<quote>umm if im correct copy right or not if you really wanted to get by this use the "fair use" act of 1976 i believe this states that all material being used copy writen or not, if you are not profiting from that of anothers product its fair game maybe im wrong... but idk, also these lawyer's had no grounds or no ability to know of the pirating... other than hacking, and that invasion of privacy... (dont get me wrong hacking is fun) </quote>
You are incorrect. The Fair Use Act does not permit wanton non-profit copying. You must have a legitimate use of the copy that is considered to be fair (it's incredibly vague, but that's to allow flexibility). Copying something in its entirety for personal use has never, ever, been considered a fair use of the copyrighted material.
There are a few definite things you can do: You can copy excerpts for commentary (if the work is small enough, or the commentary large enough, the whole thing may be copied), you can parody (nearly exact copy with slight changes for obvious comedic or commentary value), and you can copy for the purpose of preserving your own legal copy of the material (this has wrinkles now due to the DMCA).
There are some gray areas, like time shifting and the like, and there are gray areas within the fair use exemptions, but everything not covered by the fair use exemptions is copyright infringement. The only difference between for-profit copyright infringement and not for-profit is whether it is a criminal case of copyright infringement (for-profit) or a civil case of infringement (not for-profit).
For those saying downloading is OK, it's distribution that is illegal - well, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been fined (after three trials, no less) $1.5 million, and all that was ever proven was that she downloaded 24 songs. Distribution was implied, and that was good enough for a civil case. Those of you who use bittorrent cannot even rely on that, as distribution is mandatory for bittorrent downloads.