Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Legal Lad, Legal Lad's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Millions of Americans download media files via the Internet. But when are these downloads legal, and when are they not? Blake H legal Download and file sharing are just the most often used application in net browsing. I am not just familiar if this is illegal or not, as far as I knew that there is the so called copy right, you have to ask for authors permission if you are going to reproduced it any forms. The Internet has made possible entirely new forms of social interaction, activities and organizing, thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access. Speed matters in net surfing. Getting a MiFi 2200 could prove a worthwhile investment. The MiFi 2200 is a portable wireless router, which you can use for any device which has the capability of wireless internet, be it a laptop, netbook, whatever. It's made by Verizon, the wireless phone provider, and it costs about as much as a small cash advance - $100 (after rebate), but there is a caveat: you must subscribe to the service to the tune of $40 a month. For that you get the rebate, and 250 MB of download. For another $20, (a $60 month subscription) you get 5 GB of download. (That isn't that much.) Still, it could be worth a payday loan or two for a MiFi 2200. http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=16967#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=16967#Comments Thu, 14 May 2009 06:47:25 GMT Blake H legal Download and file sharing are just the most often used application in net browsing. I am not just familiar if this is illegal or not, as far as I knew that there is the so called copy right, you have to ask for authors permission if you are going to reproduced it any forms. The Internet has made possible entirely new forms of social interaction, activities and organizing, thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access. Speed matters in net surfing. Getting a MiFi 2200 could prove a worthwhile investment. The MiFi 2200 is a portable wireless router, which you can use for any device which has the capability of wireless internet, be it a laptop, netbook, whatever. It's made by Verizon, the wireless phone provider, and it costs about as much as a small cash advance - $100 (after rebate), but there is a caveat: you must subscribe to the service to the tune of $40 a month. For that you get the rebate, and 250 MB of download. For another $20, (a $60 month subscription) you get 5 GB of download. (That isn't that much.) Still, it could be worth a payday loan or two for a MiFi 2200. http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=16966#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=16966#Comments Thu, 14 May 2009 06:45:15 GMT LisaP legal File sharing and downloads are just some of the features in net surfing.I an not just familiar if this is illegal or not, as far I know that there is this copyright for those who had made published or created an article and you are going to ask permission if you are going to reproduced it in any form.The Internet has made possible entirely new forms of social interaction, activities and organizing, thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access. Speed matters in net surfing. Getting a MiFi 2200 could prove a worthwhile investment. The MiFi 2200 is a portable wireless router, which you can use for any device which has the capability of wireless internet, be it a laptop, netbook, whatever. It's made by Verizon, the wireless phone provider, and it costs about as much as a small cash advance - $100 (after rebate), but there is a caveat: you must subscribe to the service to the tune of $40 a month. For that you get the rebate, and 250 MB of download. For another $20, (a $60 month subscription) you get 5 GB of download. (That isn't that much.) Still, it could be worth a payday loan or two for a MiFi 2200. http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=16964#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=16964#Comments Thu, 14 May 2009 06:36:30 GMT Philipp legal Hi, I usually appreciate your well researched episodes. However this one contained a few errors. 1. Copyright is automatic by the creation of the work. Therefore my vacation photos are automatically copyrighted works by the simple act of creating them. 2. You have completely missed the "Fair Use" clause of the copyright legislation. This is something organizations representing the recording industry like doing. But by missing it you are missing the balance in copyright law. As you know the "Fair Use" clause makes exceptions for all different kinds of uses such as reporting in news media, citation and the like. One such exception is the passing of a recording to friends. The problem currently posed to the courts is what defines a friend. Someone you have never met but interact often with might be considered a friend while someone you have physically met yet almost never interact with might be. As is obvious, this remains to be seen and decided by the courts. Never the less I think you have done your listeners a grave disservice by leaving out any mention of this querulous area of the copyright law. This is especially grave since it is one that is clearly within the realm of the question posed to you. http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=13910#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=13910#Comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:07:05 GMT Laura Vogel legal I have a related question, and to ask it I'll pose the following hypo: John likes to watch "Law and Order" on TV, but he missed it last night. In order to see the show, he downloads a torrent file, loads the torrent file, and uses that file to download the most recent episode of "Law and Order," that aired last night all over the country (and likely, the world). John has not taken any meaningful part of the episode from a single source--the torrent file is a set of directions for the download program such that it knows what the final file (or episode of "Law and Order") is meant to look like upon completion. Thus, each person who has the complete file gives John a small piece--that is meaningless without being combined with all of the other pieces of the file that he gets from other users. Each person sharing the information is sharing only a PART of the file--a meaningless piece--and John is only downloading several of those pieces. As no one is sharing any copyrighted work (none of the pieces are copyrighted) is John (or anyone else) technically doing anything illegal? Is there case law on the issue of torrent files? Thanks! http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=13904#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=13904#Comments Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:29:36 GMT Just Wondering legal I was just wondering how realistic is it that many cases will be thrown out due to the inability to prove that the IP address wasn't hacked into? Especially with all the wireless networks. I, myself, am on a wireless network and, for now, it is unsecured (my cheap router isn't compatible with Vista and I can't get it to be secured and still work). A friend who is a sys. admin. for a computer company told me that many cases are thrown out due to even the slightest possibility of hackers. What do you make of that? http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=153#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=153#Comments Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:42:38 GMT Mitchell Below legal Legal Lad, I have a question related to your post on file sharing. Can bloggers use photographs that are freely downloaded from other sites, such as a newspaper, without fear of copyright infringement? Is a photo in the public domain just because the "Save Picture As" menu option works in Internet Explorer? Thanks, TribeScribe http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=149#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=149#Comments Tue, 22 May 2007 22:37:11 GMT Charlie legal “So, I could put in my public folder photos from my vacation to Hawaii, a short film that I created and copyrighted. . .” Since “copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form” I don’t see the distinction between the photos and the short film. My understanding is that neither can be redistributed without your permission whether the copyright is “registered” or not. Also, when you put “the songs from The Joshua Tree” on your public folder aren’t you infringing on their copyright? I love you podcasts. Perhaps we could have another on copyrights, and others on patents, trademarks and trade secrets. http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=148#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=148#Comments Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:32:13 GMT Lee K. Seitz legal I believe those sounds are supposed to be a gavel banging http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=147#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=147#Comments Mon, 02 Apr 2007 18:12:02 GMT Anonymous legal Sorry I know this isn't related to file sharing, but wasn't sure where to put this. The theme music: Could you please do something about your theme music? It is fine up until the end where there are three "shots" that remind me of gunshots and make my heart race. I find this noise to be distracting and alarming. Otherwise...interesting podcast. http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=146#Comments http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx?commentid=146#Comments Sat, 31 Mar 2007 18:55:03 GMT Thu, 14 May 2009 06:47:25 GMT http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/file-sharing-law.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us