Everybody I know except my gran downloads film and music for free from rapidshare.com. Is this illegal and has anyone ever get in trouble for it?
People that buy music are just dumb. Its like buying bottled water. Dont people realise its free and comes out of taps.
Yes this is illegal as is torrents,NZBs,this month six people in germany was arrested for distributing Music albums via rapidshare,even tho Rapidshare is a swiss company which is out of jurisdiction of the RIAA and MPAA they was using servers located in germany which happen to fall under the jurisdiction,as things stand no downloader has been arrested from downloading from rapidshare,only uploaders,as for torrents the MPAA are trying to come down heavy on downloaders but they been doing that for years.
It's all illegal so yes you can be done for it,but they mainly go after the third party distributor's as they can't get to the orginal source which are the scene groups,the downloader is way down the food chain compared to those mentioned.
I cant remember who it was but one band is fighting a court battle against the RIAA for a downloader who is being prossecuted,the bands argument is that torrents spreads their recognition throughout the world, otherwords it's like free press try before you buy,even tho they know some people wont buy they also know some will, because the original is better quality than the rip.
At the end of the day like anything you're liable for your action's.
