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Sweden Bans Copyrighted Downloading 449

Posted by Zonk from the a-less-friendly-EU dept.
Xiar Prime writes "Swedish lawmakers have made downloading of copyrighted material illegal, one day after an 11-nation piracy crackdown. Prior to the passing of the law, it was only illegal to provide copyrighted material, not download it." From the article: " The law was drawn up to bring Sweden into line with EU directives and is also part of a wider crackdown on net piracy. It comes a day after the US Attorney General's office announced an 11-nation operation to catch and shut down net piracy groups."
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Sweden Bans Copyrighted Downloading More

Sweden Bans Copyrighted Downloading

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  • This is a step in the right direction; however, until the risks outweigh the rewards this will only serve to drive people into using more discreet tools for transferring these files, by utilizing applications such as "WASTE" http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/29/privat e.fileshare/ [cnn.com] which enables users to securely transfer copyrighted material with complete file anonymity.

    This all comes down to being a stakes game. Are the rewards worth the consequences? I honestly feel examples are going to have

    • I dont think that $10000 fines for throwing cigarettes is the right way to go. Just as much as fining 14 year old girls for double that amount for downloading or sharing Britney Spears latest album.

      • The goal of these fines is deterrence, not punishment. Do you *really* think that caught downloaders/sharers actually pay what the news media reports? If anything, there is an out-of-court settlement which cannot be disclosed.

        The innocent grandma/5 year-old getting sued is designed to get the media's attention, and that's all they really need since these guys are experts at one to many-type distribution (and intimidation fits nicely into this expertise) and use of traditional communication channels.

    • Re:This is a WASTE, unless... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JLF65 ( 888379 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:01PM (#12964179)
      It's good to see you have your prioirties right. Punish copyright infringement more harshly than murder or armed robbery!

      Seems the world is headed toward imprisoning people for stealing a SLICE of bread, much less the whole loaf. Les Miserables for the new generation...

    • Re:This is a WASTE, unless... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AresTheImpaler ( 570208 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:02PM (#12964196)
      This all comes down to being a stakes game. Are the rewards worth the consequences? I honestly feel examples are going to have to be made with *severe* penalties. I recently heard on National Public Radio http://www.npr.org/ [npr.org] one county was raising the fine for littering from $1,000 to $10,000! It may seem ludicrous, but I bet you one thing -- Mr Trucker is going to think twice about throwing that cigarette butt out the window. Same holds true for Piracy... make the penalties so severe that nobody in their right mind will want to partake.

      You are wrong. I've seen that raising fines or penalties doesn't lower the crimes. What lower the crimes is when you know that you are going to be caught regardless. If you know there is a big posibility of nothing happening to you, then you will do anything that is ilegal. If every crime is being punished and nobody is learning not to do it, then you can raise the fine/penalty.

    • Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) * on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:02PM (#12964198) Homepage
      Before we go to such extreme measures, don't you think we should have a national debate on the right balance between citizens and copyright holders?

      It looks to me that we're developing a hodge-podge of copyright/patent laws that has no policy thought and is simply a collection of knee-jerk reactions to what's news this week.
      • They are the laws that the corporate sponsors of our legislators demand.

        Our "Representatives" pass the laws that generate the cash to get them re-elected. It's sort of a warped survival mechanism.
    • this will only serve to drive people into using more discreet tools for transferring these files, by utilizing applications such as "WASTE"

      You forgot to add the *wink wink, nudge nudge* in your statement. ;-)
    • one county was raising the fine for littering from $1,000 to $10,000! It may seem ludicrous, but I bet you one thing -- Mr Trucker is going to think twice about throwing that cigarette butt out the window. Same holds true for Piracy... make the penalties so severe that nobody in their right mind will want to partake.

      You know, that's exactly the right idea. Just like how the death penalty makes people think twice about murdering. In fact, if there was the death penalty for littering, I think people would

    • RE: higher fines? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:17PM (#12964360) Journal
      I absolutely diagree with you on this!

      As a general rule, the idea of charging people fines is a terrible way to punish the breaking of minor laws. I can't really speak for other nations, but in the U.S. - I see fines being levied as tax collection tools more than for any real interest in stopping the crimes they claim to help stop.

      Where I live, you can almost tell how small a municipality is by how often you see the police sitting in one of the same sneaky places, spending most of the day looking for speeders. Larger municipalities with a bigger tax base don't *need* to pressure their police to hand out so many traffic tickets. They typically have more important things to do with their time.

      The typical fine only punishes the poor. If you make enough money, paying a fine because you parked your car in a much more convenient place that happened to be a "no parking" zone is probably no big deal. Send off the money order and you're done. Might have been well worth the price of the ticket, really.

      Nonetheless, making fines so high that even the rich get "punished" just makes it *impossible* for the poor to pay them - and that makes no sense either.

      Crimes of "convenience" such as littering are going to happen whether the fine is $25 or $25,000. As another poster said, it's all about the would-be litterer's confidence level in not getting caught. In the case of littering, it only takes a split second to throw something out a car window - and especially at night, people probably won't ever see that you did it.

      What would be better, IMHO, is in lieu of fines, order these people to perform community service. Make them pick up litter for a couple weekends. (Right now, we've got all these "adopt a highway" programs with volunteers - but seems unnecessary if you could make the people doing the littering do the cleanup instead.)

    • Re:This is a WASTE, unless... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by radish ( 98371 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:25PM (#12964452) Homepage
      The standard penalty for murder in the UK is life in prison, which usually (with parole) works out at 15-20 years or thereabouts. In the US, it can be a longer jail term, or sometimes, death. The murder rate in the US is higher than the UK, which suggests that higher penalties don't work (or of course that there is another, more important factor in this case).
    • I remember readiing somewhere that the police maintain that the thing that deters would be lawbreakers is not the severity of the punishment, but the likelihood of being caught.

      If that's correct, and I can't provide a reference I'm afraid, then raming up fines will do nothing to slow unauthorised distribution of copyrighted materials.

      And it seems unlikely that the penalty will be widely applied. There will be too many people who can't pay for a start. If the person being fined is going to have to pay i

    • Re:This is a WASTE, unless... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @04:31PM (#12965155) Homepage
      Raising penalties to an unreasonable level can have lots of effects.

      1) It could make people less likely to commit the act.

      2) It could make people lose respect for the law against the activity being punished.

      3) It could make law enforcement officers hesitant to actually inflict the punishment. In the case of littering that you describe, it's gone from a stiff, "that'll l'arn 'im" fine to an unreasonable fine that could be financially ruinous to just about anyone. If I were a cop, and I was pulling someone over for littering in that county, nothing short of driving a Lamborghini would keep me from letting the guy off with a warning.

      Same goes for file sharing. The fines for copyright infringement are already so high that a serious violator can end up owing more than their state of origin is worth. But people keep doing it, because the reward is great (free music), the harm to artists seems miniscule, and the likelihood of getting caught is zero in most peoples' minds.
    • I would like to draw your attention to the eighth ammendment of the US Constitution:

      "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

      You see, our forefathers were smart enough to include such things just in case someone like you (or some of those already in power) decide to do something incredibly...stupid.

      ~X~

  • Im swedish ;) are you? (Score:5, Informative)

    by lordsilence ( 682367 ) * on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:48PM (#12963991) Homepage
    Analyzers of this law has deemed it to be pretty toothless against piracy. The police themselves has announced that copyright crimes wont be prioritised. It's not even clear if they will investigate things further on invidual downloaders/filesharers since they consider this a crime which will not be a jailable offence. Most likely a smaller fee like for speeding or parking ticket. But we'll see what the antipiracy groups comes up with before we know anything for sure.
    • Here's something to chew on that's even more fun that the priority that this law's enforcement receives:

      Sweden has been a known safe-haven for downloading while the rest of us hear about everything from Napster to Bram Cohen. With that kind of well rooted status among the people, how will any anti-piracy agency stem the tide of people refusing to give up the right that they just lost? It's still a pretty scary idea to take on all the downloaders (of the illegal kind) in the US even after all of our new law
    • The police themselves has announced that copyright crimes wont be prioritised.

      It's even better than that; swedish law (PUL) forbids any registering of IP addresses if the suspected crime isn't serious enough to render a prison sentence if caught.

      This effectively means that the small scale pirate copying that most people do on DC++ etc (which not even in theory can get you in prison) isn't even possible to investigate.

      This is a pure bullshit law, and everyone knows it.

  • Fair Use is dying (Score:2, Insightful)

    by casings ( 257363 )
    Our rights as consumers are dying.

    RIP fair use.
    • Our rights as consumers are dying.

      But you've never had the right to copyright infringement. And, the typical use of the word "consumer" includes that person's participation in a commercial relationship with the provider of the goods and services in question. Sneaking off with a copy of a movie doesn't make you a consumer. It makes you someone who's too cheap to pay for the movie. Since it's rampant, the only thing dying is the artist's hope of actually seeing a little compensation for your enjoyment of h
      • Your argument would only be valid if current implementation of copyright was a balanced contract between artists and consumers as it was in the beginning (when first copyright laws were adopted).

        Copyright laws are not just for the creators, it is also for consumers. It is a social bargain struck to balance the need to protect and promote creativity while ensuring free exchange of ideas.

        To achieve these goals, the original copyright was structured so that after a relatively short period of time (20years),

    • Re:Fair Use is dying (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rackhamh ( 217889 )
      Yes, now I can't download games, music or videos that I never purchased! LIFE IS SO UNFAIR! KILL ME NOW!!!

  • Wait... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:49PM (#12964007)
    You mean I wasted my time learning Swedish?!

  • Downloading in the US? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:50PM (#12964011) Homepage Journal
    I've been under the impression that downloading something in the US is not illegal, only uploading (providing it to someone else). Lots of people seem to think otherwise, but I've never seen any spesific laws that ban this.

    What's the status in the US?
    • Although copyright infringement is not theft in terms of legal definitions, it seems that people interpret illegal distribution of copyrighted works as such. Those who provide "stolen" goods are committing a crime as well as those who receive and possess "stolen" good knowing that they are stolen.
    • in the U.S., as in virtually every other country in the world, under the copyright law, it is illegal to make a copy of something without the permission of the copyright holder, except for fair use rights etc. so this makes (unauthorized) downloading illegal.

      • Actually the computer at the other end makes the copy and gives it to you, so basicaly the downloader is a holder of items they don't have a license to but the computer and hence it's owner is the actual breaker of copyright law.

        The computer acts as an entity to itself that's why the government can't even ask you to run tcpdump if you've been hacked unless they get a supoena (if you did it on your own without them telling you, etc you can give them to the government and it will be admissible). I went to a
      • It is not exactly so.

        For example in Hungary, you don't have to verify the source of legality if it's not explicitly forbidden (so if you come across an mp3 file, you can download it, but for example you cannot redistribute an mp3 from a website if there is an accompanying text (copyright notice) forbidding it from reproducing which of course is uploading already).

        It is mostly accepted in Europe that the legality of a download has to be verified from the upload side - the one which reproduces the copyri
      • From NY Times [nytimes.com]:

        DOWNLOADING music from the Internet is not illegal. Plenty of music available online is not just free but also easily available, legal and -- most important -- worth hearing.

        That fact may come as a surprise after highly publicized lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing major labels, against fans using peer-to-peer programs like Grokster and EDonkey to collect music on the Web. But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not fo

      • I'm wondering about the actual laws here, not metaphores.

    • Downloading copyrighted materials without the permission of the holder of the copyright is, by definition, copyright infringement, which is illegal. For example, we may download FOSS software, iTunes songs, and books that the author/publisher chose to put online, but we may not download warez software, songs from your local P2P or Bittorrent source, and bootleg Harry Potter books. However, there are so many downloaders that the RIAA and MPAA cannot catch them all, so they go after the uploaders who provid

      • Downloading copyrighted materials without the permission of the holder of the copyright is, by definition, copyright infringement, which is illegal.

        By definition? Could you actualy provide the 'definition' that the courts use or are you just talking about your ass?

    • Re:Downloading in the US? (Score:4, Informative)

      by RealityMogul ( 663835 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:09PM (#12964271)
      There's a trick in U.S. laws regarding this. If they can't get you one way, they'll get you another. So if you aren't nailed for distribution of copyrighted material, you'll get nailed for possession of stolen goods. Hell, go ahead and really piss of the DA and they'll slap a terrorist label on your forehead.

  • Can we have a more misleading title? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:51PM (#12964028) Homepage
    It's a ban on downloading unauthorized copyright materials. Based on the title, you'd think that in some late night drinking spree, the Swedish legislators just said "if it has (C) anywhere near it, ban it." If the title were true, it'd really suck because then Swedes wouldn't be able to even look at any webpage because the Berne Convention (I assume y'all are a signatory nation) gives every work a copyright even if it's not officially registered.

  • Banned download of copyrighted material? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rakshasa Taisab ( 244699 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:51PM (#12964034) Homepage
    Strange, how will they surf the net then? Does it mean the swedes are forced to use public domain only websites?

  • Excellent! No more Linux kernels for Sweden! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:51PM (#12964035)
    ATTENTION: People of Sweden.

    You may no longer download the Linux kernel. As you will note in all the file headers, it is Copyright (C) Linus Torvalds and many others.

    As you have a blanket prohibition on downloading "copyrighted" material (and not just "copyrighted material which does not permit you to download it or make it available for downloading"), you may not download the Linux kernel.

  • The strength of said forces (Score:3, Funny)

    by Iriel ( 810009 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:51PM (#12964037) Homepage
    The forces that are fighting to keep this illegal behaviour are incredibly stron
    I feel sorry for the new Swedish anti-piracy director if those forces ever becomes strong
  • That does it, this really sucks. I was just about to get my copy of "Fernando" too.

  • what are we policing these days? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:52PM (#12964042)
    i hope that osama guy starts using BitTorrent soon so we can actually catch his @ss and put him down...

  • Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted material? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:52PM (#12964049) Journal
    Isn't everything copyrighted? And what if they payed the copyright owner for license to it?

  • Takes two+ to tango (Score:4, Funny)

    by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:52PM (#12964053)
    Yarrr, maties... now when one of us walks the plank, the whole crew goes to Davy Jones' locker. Yarrrr.

    Or, however that would go in Swedish.
    • "Yarrr, maties... now when one of us walks the plank, the whole crew goes to Davy Jones' locker. Yarrrr. Or, however that would go in Swedish.

      According to the Swedish Chef filter [rinkworks.com],, this becomes:

      "Yerrr, meteees. Um gesh dee bork, bork!.. noo vhee oone-a ooff us velks zee plunk, zee vhule-a croo gues tu Defy Junes' lucker. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! Yerrrr. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp!"

  • As we've heard all along, the law can never catch up with technology. Which is why I feel safe in predicting that the next tracker site in development will actually be hosted on the Moon.
    • extraplanetary hosting... now that's a good idea. it's still gonna be a while before anyone can realistically claim any jurisdiction there. someone should launch a few solar powered servers into orbit... better than Sealand!
    • More likely some place like Nauru, or Sealand.

      http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos / nr.html [cia.gov]
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru [wikipedia.org]

      Given that shady banking has recently gone away, and the phosphate mines are depleted, Nauru needs some new income, and I think "being in the middle of nowhere" is their only resource. Given that, semi-shady web hosting would be right up their alley if they can get any cheap bandwidth. How much bandwitdh does thepiratebay.org use?
    • Nah, they will be war tracker sites. People launching tracking sites on laptops in their cars outside wireless hotspots. Passing off info to the next tracking sites as they come online.
  • And I thought the Scandinavian countries were much more sensible than this. Don't mean to be a troll but your country has always been viewed as more "liberal" than most. This doesn't improve your image.

    Of course, here I sit in the U.S. of RIAA. "Pot, kettle."

  • So, how does this affect The Pirate Bay? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ravenspear ( 756059 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:54PM (#12964072)
    Will they be forced to shut down as a result?
    • Considering that they only distribute torrents, I doubt it - they don't themselves offer any copyrighted material, after all.

      Of course, one may well argue that what they're doing is still illegal (although I have no idea whether it really is under Swedish law or not), but if it is, then it probably was before this law came into effect, too, considering that uploading copyrighted material seems to always have been illegal.
  • So if you co-worker took a screenshot of a Macintosh desktop, download it on your Windows computer as a wallpaper and hide the icons, you can call the cops on them? Cool!

  • In Sweeden... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @02:56PM (#12964106)
    A cøpyright nøtice ønce bit my sister...
  • ...this webpage is copyrighted, and I downloaded it into my browsers cache... am I a criminal now?

  • At the bottom of every Slashdot page, it says "© 1997-2005 OSTG."
  • What about the ISPs that provide all those alt.warez newsgroups, will they be held accountable?

  • Media levy and now this? (Score:3, Informative)

    by mehtajr ( 718558 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:08PM (#12964260)
    The bill also raised the tax per blank 700 MB CD-R to 24 cents a disc [cdrinfo.com] (I assume in Euros, not USD). I thought the idea of these taxes was to pay the *AAs for piracy?
  • Does this mean that there'll be no more legal threat amusement [thepiratebay.org] from Sweden?

    My life is no longer complete. Bah.

  • Downloaders != pirates (Score:4, Informative)

    by njchick ( 611256 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:14PM (#12964329) Journal
    I'm disappointed that BBC calls downloaders pirates. The term "pirate" when applied to copyright infringement first appeared to denote publishers who didn't pay the authors. They were likened to high sea pirates because they intercepted some of the money that the author could have received, like pirates who intercept goods in transit. Those who bought books from "pirates" were not called "pirates". To continue this analogy, only uploaders but not downloaders could be called "pirates" because it's they who competes with the original publisher. Of course, it would still be an overkill to liken an occasional file sharer to a publisher who did business on someone else's work.

    • Re:Downloaders != pirates (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jizmonkey ( 594430 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:34PM (#12964580)
      I'm disappointed that BBC calls downloaders pirates. The term "pirate" when applied to copyright infringement first appeared to denote publishers who didn't pay the authors.

      More to the point, using the word "piracy" is empty rhetoric that has no place in reputable newsreporting. The last time I checked the U.S. Code, "piracy" is a crime punishable by death (for air piracy; sea piracy is punishable by life imprisonment).

      Why don't we just call file sharers "child rapists" with some equally strained analogy?

      (The term "piracy" is used in some patent court decisions, true, but that's hardly an excuse.)

  • "The forces that are fighting to keep this illegal behaviour are incredibly strong."
    -- Henrik Ponten, Swedish anti-piracy agency

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4642373.stm [bbc.co.uk]
  • This is Really Scary that a government -- any government -- can move this fast. Our best protection against any overbearing government is the slow pace that any change normally takes. Sweden is now on my Scary list.
  • Finally, a reason for AMERICAN citizens to bash ANOTHER COUNTRY for corrupt, draconian liberty-bashing moves against its own citizens in favor of the antiquated business models of the motion picture and recording industries!
    THANK YOU, SWEDEN for making me feel slightly less embarrassed about being an American, if just for a little while.

  • Important re Swedish download law (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tryfan ( 235825 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @03:58PM (#12964820)
    There is an additional point everyone should be aware of, since it concerns not only Swedish citizens, but most Europeans (more or less the same rules will be law in all EU countries during the coming years):

    What really happens under the new law is actually hanging upon two earlier cases; one regarding UPloading (filesharing of one Swedish movie) and one case regarding Swedish law on databases containing personal data.

    * The first case (a guy who is charged with uploading a movie) will decide the graveness of the crime. It's not yet decided by court whether he will be fined, or whether he will end up in jail.
    If he gets the maximum jail sentence of two years (which he may well get, since it will be suspended anyway), the Swedish police authorities will have the right to search the premises of everyone that's suspected of a similar crime.
    The results of such a search (the content of hard disks, CD's and so on) can be used for further charges against other persons.

    * The second case is the charge (from several thousand people) against the Swedish "Anti-Piracy Bureau" (an organisation of large copyright holders, record companies and so on) that their continuing datamining - automatic searching for up- and downloaders - is against Swedish law.
    The regulatory body, "Datainspektionen", has already decided that this activity is against the law, but of course this decision has been appealed.

    In the worst case scenario, filesharing of un-authorized material (and we're not necessarily talking syndicated crime here, but basically the average user!) will be considered a rather grave felony.
    In the best case scenario (of course, this depends on whether you're a regular user or a record company), filesharing will be considered a misdemeanor, more or less like speeding. Not allowed, but nothing that will destroy your life.

    The basic problem - Angloamerican "copyright" vs. Swedish "upphovsrätt" is to complicated to even think about this late at night. This will prove to be a real hornet's nest...

  • No more Web (Score:3, Informative)

    by blang ( 450736 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @05:26PM (#12965501)
    Any web site you go to will have images.

    These images will have copyrights. In order to be sure that you are not downloading copyrighted images, you would need to disable automatic image download as well.

    Even the web pages themselves are copyrighted
    (although they usually have the date wrong Acme Inc (c) 2003).

    In order for a user to surf withuout breaking swedish law every 20 seconds, he wopuld have to maintain a list of URL's that are known not to contain any copyrighted material, because the act of pointing the browser to them to see if a page as a (c) at the bottom requires the page to be downloaded.

    In order for Swedish ISP's to avoid dbecoming accessories to breaking of Swedish law, they would need to monitor all pages for (c) notice.

    Not only that, the lack of (c) notice does not guarantee that a page is free and unencumbered form copyrights. The Berne Convention which Sweden, US and most other countries have signed on to, regarding intelectual property grants the creator of an intellectual work ownership and control over said works, wheterh they are affixed with a copyright notice or not.

    So, this means Swedish ISP from nmow on will be forced to filter all content, and only let theough content that explicitly is identified as public domain, or under a license that explicitly grants the page to be downloaded.

    This law is very strange.
    If you went to a book store, and bought a conterfeited book, should it be your responsibility to contact the publisher to confirm that you bought a rolalty-paid copy?
    Or if you visit your library, should it be your duty to ensure that the books you borrow werew purchased thruogh th eproper channels?

    This law, while it might appear to the lawmakers to address a loophole, and chart out a grey area of the law, instead has taken freedom away from the citizens, plus added more grey areas to the law.

  • Does no one else see the BIG problem here? (Score:3, Informative)

    by pla ( 258480 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @07:55PM (#12966437) Journal
    As of the copyright act of 1976(?), at least in the US, EVERYTHING you create automatically has a copyright on it, asigned to you (unless you have some agreement in place granting that copyright to someone else). And, considering the Berne treaty as spreading such draconian law to basically the entire world, I presume a similar default state exists almost everywhere.

    So, by banning the download of "copyrighted" material, this law would prevet the Swedish from downloading anything at all. Except perhaps from Vanuatu...

    Even GPL'd software has a "copyright" on it... In fact, the terms of the GPL itself give us the "right" to "copy" it in the first place!



    I never really thought about this particular angle before, but perhaps someone more legally inclined than myself could elaborate on this? It seems to me that, considering the above, you cannot avoid downloading copyrighted material. Under that condition, therefore, how can one attribute blame to the recipient? It only makes sense to consider the act of distribution an offense.

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