I'm new at d/l torrents and recently installed uTorrent. Today i d/l Nero 8 ultra edition w/ key and i'm wondering whether it is illegal. After i did this i went on to wikipedia to read about this stuff and i found out that some people were prosecuted for spreading copyrighted material and so on. I know i only d/l 1 file, which makes me too small to go after and since this torrent business is such a legal gray area is it ok to keep d/l things like nero, other programs, games etc or i will get in trouble evetually?

Yes, it is very illegal, and yes, its possible you will get in trouble.

Yes, I would say that since you didn't pay for Nero 8 Ultra, it is an illegal copy. Will you get into trouble eventually? Seems unlikely but who can say?

thnx for the replies people. If it can get me in trouble then i wouldn't do it anymore.

ok, just to tell you, millions and millions of people torrent a day

what are the chances you'll get caught?

1 and a million

if you are a mega downloader and leave your comp on 24/7 downloading 50 things at once, i wouldn't be surprised you'd be caught

That does not make it any less wrong.

In some circumstances it seems justified IMO say if you happen to have lost your Windows XP install CD (but you still have the license key), then you could download the ISO from a torrent & use it with your original license key. I don't think that would fly in court though.

Done it before, for several versions of Windows, even Vista, but i've had the legit keys...

but i have been known to try things like tiny xp and stuff like that, but sure if you download constantly then c'mon, im sure it'll be easier to get caught.

but for us people who like to play with OSx86 torrents can be great, and so can IRC but i wont get into it...

i'll just be waiting for the flaming xD

Meh. Stuff should be cheap (or free) in the first place, so people don't ****** it.

Only for stuff I really wan't to use would I torrent. (Sony Vegas 8). I NEVER TORRENT GAMES, that's a blight to the creator of the game. I BUY MY GAMES, unless I want a Sims 2 EP, which EA already has enough of. I mostly download Legal stuff, like new FANSUB episodes and movies I already own that are in horrible condition.

@GameJunkie: OSx86 is nearly impossible for me to get running, it hates my FX5500. It only works on this old Dell Dimension E510 I got. It's a pain with video drivers and it hates AMD processors but it's fun, better than buying a mac mini. Although I might actually buy one later on, as I am very immersed in movie making.

According to your heading:
No ofcourse not, just about everyone uses Torrent, including all Linux distros

Regarding illegal downloads (Torrent or not)
Support by TechSpot can not be give in this area
Except to remind you that not only is it illegal, but they are usually riddled with Trojans and rootkits.

I was top tech member on a dark forum (name not supplied)
Eventually I have concluded, that it's not worth it.

Use this link instead: (most software eventually comes up free)
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

Yeah, downloading torrents isn't illegal. What you are downloading might be though.

Everything on those sites are what people had acquired and wanted to share with the world, that's how all of this started. Before it was K-Lite, Limeware, Bearshare, Mule something and Aries. Now they came up with the torrent idea to speed up the process by everyone who had bits of the file who had while downloading and not have ISP know what you were doing. But they now know and have throttle back the bandwidth, send out letters to tell you to stop or else. Take you to court and sue you to death if you had started to seed. Seed like you're uploading files back so the peers or lechers can take from you. The process is still going on as we speak. Millions all over the world are doing this.

Right now the major problem is that all applications setup files if they're just one file sure enough it has some type of backdoor bot Trojan that hops onto your system when you run the setup (which is a script itself with instructions)

Anyway the skies the limit to what you can get but be warn it's not safe, you can get sued by the MPPA and RIA are watching you using Media Defender company. Torrent sites a lot of them have gone, some have returned most of them are not safe too much crap going on when it comes to all the stuff you can get.

Just be careful...

So, they have to notify you before they actually sue, or what?

From what I have heard, they usually (if not always) simply ask you to stop, then do something about it.

Wouldn't they usually attempt something if you seed, but not if you just download, that is unless you download like a game a day?

Again this depends on if you protect yourself. You must know there are ways to do this. I had told one of my good friends what to do and he didn't listen and got a letter from Cox (email) telling him that he download a movie and they have his IP and the movie name he downloaded and seeded. That was his first warning. Since then he now uses protection.

Just don't seed past the file size, wait for ratio to hit 1.0 and then terminate!!!. Oh while on the subject here is where Paranoid ThreatFire would come into play. New backdoor bots hidden in the installer.exe. then hops onto your system.

Downloading games no big deal, it's the music, movies those are what makes the real money is what is being watched more. Look at that guy who had put up all those movie screening prior the official movie release to theaters, he's gone behind bars.

All is fun, but just be careful...

I very much appriciate that Tipstir. As much as I like this thread, it may get out of hand soon, so we need to be careful here, too.

Yes keep cool... And Out of trouble... Play safe an surf safe...

Well, I just ran all of my antivirus/antispyware programs at once last night. (Avast, AVG, Spybot S&D, Ad-aware, and Avira.) I got nothing. Think I may run another scan tonight just for kicks.

TY tipstir for the enlightening information on P2P madness.

It really isn't nessary to download illegal software. So much freeware is avaliable these days - you can easily get an other program that does the same.

I actually have a question realting to the legality of torrent downloading. I bought KOTOR years ago and I didn't notice it was damaged until after it was too late to return it. It worked but eventually stopped working right when I needed to reinstall it. Since i bought the game and have my own CD key is it illegal to download a torrent file to replace my first disk?

Yes, unless the manufacture allows the game to be downloaded (unlikely!)
It is generally illegal to add/edit/change your authentic software
There are some allowances, ie backup copy; and sometimes trainers and nocd files for games (you would need to visit the softwares home site webpage to read what is specifically alllowed/dissallowed)