No, neither of us are lawyers (let's keep this http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/ http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/ in mi

No, neither of us are lawyers (let's keep this http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/ http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/ in mind) but since you've cited case law at me, then who am I to ruin an IP law speculation-fest. Perhaps "it's illegal" is too bold a statement, but I do think that if tptacek got sued by HBO for torrenting True Blood then a fair use defense would not hold up. That's just my not-a-lawyer opinion, and I don't know of any precedent for this fair-use-timeshifting-by-proxy defense (do you?) but hey we might actually see a case like this soon. Last season HBO was monitoring the True Blood torrents and sending out C&D's to the ISPs of all peers with US IP addresses, if the Pirate Bay comments were to be believed. Anyway, here's my not-a-lawyer reasoning: copyright law grants all rights of copying and distribution to the originator of the work and these are only transferred to a second party by written contract, EXCEPT for fair use (and first sale and other exceptions like that.) According to Wikipedia, fair use is a nebulous thing and varies from case to case but from what I can see it only gives you the right to copy for personal use (Tivo good) and never distribution (torrents bad). In fact Joel Tenenbaum and Jaimie Thomas both tried and failed to use fair-use as a defense for filesharing. So in order for hypothetical HBO v. Tptacek to not be summarily ruled in favor of the plaintiff, tptacek would have to show that his subscription to HBO constituted a contract which granted him the right to acquire and distribute HBO recordings. AND his torrent peers would all have to be HBO subscribers too. I doubt you'll find any language like that on his cable bill. But what do I know.