i'm just wondering if the torrents in this site are all legal. how am i to know if what i'm downloading is legal or not? consider me paranoid but of course i wouldn't want to get in trouble because i've downloaded some illegal files. thanks. :D

This is all illegal material! You might get from 5 years to life sentence from downloading from this site.

Please stay away! We are all doomed, but you can still save yourself!

Wait... I think I heard something... it's the cops!!!! No!! Get off me!!.. Argghhhhh.........

..................

yeah right! funny... hahaha... c'mon man, be serious here. :P can anybody tell me if the torrents here are legal? thanks.

From http://www.piracyisnotacrime.com/tvtorrent.php

US shows, swapped within the US are not obviously illegal, to my knowledge. It is exactly the same, to my mind, as if said person had used a VCR or DVR to record the show instead. This practice, called timeshifting, was upheld as legal more than 20 years ago by the US Supreme Court. Similar 'fair use' rights are conferred upon the British for UK aired shows. So, let's say the fact that it's illegal comes strongly into doubt on that basis alone. Secondly, no copyrighted data is on a tracker, nor included in the torrent file. The legality of BitTorrent has not yet been ruled on by a court of any nationality. Add that in, and you'll find that its a blatant lie to call it 'illegal' at all, when precedent counters much of the 'WHAT' and the sheer lack of precedent nullified the 'HOW'.

I don't know how old that is but I have also heard the argument that so long as you use it for private viewing in your own home and do not get any income for it your ok. I'ts like backing up a DVD you own. I've also thought of any fileshareing as a form of 'hard drive' space sharing...(tiny chuckle)

Well observed! : )

I don't see much sense in prohibiting the tv show file sharing. Since the advent of bittorrent, tv dvd sales have boosted (at least outside the US, where we don't get to watch a tenth of the shows that are aired there).

I'm actually a fan of shows that never aired in my country, and I'm considering buying some dvd's of my personal favorite shows.

So, if it wasn't for bittorent, that specific tv network would never get my money.

Besides, the episodes are only shared after they passed on tv, it's not like those movies everybody already saw even before they get to theatres because they've downloaded them from the internet.

If you would prefer a little more privacy while sharing torrents, try using "Peer Guardian". It is not 100% snooper proof but with less than 2% of peers using it -- the snoopers are more likely to go snoop among the other 98%.

I see a couple of potential legal objections from TV networks for free downloading that aren't mentioned in this thread. Although non-cable and most cable networks are supported by advertising, they receive revenue rates based on viewers when programs are aired. So, if you're downloading a torrent instead of tuning in, you won't be "counted."

In addition, there is the issue of cable shows that require subscriptions to view their programing. Don't cable companies and the SCI-FI channel lose revenue if I'm downloading Eureka instead of subscribing to a cable package that includes this channel? And, premium cable stations like HBO and Showtime are not supported by advertisers. Downloading a show like Weeds instead of subscribing to SHO sounds like a valid reason for premium cable networks to oppose torrents.

I think it can be a great promotional tool for some networks, but for others it just means lost revenue.

just had the time to view all the replies here. thanks for the infos. :D appreciate it so much. :P

Regardless of valid arguments and common sense, it is illegal to upload any show that you do not have the Legal Rights to.
It is illegal to "swap" US shows in the US, as it's the same thing.
Private viewing in the home does not apply, you upload the show as you download it, so it is still against the law in most all countries.

In other words you can't do any downloading or uploading except for non-copyrighted material unless you own the Leagle Rights.

I would advise those concerned about legal issues (within the U.S.) to only view streamed shows offered by the TV networks themselves (ABC, NBC, CBS, TNT, USA, Lifetime, to mention a few) and subscribe to a monthly service like Netflix to rent and stream TV shows (they now offer a combination of both) legally.

The U.S. Supreme Court will likely end up testing copyright law as it applies to file sharing of TV shows once a group or network brings specific charges (as was the case with music downloads). To my knowledge, there has not been such a ruling yet, and that's why people keep uploading / downloading / seeding.

They do send out Copyright Violation Notices though, got one myself last year for a BSG episode.
Running a good blocklist helps, but if it's something that you really worry about, then just not downloading shows cures all worries, lol.

It is illegal, because most of the time, TV torrents don't contain commercials. If you notice, the shows that the networks stream themselves, contain commercials. No commercials equals illegal. Get yourself a copy of Peer Guardian 2, and don't download TV shows or movies for that matter that either have not aired on TV yet, or are still in theaters, and you should not have a problem. Happy TV torrenting!

@nabilalk

You make a good point.

But Kolbinfo has already alluded to it earlier in the thread.

If you wish to ensure a thread stays live we usually just post 'Bump' to bring it back up for others to read.

It is a gray area of law in the great white north the americans huff and puff but cant blow down the door perfectly legal to download here and even upload to a certain extent the canadian goverment seems not to care only one torrent site ever cave in to the biaa but I believe they were going broke anyway and that was demonoid there are tons more servers routed thru here and since american laws dont apply here I would suggest getting a proxi server from here then your isp and the cria wont know about and what they dont know who cares

Nagila Cap'n

You could almost say the more they try to stop P2P
the bigger it gets by publicity and the thought of the user 'they won't bother with little old me'

AHFA

oh hell no

Well the Internet has opened up a lot of Loopholes. You can even buy Fake goods on eBay.

Only ISP know what you are Downloading and how much.

Mine hasn't bothered me at all and I'm dling 24 hours a day.To the contrary they even helped me with a networking problem I was having with uTorrent.(sorry,I'm talking about my ISP.)

There was a law passed here but ?

lol i DL (120 gigs on the weekend ) slow one
nothing ? wait and see guess.

New info from isohunt.com

"isoHunt sues CRIA on legality of search engines Posted by IH on Sep. 8

This is one of the hardest decisions I had to make, to sue one of the most powerful lobby and corporate conglomerates in Canada. But for sake of continuing operation and development of isoHunt, this is something we must do. I don't pretend to speak on behalf of all BitTorrent websites or users, but I speak to point out that with a lawsuit from CRIA hanging over our heads, we fight not just for our survival as an internet company of search engines and social networks, but also for other websites, from BitTorrent sites to larger search engines like Google, on which most of us have come to depend. The legal ramifications concerning search engines and linking here are far reaching.

For a better understanding of what brought us here, this is a brief history of our dealing with the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association)."

If you wish to read up on that history, you will find it on the isohunt.com page.