Shoutbox

quote:

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Originally posted by Ddunk

i'm positive TV shows are illegal

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You are allowed to download them for backup purposes only, but you must own a copy of the original.

quote:

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Originally posted by Y2Pdogg
Well I see no sense in having a legal program to download illegal stuff.

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It all goes back to the history of the P2P, at first it was just a program just used by a few friends to share their music collection between like 5 or 6 people, not hardcore piracy. But then more people got in the loop, and the idea spread...the result was the infamous "Napster".
Next that was shut down and others took its place. There was no legal "sense" used in their making, everyone (even the authors) knew it would be used for illegal things, but they used the front that even though it can be used for illegal things (if the users want to), it can be used for legal things as well, and the program itself doesn't do the damage, just the user, the user can use the tool for good or bad. It's the same with some hacking tools today; they can be used to correct some errors, or to test server load issues, but many as misused.

The bottom line is, this is just the way the law works. Here in the UK farmers can get a licence to carry a gun, now the gun is allowed to the farmer so that he can use it to keep back predators from his livestock and to kill livestock. Having the gun, for the farmer, is completely legal. But the weapon can be used to do a lot of wrong things!
I know that example is a lot more dramatic than the P2P one; however the principle is the same.