When you download free on line movies, are you downloading P2P legal or bootleg movies? The answer to that question isn’t as easy to answer as you might believe, since it digs into the murky depths of copyright law, and in the USA at least the term ‘murky’ barely covers it. Let’s establish one or two things first, so that we are starting from the same place here. file sharing, peer-to-peer, P2P or networking, whetever you feel like calling it, is not in itself illegal. Although it is illegal to own Kazaa in Australia, the Supreme Court in the Netherlands ruled that Kazaa was not illegal because it was the way the software was used that was illegal, not the software itself. A Los Angeles fedaral court judge gave a similar judgment on appeal by P2p companies Grokster and Morpheus, ruling that they weer not responsible for the use to which others put the software, and that infringement of copyright was not the responsibility of the sofwtare providers but of the users. Thus, you can use P2P legal software to download free on line movies and music, as long as what you download is free of any copyright protection, i.e. in the public domain. Some have pointed to Napster’s demise in their original form as evidence that software is illegal, but those that do have missed the point entirely. Napster differes fubdamentally from other forms of P2P software. Napster was closed down, and eventually came back in a revised form, because it usewd a central server. To understand that, it is necessray to know the ay in which P2P software operates, and what the differences are between P2P legal downloads and bootleg movies. When P2P site members download movies they are copying the file from another member’s hard disk. If you are searching for a particular movie, you will be given a list of those available and normally how many online computers have that movie on their hard disk. When downloading, you can be simultaneously downloading from the hard disk of several online members of the site. Napster porvided a hub in the form of a central server, through which all downloads were passed between the provider ansd receiver of the files. Due to that way of working, Napster was found responsible for downloads made using their site since they were, in effect, acting as an intermediary to the crime by passing the illegal downloads from one person to the other. Modern free on line movies pass through no central hub, but are downloaded by means of a direct comnection to the provider’s hard drive. You are downloading directly from the hard drive of the computer providing the file – the link is one to one. Because it is software driven, no liability for the way people use it can be laid at the door of those that sell it. That is why the music and movie moguls were so annoyed and upset: the believed the problem to have been dealt with when Napster had been successfully convicted. However, they got it wrong and found that instead of targeting just a few software firms, they faced the task of chasing the many millions of ordinary people that were downloading copyrighted material every day. So when is downloading legal and illegal? What is the differenbce between a bootleg movie and a PSP legal download? Very simple to answer, but very difficult to understand. Fundamentally, no work that is copyright-protected can be downloaded or copied with the express permission of the owner of the work. You can be sure that all of the online music, games and movies are copyright-protected unles the owners have licensed them for downloading without permission. Many do allow it. Particularly young artists wanting their names known, or wanting to test a new game or advertise a new album by releasing a copyright-free track for online distribution. The majority do not, and it is extremely difficult to understand copyright law in the USA. In the UK, the law with regard to movies is fairly easy to understand: music tracks are copyrighted for 50 years after it is generated, and movies for 80 years after the death of the last major director, author or composer. The situation has been made even more complex in America by the Sony Bono Law, and it looks like no music at is free of copyright restrictions any more, and that movies are going to be covered as well for many years to come unless, possibly, they were made before 1923. As I said – complicated. Here are some tips, then on how to avoid downloading bootleg movies and ensuring that you stay legal: 1. Avoid downloading any files using P2P software unless your are certain it is not copyright-protected. 2. If you have a specific need for a particular movie, then rent it using an online rental service such as Love Films or Blockbuster. 3. On the other hand, if you download movies a lot, then you will likely be better with a membership with a legal download site. There are sites online that allow downloads of licensed titles for a monthly or annual membership fee. One site is offering unlimited downloads for a 2-year membership fee. That sort of deal is very attractive, since why take the chance of a $150,000 fine if you can get what you want for a measly $40 every two years? That’s less than $1.70 a month! 4. If a movie is given away free, you can be sure it was obtained illegally and hence a bootleg movie. No site is able to profit by providing legal movies free of charge, unless they have some other means of make money from the website. The same is true of music. That is because those that have these tracks or files to offer had to pay for them, unless they also got them illegally, so would be highly unlikely to give them away free? They must be illegal! Summing up, you can get free on line movies if you pay a membership fee in return for unlimited downloads. Agreed, that is not free, but nevertheless if you downloaded only two movies each week that would equate to only 19 cents each movie. Is that cheap? The same price will be charged for bootleg movies, only you can get caught with these and face a hefty fine. Given the number of people that use P2P sites, this is not likely, but why take the risk if you don’t have to?