Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
I do not believe it is stolen property. The crime is copyright infringement if any and the property laws and concept of theft is not applicable. But the question was that if it is legal to download (assume that downloading anything is legal) can it then be illegal to have the material?
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You
can't assume that downloading
anything is legal. It should only take a moment of two to think of examples that would be considered illegal to download almost anywhere.
Quote:
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There are a lot of material that is distributed and people distributing it thinks it is legal to do this. So I think it is an interersting question about what holds if it is later shown that it was not legal to distribute the material.
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Various people are in trouble. How
much trouble will depend upon the material and who is claiming it's illegal and trying to stop downloads.
Let's say I put material up for download on a server and you download it. As far as you know, it's legal to download the material. I may even think it's legal for me to provide it, but that's not really relevant.
Someone else pops up and says "Hey! I own the rights to that material, and I didn't give you permission to make it available!" and hits me with a take down order. What I do will depend upon the circumstances. It's possible I really believe I have the right to make it available, and it's also possible I'm right. But the practical question is "Can I afford the time and money to go to court and prove it?" Depending upon who is telling me to take it down, I may have little choice but to grit my teeth and take it down, because I
can't afford to fight it. You're probably safe enough, as the claimant rights-holder wants to stop me from distributing. It isn't worth it to go after you for receiving.
In too many cases like this, the determining factor won't be the law, but rather who can afford the court costs and legal fees.
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Dennis