Not in any country that is part of the big international IP agreements (Berne convention, Paris Act).
The only exception (sort of) is Switzerland. And the reason downloading copyrighted content you haven't bought for personal use is legal in Switzerland is because the government is essentially paying for it - there is a tax in Switzerland on empty media, the proceeds from which are distributed to copyright holders whose content is consumed in Switzerland, regardless of whether it is bought directly from the rights holder or otherwise.
Apparently the legal status of downloading copyrighted materials for personal use is also murky in Spain, where apparently at least one judge found that it is legal - but I don't know how solid the reasoning was or whether other judges would agree (being a civil law country, legal precedent is not binding in Spain to the same extent that it would be in the UK or USA).
> Not in any country that is part of the big international IP agreements (Berne convention, Paris Act).
Poland signed Berne convention in 1919, has "well regulated" copyright, but still downloading all media (except for software) for personal use is fully legal. Tax on "empty media" is in place as well.
Format shifting and personal copying are legal in Poland, but you as an individual still have to have legally obtained your original in the first place to exercise that right, and an illicit download certainly doesn't count. Taxing "empty media" is to compensate for those format shifting rights, but it doesn't cover renumeration for acquiring media in the first place (and indeed no EU member state could operate such a scheme - they are prohibited by EU Directive 2001/29 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=celex%3A...).
> Format shifting and personal copying are legal in Poland, but you as an individual still have to have legally obtained your original in the first place to exercise that right, and an illicit download certainly doesn't count.
Like everywhere else where personal copies are legal and you can download them. If both conditions are true, then the mere fact that you are downloading it, it's not a sign you are downloading pirated content.
OTOH there is also Spain where piracy with no direct monetary gain is tolerated and nobody goes after people torrenting.
Yes it is. As long as the content was intentionally distributed by the rights holder (for example a movie had its premiere) you can legally download it from anywhere and use it for your own (and your friends) enjoyment however you please. You can't make it (or even the content you bought) available to people who aren't your actual friends (random people on the internet).
That's the Polish law, both the letter and the implementation. On at least one occasion the police issued an official statement saying exactly that.
I think no one was ever fined in Poland for incidental upload while using bittorrent protocol to download. There are high profile cases for people who where publishing large amounts of media files, especially commercially. Little more than a decade ago there was one case where some company tried to go after bittorrent downloaders of 3 specific Polish movies. But I think it was ultimately thrown out or cheaply settled because no case like that has been publicized ever since and everybody who knows how to use bittorent, does.
Again, it covers everything except for software that has more restrictive laws more similar to what you think the law is.
Tax on empties was set up long time ago to support creators who's music is shared among friends directly. It's was not intended to compensate for downloads. I think only Polish artists receive any money from this (I might be wrong on that) and the organization that distributes the money is highly inefficient. They tried to extend the tax to electronic devices, but nobody likes them, companies and people both, so they didn't get too far with this proposal for now.
Poland enjoys a lot of digital freedoms and is conscious of them and ready to defend them against ACTA, Chat Control and extend them with Stop Killing Games.
There is also the US. It is legal to download movies in the United States. You can, however, get dinged by the automated lawsuit or complaint bots for uploading them, which makes torrenting without a vpn less than ideal.
Finding examples of people getting successfully sued for downloading or viewing movies without sharing them should be trivial, then.
Otherwise, less any examples of enforcement or successful legal action, downloading movies is illegal in the US in the same way that blasphemy is illegal in Michigan.
It's absolutely illegal in the USA to download a movie (or game, or song, or book, etc) that you haven't bought [0].
It could be argued that if you bought a movie, say on DVD, downloading another copy of it from an online source could fall under fair use, but this is more debatable.
I am not aware of a single example of someone getting successfully sued for downloading a movie. Every lawsuit that I’m aware of (even going back to the Napster days) people got sued for sharing content using p2p software. The current lawsuit robots download a torrent and then wait for individual IPs to upload some chunk of a copyrighted file to them, which they then use as proof of somebody sharing copyrighted material for their complaint.
Even the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020 explicitly does not punish consumers of copyrighted content, only its distributors.
>Tillis stated that the bill is tailored to specifically target the websites themselves, and not "those who may use the sites nor those individuals who access pirated streams or unwittingly stream unauthorized copies of copyrighted works"
There are so many paragraphs in response to my “You can’t get in trouble for downloading movies in the US” post and none of them have any examples of people getting in trouble for downloading movies in the US.
None. Because you projected your country's laws in the discussion, you failed to see that the countries that allow copyrighted material to be downloaded for personal usage do not qualify that download as "copyright infringement" in the first place.
To answer your question with the only answer I know: Switzerland.
A download is a copy of a work. So, downloading a movie is making a copy of a work that you are not a copyright holder of - in other words, either you or the site you are downloading from are infringing on the copyright holder's exclusive right to create copies of their work. You could claim there is some fair use exemption for this case, or you can have an alternative way of authorizing copies and paying for them like Switzerland does, but there is no doubt in any legal system that downloading is the same kind of action as copying a book at a print shop.
I love how enthusiastic this post is while being wrong.
Making a copy of a thing does not violate copyright (eg you can photocopy a book that you possess even temporarily). Sharing a copy that you made can violate copyright.
It is like mixing up “it’s illegal to poison somebody with bleach” and “it’s illegal to own bleach”. The action you take makes a big difference
Also, as an aside, when you view a legitimately-purchased and downloaded video file that you have license to watch, the video player you use makes a copy from the disk to memory.
If I own a license to listen to Metallica - Enter Sandman.m4a that I bought on iTunes and in the download folder I screw up and I make
Metallica - Enter Sandman(1).m4a
Metallica - Enter Sandman(2).m4a
Metallica - Enter Sandman(3).m4a
How much money do I owe Lars Ulrich for doing that based on The Law of The Earth Everywhere But Switzerland?
> I love how enthusiastic this post is while being wrong.
This is a very funny thing to say given that post is entirely correct, while you are wrong.
> Making a copy of a thing does not violate copyright
Yes it does, unless it's permitted under a designated copyright exemption by local law. For instance, you mention that the video player makes a copy from disk to memory, well that is explicitly permitted by Article 5(1) of the Copyright Directive 2001 in the EU as a use that is "temporary, transient or incidental and an integral and essential part of a technological process", as otherwise it would be illegal as by default, any action to copy is a breach of copyright. That's literally where the word comes from.
> If I own a license to listen to Metallica - Enter Sandman.m4a that I bought on iTunes and in the download folder I screw up and I make
> Metallica - Enter Sandman(1).m4a
> Metallica - Enter Sandman(2).m4a
> Metallica - Enter Sandman(3).m4a
In legal terms you do indeed owe him something, yes. It would probably be covered under the private copy exemptions in some EU territories, but only on the basis that blank media is taxed to pay rightsholders a royalty for these actions under the relevant collective management associations.
You're mixing up several things, all of which actually boil down to the fair use exceptions I was mentioning.
Making copies of a book you legally own for personal use is an established fair use exception to copyright. However, making copies of a book that you borrowed from a library would be copyright infringement. Similarly, lending the copies you've made of a book to friends would technically void the fair use exception for your copies.
The copy that a playback device has to make of a copyrighted audio/video file for its basic functioning is typically mentioned explicitly in the license you buy, thus being an authorized copy for a specific purpose. If you make several copies of a file on your own system for personal use, then again you are likely within fair use exemptions, similar to copying a book case - though this is often a bit more complicated legally by the fact that you don't own a copy but a license to use the work in various ways, and some companies' licenses can theoretically prohibit even archival copies, which in turn may or may not be legal in various jurisdictions.
But in no jurisdiction is it legal to, for example, go with a portable photocopy machine into a bookstore and make copies of books you find in there, even if they are only for personal use: you first have to legally acquire an authorized copy from the rights holder. All other exemptions apply to what you do with that legally obtained copy.
This even means that you don't have any rights to use a fraudulent copy of a work, even if you legitimately believed you were obtaining a legal copy. For example, say a library legally bought a book from a shady bookstore that, unbeknownst to them, was selling counterfeit copies of a book. If the copyright holder finds out, they can legally force the library to pay them to continue offering this book, or to destroy it otherwise, along with any archival copies that they had made of this book. The library can of course seek to obtain reparations from the store that sold them the illegal copy, but they can't refuse to pay the legal copyright holder.
Not in any country that is part of the big international IP agreements (Berne convention, Paris Act).
The only exception (sort of) is Switzerland. And the reason downloading copyrighted content you haven't bought for personal use is legal in Switzerland is because the government is essentially paying for it - there is a tax in Switzerland on empty media, the proceeds from which are distributed to copyright holders whose content is consumed in Switzerland, regardless of whether it is bought directly from the rights holder or otherwise.
Apparently the legal status of downloading copyrighted materials for personal use is also murky in Spain, where apparently at least one judge found that it is legal - but I don't know how solid the reasoning was or whether other judges would agree (being a civil law country, legal precedent is not binding in Spain to the same extent that it would be in the UK or USA).
> Not in any country that is part of the big international IP agreements (Berne convention, Paris Act).
Poland signed Berne convention in 1919, has "well regulated" copyright, but still downloading all media (except for software) for personal use is fully legal. Tax on "empty media" is in place as well.
No it isn't.
Format shifting and personal copying are legal in Poland, but you as an individual still have to have legally obtained your original in the first place to exercise that right, and an illicit download certainly doesn't count. Taxing "empty media" is to compensate for those format shifting rights, but it doesn't cover renumeration for acquiring media in the first place (and indeed no EU member state could operate such a scheme - they are prohibited by EU Directive 2001/29 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=celex%3A...).
> Format shifting and personal copying are legal in Poland, but you as an individual still have to have legally obtained your original in the first place to exercise that right, and an illicit download certainly doesn't count.
Like everywhere else where personal copies are legal and you can download them. If both conditions are true, then the mere fact that you are downloading it, it's not a sign you are downloading pirated content.
OTOH there is also Spain where piracy with no direct monetary gain is tolerated and nobody goes after people torrenting.
Yes it is. As long as the content was intentionally distributed by the rights holder (for example a movie had its premiere) you can legally download it from anywhere and use it for your own (and your friends) enjoyment however you please. You can't make it (or even the content you bought) available to people who aren't your actual friends (random people on the internet).
That's the Polish law, both the letter and the implementation. On at least one occasion the police issued an official statement saying exactly that.
I think no one was ever fined in Poland for incidental upload while using bittorrent protocol to download. There are high profile cases for people who where publishing large amounts of media files, especially commercially. Little more than a decade ago there was one case where some company tried to go after bittorrent downloaders of 3 specific Polish movies. But I think it was ultimately thrown out or cheaply settled because no case like that has been publicized ever since and everybody who knows how to use bittorent, does.
Again, it covers everything except for software that has more restrictive laws more similar to what you think the law is.
Tax on empties was set up long time ago to support creators who's music is shared among friends directly. It's was not intended to compensate for downloads. I think only Polish artists receive any money from this (I might be wrong on that) and the organization that distributes the money is highly inefficient. They tried to extend the tax to electronic devices, but nobody likes them, companies and people both, so they didn't get too far with this proposal for now.
Poland enjoys a lot of digital freedoms and is conscious of them and ready to defend them against ACTA, Chat Control and extend them with Stop Killing Games.
There is also the US. It is legal to download movies in the United States. You can, however, get dinged by the automated lawsuit or complaint bots for uploading them, which makes torrenting without a vpn less than ideal.
> It is legal to download movies in the United States.
No it isn't.
It's not a criminal offense, but if someone can sue you for it and win then it isn't "legal" under any technical or popular definition of the word.
Finding examples of people getting successfully sued for downloading or viewing movies without sharing them should be trivial, then.
Otherwise, less any examples of enforcement or successful legal action, downloading movies is illegal in the US in the same way that blasphemy is illegal in Michigan.
https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-750-1...
This is what I heard and experienced. Is the guy above just making shit up?
It's absolutely illegal in the USA to download a movie (or game, or song, or book, etc) that you haven't bought [0].
It could be argued that if you bought a movie, say on DVD, downloading another copy of it from an online source could fall under fair use, but this is more debatable.
[0] https://legalclarity.org/is-pirating-movies-illegal-what-are...
I am not aware of a single example of someone getting successfully sued for downloading a movie. Every lawsuit that I’m aware of (even going back to the Napster days) people got sued for sharing content using p2p software. The current lawsuit robots download a torrent and then wait for individual IPs to upload some chunk of a copyrighted file to them, which they then use as proof of somebody sharing copyrighted material for their complaint.
Even the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020 explicitly does not punish consumers of copyrighted content, only its distributors.
>Tillis stated that the bill is tailored to specifically target the websites themselves, and not "those who may use the sites nor those individuals who access pirated streams or unwittingly stream unauthorized copies of copyrighted works"
There are so many paragraphs in response to my “You can’t get in trouble for downloading movies in the US” post and none of them have any examples of people getting in trouble for downloading movies in the US.
I'll tldr your reply: "yes, there are countries where it's legal to download for personal use".
Thank you.
This is a useless discussion. Imagine how the firewall-guy/network-team in your company will react to that argument.
This is not a useless discussion just because it'll inconvenience someone who is at work anyway.
How about the uploading part of it, which is behind the magic of Bittorrent and default mode of operation?
download yes, but using bittorrent means you are sharing, and that's not allowed in most countries even if downloading is.
Really?? Which countries allow copyright infringement by individuals?
None. Because you projected your country's laws in the discussion, you failed to see that the countries that allow copyrighted material to be downloaded for personal usage do not qualify that download as "copyright infringement" in the first place.
To answer your question with the only answer I know: Switzerland.
See above: there are a few, but it's not copyright infringement.
How is downloading a movie copyright infringement?
A download is a copy of a work. So, downloading a movie is making a copy of a work that you are not a copyright holder of - in other words, either you or the site you are downloading from are infringing on the copyright holder's exclusive right to create copies of their work. You could claim there is some fair use exemption for this case, or you can have an alternative way of authorizing copies and paying for them like Switzerland does, but there is no doubt in any legal system that downloading is the same kind of action as copying a book at a print shop.
I love how enthusiastic this post is while being wrong.
Making a copy of a thing does not violate copyright (eg you can photocopy a book that you possess even temporarily). Sharing a copy that you made can violate copyright.
It is like mixing up “it’s illegal to poison somebody with bleach” and “it’s illegal to own bleach”. The action you take makes a big difference
Also, as an aside, when you view a legitimately-purchased and downloaded video file that you have license to watch, the video player you use makes a copy from the disk to memory.
If I own a license to listen to Metallica - Enter Sandman.m4a that I bought on iTunes and in the download folder I screw up and I make
Metallica - Enter Sandman(1).m4a
Metallica - Enter Sandman(2).m4a
Metallica - Enter Sandman(3).m4a
How much money do I owe Lars Ulrich for doing that based on The Law of The Earth Everywhere But Switzerland?
> I love how enthusiastic this post is while being wrong.
This is a very funny thing to say given that post is entirely correct, while you are wrong.
> Making a copy of a thing does not violate copyright
Yes it does, unless it's permitted under a designated copyright exemption by local law. For instance, you mention that the video player makes a copy from disk to memory, well that is explicitly permitted by Article 5(1) of the Copyright Directive 2001 in the EU as a use that is "temporary, transient or incidental and an integral and essential part of a technological process", as otherwise it would be illegal as by default, any action to copy is a breach of copyright. That's literally where the word comes from.
> If I own a license to listen to Metallica - Enter Sandman.m4a that I bought on iTunes and in the download folder I screw up and I make
> Metallica - Enter Sandman(1).m4a
> Metallica - Enter Sandman(2).m4a
> Metallica - Enter Sandman(3).m4a
In legal terms you do indeed owe him something, yes. It would probably be covered under the private copy exemptions in some EU territories, but only on the basis that blank media is taxed to pay rightsholders a royalty for these actions under the relevant collective management associations.
You're mixing up several things, all of which actually boil down to the fair use exceptions I was mentioning.
Making copies of a book you legally own for personal use is an established fair use exception to copyright. However, making copies of a book that you borrowed from a library would be copyright infringement. Similarly, lending the copies you've made of a book to friends would technically void the fair use exception for your copies.
The copy that a playback device has to make of a copyrighted audio/video file for its basic functioning is typically mentioned explicitly in the license you buy, thus being an authorized copy for a specific purpose. If you make several copies of a file on your own system for personal use, then again you are likely within fair use exemptions, similar to copying a book case - though this is often a bit more complicated legally by the fact that you don't own a copy but a license to use the work in various ways, and some companies' licenses can theoretically prohibit even archival copies, which in turn may or may not be legal in various jurisdictions.
But in no jurisdiction is it legal to, for example, go with a portable photocopy machine into a bookstore and make copies of books you find in there, even if they are only for personal use: you first have to legally acquire an authorized copy from the rights holder. All other exemptions apply to what you do with that legally obtained copy.
This even means that you don't have any rights to use a fraudulent copy of a work, even if you legitimately believed you were obtaining a legal copy. For example, say a library legally bought a book from a shady bookstore that, unbeknownst to them, was selling counterfeit copies of a book. If the copyright holder finds out, they can legally force the library to pay them to continue offering this book, or to destroy it otherwise, along with any archival copies that they had made of this book. The library can of course seek to obtain reparations from the store that sold them the illegal copy, but they can't refuse to pay the legal copyright holder.