Quote:
Originally Posted by Thasaidon
Criminal offences relating to copyright in the UK mostly relate to counterfeiting, selling pirated works and/or distributing pirated works (even for free).
An individual who pirated a work purely for his own use and who did not give away or sell copies of the work would, as understand it it, would not be guilty of a CRIMINAL ACT. They would however be guilty of a Tort (civil wrong) and could be sued by the rights owner.
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Thanks. That is also the situation in Australia and in most of the common law world as I understand it. Even in the US downloading for ones own use and not sharing would not seem to be an offence, though their ridiculous statutory damages regime is far worse than the likely punishment if it was.