Many people used to download bootleg movies in the days when free movie downloads were legal: or is it still legal? Nobody really knows. What we do know is that it is not illegal to use P2P file sharing software, but that it is illegal to use it illegally. Confusing? You bet!

However, if you keep one single fact in mind then it should all be become clear – well, clearer! It is not legal to download copyright material, whether that is movies, music, games books, articles – anything. That makes sense otherwise copyright laws would be meaningless. What is confusing many people is the focus on two specific forms of download (bootleg movies and music) and on claiming that file sharing is illegal – which it patently is not.

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Bootleg movies are free movie downloads of movies that are still protected by copyright. If you are not sure whether a particular movie is protected then if it is a modern blockbuster it is copyrighted. The copyright period used to last for 50 years after the death of the originator, but this has been extended to 70 years, so if a movie or music track was made after 1940 it will be protected and you cannot legally download it unless you pay for it.

For work originating before 1940, whether or not it is protected for copying by copyright laws will depend on the date of death of the originator. So, if that was in 1936, the product will have been legally downloadable using peer-to-peer file sharing software since 2006. If the originator died in 1970, then the work will be protected until 2040.

So the statements being made that file sharing is illegal are totally erroneous: it is not. It is what P2P software is used to copy and download that is illegal. The problem in making such sweeping statements is that once people have established that one statement is wrong they will naturally begin to question the next.

So if file sharing is legal, so too might free movie downloads be legal or even downloading bootleg movies. Not so! Bootleg movies, by their very name, are movies that have been illegally downloaded because these movies come within copyright law: 70 years have not passed since the death of the originator.

Of course it doesn’t help that each country has a different definition of copyright and what the period of time is before a movie or music track is not longer protected by copyright. This is becoming such a large problem that there should some unanimity between countries to avoid confusion.

Nor does it help for P2P file sharing software to be declared illegal simply because of the way it is used. Should photocopiers be declared illegal because they can be used to copy protected books? By this definition all copying processes should be illegal.

It is not the process that is illegal, but the act, and since file sharing is a process and not an act, it is those using the process illegally that should be prosecuted rather than the process banned. Otherwise where do ‘they’ stop? Why should we allow ourselves to be rules by movie moguls and music barons?

They brought it upon themselves by a) becoming greedy and extending the copyright period from 50 years to 70, b) targeting kids and their moms rather than the massive Asian producers of copied movies and music and c) focusing on the means of copying rather than the act of doing so.

It is legal to use P2P file sharing software to get free movie downloads so long as these movies are no longer protected by copyright law. It is legal to download free music under the same terms. Until the law changes, nobody can claim file sharing to be illegal – it is copying bootleg movies that is illegal.

Walt Disney built his empire on bootleg movies: copied from the works of the Brothers Grimm – but after the copyright on their works had lapsed. Seems a bit rich for them to complain about free movie downloads of the very material they copied from the fairy tale writers!