The Pros & Cons of Illegally & Legally Downloading Music & Movies

Millions of users who download files illegally from the Internet will soon be banned from accessing the Internet in a major battle against Internet theft.

Many users are genuinely unaware the programs they are using to download files is breaking the law. File Sharing is not illegal as long as you obey all relevant copyright laws....Using P2P programs to download and distribute copyrighted music, movies and games etc without permission is illegal.

Find out how this effects you and what you can do about it!

What Is File Sharing? File sharing refers to providing and receiving digital files (packets of data) over a network via a peer to peer (P2P). People who are active in file sharing provide files and (upload) and receiving files and (download) will be using the dozens of free programs such as Utorrent to download unlimited amount of movies, TV programs, albums, game's and software. The entertainment industry is fighting back after billions of money is being stolen. Its estimated over a billion songs a month are downloaded, with around 100 illegal music downloads for every legal track sold. The scale of copyright theft is very huge and getting bigger each day! If you download files illegally or think you may be! find out how this could effect you.

How Do I know If I'm downloading Files illegally? If your using any of these file-sharing software-sites and clients your breaking the law!

Some no longer exist!-- aimini - Alliance - Azureus - ares - BiteNova BTbot - ByTorrents - bittorrent - Bitsoup - BTjunkie - Demonoid -Emule - Edonkey -FileList - frostwire - FullDLS - Freenet - FileMP3 - GNUnet - Isohunt - iMule - limewire - Nodezilla - Meganova - Meta Search -Mininova. -OFF System Perfect Dark Proxyshare - RShare - Snarf It - Scrapetorrent - Share - Torrentportal - Torrentscan - Torrentspy - Torrentz - Torrentsto! -Torrentmatrix -Torrentbox - TorrentTyphoon -The Pirate Bay - TorrentBytes - Thinktorrent - Torrentlocomotive - Torrentdamage - Tor utorrent - YouTorrent - Yotoshi - WinNY - Zultrax.

How Will They find out I'm Downloading Files illegally? Each computer that's connected to the Internet, is assigned an individual I.P address) for example: 145.45.68.24. This IP address will link Your PC to an exact physical location and with with the help of your Internet Service Provider! (I.S.P) who will technically police the Internet monitoring all your traffic and checking individual packets of data being sent across the web. Some users will get round this by changing there IP address!

What will happen If I'm Caught? Once they have established you are downloading files illegally, you will be sent a letter/email kindly asking you to stop! If you ignore this warning, and continue your downloading activities, another not-so-kindly letter will arrive to warn you of a possible ban from accessing the Internet!

Will I be Arrested and Charged? Many people have already been caught and punished, but It is unlikely you will get arrested among the millions of users, but they will want to set an example to the Prolific users who are responsible for up-to a million plus downloads each. Laws vary from country to country and In America, the Recording Industry Association of America, (RIAA) details penalties for on-line infringement can be punished by up to six years in prison & $250,000 fines.

Pros:

1: Download anything at anytime even if the movies and songs are not always the best quality. Software, ebooks and games are all readily available!

2: Save your-self a fortune on expensive programs such as Adobe Photoshop by downloading it free.

Cons:

1: Your breaking the law and risk receiving a criminal record and being banned from the Internet, fined and/or imprisoned! although the chances are at least a million to one for now.

2: Downloading files illegally have a risk of viruses and Spyware! I'm sure many of you have and will be a victim of this!

3: The quality of these illegally downloaded songs and movies is often terrible. Most are made by amateurs who sit in the back of a cinema with a camcorder which is a sure way of getting bad quality audio and video. In fact, you'll often see shadows of people walking in front of the camera as well as heads bobbing up and down, not to mention people laughing and coughing in the cinama!

4: Musicians and actors will lose out to people stealing their work.

eminthrv I probably saved like way more than a hundred bucks by downloading music illegally
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TwoPageAfro If you're careful, you can get away with downloading absolutely ANYTHING. I still think this is a decent article because there are still people out there who don't realize they are 'stealing.' The choice is up to you.

Also, while many people are against file-sharing for obvious reasons, you can't deny that it's helped thousands of unknown artists get exposure they never would have seen without it. Higly informative


thegecko I have to disagree with Cons 2 and 3. Its easy to find files burned directly from CDs and DVDs with pretty high quality, some Mp3s etc with higher qulaity than you would received if you burned them using iTunes or WMP. Not that I am encouraging anyone to do this.

Also, do not assume that if things are available to view for free you can still download them. Many of the TV networks now allow people to stream their shows online, but these episodes still contain commercials. If you try and bypass the commercials by downloading the episodes online, even if you download an episode recorded off of the TV, you're still breaking the law!

Remember, your IP is not on your side when it comes to illegal downloads and its much easier for them to track your activities than you think.
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DJ Funktual Limewire is obviously filled with viruses but are any of the others on your list less "infected?" DJs can't afford to keep up with every hit single as you can imagine.
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t.keeley Video and mp3 quality....terrible? I disagree.

A bought CD has undergone numerous price-ups, including the paycheck of money grubbing managers and CEOs of major record labels. The music has been dithered down and the quality is roughly 128 kbps. An mp3 of downloaded quality, legal or not (most illegal downloads are from iTunes or the competitors anyway) are not dithered down, have numerous sound channels and are at 320 kbps most of the time. I've downloaded music online and the difference between emusic/itunes and a CD is TREMENDOUS!

Being a musician myself, the whole 'illegal' music downloads doesn't hurt the musician. It hurts the managers. Is that a bad thing? Come on...Britney Spears doesn't hurt from people getting her stuff for free. All her money comes from marketing gigs anyway. Besides, her crap isn't worth buying....period.

As for video, I also disagree. DivX files are as competent as anything out there on hard disk DVDs nowadays. Blue Ray is relatively behind the downloadable HIGH DEFINITION AVI/DivX files of the internet too. Where the interent has progressed, managers and CEOs have fallen behind and are 'losing money'.

Why would you buy a bag of carrots that has 2 or 3 good ones you see on top and the rest is hidden when you could get a hand-selected bag for absolutely free--a bag so good that every single carrot has been sampled and you are not going home with anything negative?

Welcome to the new age of free music. Real musicians are not the ones griping and complaining about this, the real crime has been going on for 50+ years...when men of power and money control something they can't bear to let it go. Music is finally 100% in the hands of the musicians, and the true musical geniuses are relishing in the fact that people are dying to get their hands on their music:: free or not.
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rharper Interesting hub... People that illegally download think the antivirus programs protect their computer. Unfortunately, when your computer has direct contact with a dirty computer, the viruses transfer.

People have too much faith in their antivirus programs... viruses like "xp anti-viruse" seem to defeat the best program when downloaded.



William F. Torpey I'm not one who downloads any music, compu-smart, but once again you've done an excellent job providing good information on the subject. The only music I listen to on the Internet is Bing Crosby songs that are available from youtube. It seems that people don't mind doing anything illegal as long as they don't get caught. Maybe that's why we have so many problems in society today.
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cvaughn570 Thanks for link to do things the legal way. I will check it out.



ripplemaker Hi compu-smart. :) This is good info for people who like to download a lot. Do you know I don't download anything at all..except for a few pictures and photos. LOL talk of being lowtech. Okay, I'm going to look over the legal thingy. I will be sure to pass this info to friends who love downloading. Thanks...

Dottie1 Unaware that one of the downloading/sharing files providers being used by my kids was illegal. Thank you compu-smart for this information.
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BeatsMe Thanks for the warning. :)

I used to download from limewire too. I got all the videos I wanted. Then I stopped. I looked for the same files in youtube, and they are not there. Guess I downloaded videos that are not meant to be shared. :)
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Mdesai Good work dude...Hey you CAN download illegal stuff of superior quality...like mp3s etc....its everywhere!


Cailin Gallagher I agree. This is an uphill battle for copyrite law. We'll see what happens.

cgull8m Great Hub Compusmart, I used to download a few files before from Limewire, but all I got was virus and other problems, then I stopped and downloading only from legal sources. It isn't worth much downloading illegally like you said.

hot dorkage Illegal downloading is pretty lucrative for the people who provide the services. I think they will just start using proxies or distributed downloads to make it harder to trace. I don't see this going away any time soon.
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Zsuzsy Bee Great hub Compu-smart! Thanks for sharing. regards Zsuzsy

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