Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
It's been pointed out that *downloading* the copies may not be illegal at all--distributing them is illegal, but receiving a copy made in violation of copyright is not a crime, not even a tort.
Downloading without uploading may not be anything prosecutable.
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The one catch is that there is a thing called "indirect infringement" where if it can be shown that your actions caused the distributor to commit infringement, then you are partially liable as well. I don't think it's ever been tried against a downloader in a US court though, nobody has ever been sued for downloading.
It usually applies to things like hosting sites that don't qualify for safe harbor because they either have direct knowledge of the infringement and don't stop it (or because they encourage it and/or financially benefit from it), as well as people who write software/tools for the specific purpose of enabling copyright infringement. This is what the original Betamax case against Sony was for. The media industry tried to sue Sony to stop the VCR because they claimed that it was enabling copyright infringement, therefore Sony was an indirect infringer. The courts turned it down though, because there were many uses for the VCR that had nothing to do with infringement. In order to qualify as indirect infringement, the tool has to be for the specific purpose of enabling infringement.
As far as I know, nobody has ever tried to argue in court that a downloader's actions are indirect infringement because they "induce" the uploader to distribute. That's the only way I can think of though that they could possibly use to go after a downloader. Even then it's a pretty big stretch.
Generally speaking, it's the uploader (aka distributor) that is liable for copyright infringement. Copyright law does not make it illegal to receive infringed material, only to distribute it without authorization. Presumably, this is because downloaders are not expected to know whether or not the uploader is authorized. Authorization is the sole responsibility of the uploader.