downloaded (on that computer).

For the record, it *is* illegal (in the U.S.) to receive, not only to distribute, copyrighted material without permission. But there is the question of what the MPAA and RIAA are likely to spend their energy on. Distributors and college campuses seem to be their focus now.

(MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America, in charge of movies; RIAA = Recording Industry Association of America, in charge of music)

The chances of the mpaa killing you is low. They only kill 4 or 5 people a year. Just be aware that if you get home and a wild eyed Tom Cruise is jumping around on your couch, you should run.

Ok, thats what I thought. I don't actually know anyone who's been sued really hard but I've heard about it so I was wondering. Plus I only really plan on downloading tv shows, which the MPAA wouldn't really care to much about I guess cause it's not a film.

@denis: If everyone only took and didn't give, there would be no torrents for you to illegally download. It really goes against the whole idea of P2P to only leech and not seed. Besides, doesn't this leeching affect your download ratio and cause trackers to throttle your download speed?

I'm with Texas on this. But then I get paid to produce original materials, so I am sort of pretty much in the intellectual property camp.

They catch people by matching bit patterns in a similar way to anti-virus software. Thus, just like your virus won't detect a virus made yesterday you are fairly safe downloading a torrent that was just posted.

To tell you the honest truth, I think that technologies such as P2P are moving way ahead of legislation when it comes to media. Because of the ease of peer to peer in being able to get media very quickly, more and more people are going to use it (as I myself do) just due to the fact that demand outstrips supply. If you can see a new TV show tonight, why wait for tomorrow?

The problem lies with the distribution. How can the production companies tap this new market? So far, I think their greed and antiquated ideas are hampering the opportunity this new technology affords them.

Any ideas how the music, television and movie industries can leverage this market share?

The only solution I can think of is to have some sort of ISP levy. After all, what are clients doing with their, for example, 80 GB per month download quotas? That's a lot of YouTube!

It's time to stop prosecuting and start thinking and innovating in my opinion.

Personally, when they come up with a reasonable model to charge for P2P (or whatever), I'll be all for it and pay my share.

After all, on demand will be the future, like it or not, and eventually there will be a solution that gives artists and IP owners their fair share.

Greed would ENCOURAGE them to increase distribution.

Antiquated ideas and ~short-term~ greed. Just as people want to see TV shows today (not tomorrow), stock investors want to see a company make profits this quarter (not next).

iTunes is doing pretty well, they say. Can someone do for TV and movies what iTunes did for music?

Australia is sometimes 3-4 months behind the US and UK tv markets, my parents cant wait that long for their doctor who fix! in japan we dont even get most of the tv shows i watch, thus i have zero guilt and zero fears about DL them