Think Twice Before You Hit Those Bittorrent Sites

[Mr Lee]

This could be bad news for some of you who download movies. Think Twice: Teen Fined $2900 for Illegally Downloading a MovieThis will make you think twice before you hit those BitTorrent sites. A 17-year-old in Albuquerque, N.M. has been fined $2900 for illegally downloading the movie 'Hurt Locker.'In an interview with KOB.com, Skyler Atterbom says that all his friends illegally download content, so he didn't think it was a big deal. "I would say at least 95 percent of the teenagers I know at my school, my friends, do this daily," Skyler says.But while 'Hurt Locker' was a hit among movie industry types, it didn't do well at the box office, which is why lawyers decided to go after the people who "stole" it. Authorities traced the IP address of the download back to Skyler's father, and offered him until March 11 to agree to a $2900 settlement.At first, Skyler denied downloading the movie, but later confessed. His dad is making him pay back all of the money, and as part of his punishment, he has to spread the word about the consquences of illegal downloading.Skyler added, "Ever since this came about, I keep thinking to myself, 'Why didn't I just go to a Redbox and rent the movie, legally, for, you know, a dollar?'"Lesson learned. Have you ever downloaded a movie illegally? Did you know that you could get into serious trouble for doing it?

[Dave Hounddriver]

While this might be true in the USA, I doubt it would happen in Philippines, I know it would not happen in Canada, and I wonder about other countries.When I say I "know" about Canada it is because I did not want to break any laws when I lived there so I consulted a lawyer for a legal opinion about it. That was about 7 years ago but at that time the Canadian government would not prosecute people sharing content for personal use because they viewed it the same as loaning your neighbor your copy of a DVD. There was a grey area about re uploading what you downloaded but the opinion was that it was highly improbable that you would be prosecuted for this in Canada.Anyone have hard evidence about the Philippines?

[ekimswish]

I've probably watched and listened to $2900 worth of content off those sites, so I'm satisfied. :SugarwareZ-034: On top of that, going to a movie theater costs like $10+ in Canada, Korea, or Taiwan. And when I last lived there, new releases were pushing $6. CD's are what, $20~30?At the end of the day, I never knew about downloading illegaly while I lived in Canada, but since moving to Asia, it's my only way to connect with media I understand. I wish I could put a dollar in their pockets, but it's not always possible out here. A lot of the websites that put their TV shows on their websites don't "have surveys" available in my region. More and more shows are, however, going online, hopefully internationally in the near future.

[Art2ro]

I understand in the U.S. they have strict laws concerning copy right laws due to piracy, but I don't think in the Philippines, they have yet a copy right law to enforce pertaining to the internet downloading of torrent files. Here's the torrent website I use all the time to download movies. Below are some of the comments they say about their site:KickassTorrents is a torrent search engine created in 2008 by a group of enthusiast. The new version of the website - KickassTorrents 2.0 was launched in mid 2010 introducing lots of new features and even some social elements.The main goal of KickassTorrents is to provide users with a user-friendly interface that will make search of torrents easier and more organized. But also we do our best to establish a new high standard for torrent sites and lead the whole community of p2p users into a new era.Even though we are not a tracker and do not host any torrent files, we understand the possibility of copyright infringements through the use of our website and therefore our team is completely against piracy! Personally we support our favorite artists, developers and companies by purchasing their products and call for all concerned users to do so! Nevertheless we also see the current issues with global copyright laws and stand for any changes that will leave to a better understanding between p2p users and copyright owners.We want you to know that we do not have any copyrighted or illegal content on KickassTorrents.com. The torrent information we host does not have files that can be copyrighted. We are in correspondence with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and general international copyright laws.However, we still can remove torrents from our site if the copyright owner would like us to do so. The following procedure will be performed if:

• You are, or your company is the copyright holder of this material
• You provide the URLs to the torrents to be removed, no complete (sub)categories or search queries
• You provide the full name(s) and list of content that should be removed
• You give us complete contact information (address, phone number, email and fax)

Please, contact us copyright@kickasstorrents.com, only if your request follows through with all of these rules. Please, be polite.We will process your request within 72 hours only if it corresponds to the above mentioned rules.http://www.kickasstorrents.com/movies/ Go to the very bottom of the page, this is where the above comments came from. Also check out this YouTube video to understand what a Torrent file is and it's legality!

Edited February 28, 2011 by Art2ro

[MikeB]

Seems like someone made this point about a month ago. A $2900 fine is cheap, they've been in the hundreds of thousands. From what I've read it's technically illegal to download copyrighted material in Canada but the authorities don't consider it a priority for personal, non profit use. One of the biggest and most popular web proxy services used when downloading is based in Canada.

[Art2ro]

http://ask-leo.com/i...rent_files.htmlTorrent files are used by bitTorrent file sharing and downloading technology. Are they illegal? No. But something else might be.Downloading Torrent Files, is it illegal? No it's not.BUT WAIT ...Before you run off and start downloading last week's bootlegged theatrical movie release, you really need to understand why that particular download and others like it probably are illegal.(Caveat: I'm basing this on my knowledge of the current state of Copyright law. Please, realize I'm no lawyer, and this shouldn't be taken as legal advice. This is mostly just common sense with the high level concepts we're talking about.)"Torrent" files are, specifically, a small file of information used by a file sharing technology known as "bitTorrent". To be super pedantic about it, because the ".torrent" file itself just has some administrative information in it, there's nothing wrong with downloading it.But that, of course, is not what you meant.The word "torrent" is also frequently, though incorrectly, used to refer to the actual files being shared using bitTorrent. So while you might use the ".torrent" to initiate a download, most people call the download itself a "torrent" as well. And that's more than likely what you're asking."bitTorrent is nothing more than a file downloading technology. "But here's the catch: bitTorrent is nothing more than a file downloading technology. It's highly efficient, optimized for large files and for decentralized storage of the files being downloaded, but ultimately it's nothing more than a way to copy a file down to your machine.Copying a file to your machine is not illegal.The technology used to copy a file to your machine is not illegal.In some ways you could just as well ask "Is it legal to download files from the web?", to which the answer is (obviously, I hope), of course it's legal. We do it every time we view a web page.The problem comes from looking at exactly what kinds of files are being downloaded.Downloading copyrighted files without permission is illegal. And it doesn't matter what technology you happen to use to do it: bitTorrent, FTP, web downloads, email or getting a CD in the mail. If the material is copyrighted and you didn't pay for or otherwise get the legal right or license to receive those files, those are all copyright violations.Unfortunately bitTorrent technology has become confused with illegal file sharing simply because so much of that illegal activity uses that technology.So let's be clear: the technology is legal. BitTorrent is legal. Torrents are legal. But using bitTorrent or any other technology to download copyrighted material that you don't have the right to is not.And yes, bitTorrent and bitTorrent-like technology can most definitely be used for totally legal activities. As just one small example I believe many Linux distributions are often made available as torrents. Perfectly legal, and exactly the kind of large download that bitTorrent technology was designed for and excels at.Sadly, people who should know better either don't, or are purposely using that confusion to further their own agenda. We've heard of ISPs and other facilities blocking or throttling bitTorrent file transfers, or politicians suggesting they do so, "because it's all illegal". It's not. Along with blocking the illegal file sharing that's going on, doing so also blocks the legal and appropriate use of the technology as well.