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Originally Posted by bill_mchale
IIRC the Electronic Frontier Foundation actually believes that downloading is illegal.
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It may be indirect infringement, but as I said, that is a very cloudy area and relies on all sorts of things that are difficult to define. Many people believe that it is direct infringement, which is not true (another reason why theft is a very misleading term, it completely misses this issue and actually implies the opposite). The uploader is the one that has committed direct infringement.
I'll probably regret saying this, but if some insist on making an analogy to theft, it would be a much better argument to say that the uploader is committing "theft" and the downloading is "receiving stolen goods". That still brings all sorts of associations and connotations into the equation that don't really exist. For example, there's no such thing as "stolen goods" in copyright. However, it may give people a clearer picture of the downloader's responsibility. Whether or not receiving "stolen goods" is a crime depends on whether the receiver knew the goods were "stolen".
Whether they knew or not is what makes it a cloudy issue, not to mention, in the digital world, actually knowing who is a downloader is virtually impossible.