Quote:
Originally Posted by Griffin
I have always been led to believe its the uploading of files that is illegal, if you look round the net there are loads of places to download files of all sorts from.
There is also another loop hole which means you can download a rar file but it only becomes illegal if you extract the content. There is also encryption systems available which is going to make the whole process difficult to implement. Then there are the darknets that actually use high amounts of different users pc's to download parts of a file so no complete part is downloaded by any single user. There are also very competent hackers about that can readily use someone elses pc remotely to get the files they want with no come back to themselves. I personally think this scheme is going to be virtually unworkable, ie too much time to break things down to catch people unless they are using torrents
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Indeed.
It's complicated, and has never been tested in a court, but there is good reason to say that the act of downloading infringing works in itself is not illegal.
The copyright act makes numerous exemptions for personal use, such as importation and possession otherwise than in the course of a business. Just simply having a collection of infringing copies for example is not illegal. The only things that are are having any dealings with infringing copies in the course of a business, distribution otherwise than in the course of a business that has a detrimental effect on the copyright holders business, and making infringing copies.
The test is if downloading is making an infringing copy or not. You could argue that the downloader makes the copy, you could argue that the host makes the copy. It's something that is untested and until it is we'll never really know the answer to. Personally I'd say it's the host, as the downloader never has access to the original to make a copy, the downloader just keeps saying "ok, send me the next bit".
The main thing the government care about is it's a perfectly workable scheme for p2p (especially as p2p has no gray area over legality, if you're using p2p you're not only downloading but also distributing) and it has the potential to kill off the public p2p sites in this country, but as for anything other than p2p, it's never going to work.
But then killing off the casual p2p infringer is propably going to be enough for the rights holders, they know they'll never stop it completely, they'll just hope that enough people don't just migrate over to newsgroups where they'll have far bigger problems stopping them.