6 ms·

So this technically makes piracy legal, as losing as I'm not distributing the material, (or seeding it's torrent).

by Anunayj 5y ago

monkeynotes 5y ago
This is the case in Canada, at least.
- Biganon 5y ago
  Switzerland, too.
leeter 5y ago
IANAL, but no. You can still get sued.
- razakel 5y ago
  You can be sued for anything. I could sue you for farting in an elevator. You have to actually show damages, and nobody is going to care about personal research into obsolete software.
  - retrocryptid 5y ago
    except oracle.
jeroenhd 5y ago
IANAL. If you pirate without distribution (so torrents are out of the question) and don't circumvent any DRM mechanisms (cracks, keygens) then I don't think there's a legal basis for a lawsuit. However, most games and software come with some form of DRM which you need to bypass to pirate them, and that's often banned explicitly in copyright legislation. It is under the American DMCA laws and, as far as I know, under European copyright laws, but your mileage may vary. But yes, as far as I can tell, if someone shares their Good Old Games setup files with you and you download them, you're not breaking the law (though the person sharing the content obviously is). Regardless of actual legality, you can still expect a lawsuit if your company pirates software and defending against that usually costs more than actually buying the software.
- addaon 5y ago
  Downloading a file which contains copyrighted data is creating a copy (you now have that sequence of bits in memory or on disk on a device you control) without the right having been granted, no?
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    The person running the server is the one who is creating the copy and doing the distribution, not you the user.
    - jl6 5y ago
      Dubious, when the user is the one initiating the copy (by requesting the download) and the one benefiting from the copy.
    - addaon 5y ago
      Even if you argue that the initial copy of the work in RAM in your network stack was created by the server operator, you're likely to make copies from there: copies in RAM if your network stack is not zero copy; copies to disk if these pages swap; and copies to disk if you save the files. See e.g. https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1602&context=lawreview https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1602...
  - vmception 5y ago
    Copyright infringement requires sharing the copy without a license to do so, not making the copy
    - addaon 5y ago
      The right to make copies (reproduce a work) and distribute copies (sharing) are both separately protected by copyright law [1]. [1] https://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html https://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html
      - 5y ago
kmeisthax 5y ago
Not necessarily. The reason why torrent seeding is so perilous is because P2P is a privacy nightmare, not because they forgot to say the word "download" in the law. If you want to sue people who are copying your work, BitTorrent makes it very easy to get enough information to demand dox from an ISP. For a "mere downloading" case to even occur, you first need to compromise (legally, of course) the host of some direct-download site, subpoena their logs, subpoena a bunch of ISPs, get dox from that, and then sue that class of users. Usually at that point the copying has stopped anyway, which is enough to get a copyright owner to back off. If such a suit were to happen, the argument would probably boil down to where the infringement actually occurred. Does the server infringe when it sends copyrighted material (because that's where the copy is made), or does the client infringe when it requests said material (because they asked for an infringing copy)? Courts might accept both arguments and just decide everyone is liable. Also all of that is for copyright, which (usually) covers published works. Trade secrets, which cover things not ever intended to be published, would just call both sides guilty of "misappropriating" the trade secret.

So this technically makes piracy legal, as losing as I'm not distributing the material, (or seeding it's torrent).

monkeynotes 5y ago

This is the case in Canada, at least.

Biganon 5y ago
Switzerland, too.

leeter 5y ago

IANAL, but no. You can still get sued.

razakel 5y ago
You can be sued for anything. I could sue you for farting in an elevator. You have to actually show damages, and nobody is going to care about personal research into obsolete software.
- retrocryptid 5y ago
  except oracle.

jeroenhd 5y ago

IANAL. If you pirate without distribution (so torrents are out of the question) and don't circumvent any DRM mechanisms (cracks, keygens) then I don't think there's a legal basis for a lawsuit. However, most games and software come with some form of DRM which you need to bypass to pirate them, and that's often banned explicitly in copyright legislation. It is under the American DMCA laws and, as far as I know, under European copyright laws, but your mileage may vary. But yes, as far as I can tell, if someone shares their Good Old Games setup files with you and you download them, you're not breaking the law (though the person sharing the content obviously is). Regardless of actual legality, you can still expect a lawsuit if your company pirates software and defending against that usually costs more than actually buying the software.

addaon 5y ago
Downloading a file which contains copyrighted data is creating a copy (you now have that sequence of bits in memory or on disk on a device you control) without the right having been granted, no?
- jcranmer 5y ago
  The person running the server is the one who is creating the copy and doing the distribution, not you the user.
  - jl6 5y ago
    Dubious, when the user is the one initiating the copy (by requesting the download) and the one benefiting from the copy.
  - addaon 5y ago
    Even if you argue that the initial copy of the work in RAM in your network stack was created by the server operator, you're likely to make copies from there: copies in RAM if your network stack is not zero copy; copies to disk if these pages swap; and copies to disk if you save the files. See e.g. https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1602&context=lawreview https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1602...
- vmception 5y ago
  Copyright infringement requires sharing the copy without a license to do so, not making the copy
  - addaon 5y ago
    The right to make copies (reproduce a work) and distribute copies (sharing) are both separately protected by copyright law [1]. [1] https://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html https://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html
    - 5y ago

kmeisthax 5y ago

Not necessarily. The reason why torrent seeding is so perilous is because P2P is a privacy nightmare, not because they forgot to say the word "download" in the law. If you want to sue people who are copying your work, BitTorrent makes it very easy to get enough information to demand dox from an ISP. For a "mere downloading" case to even occur, you first need to compromise (legally, of course) the host of some direct-download site, subpoena their logs, subpoena a bunch of ISPs, get dox from that, and then sue that class of users. Usually at that point the copying has stopped anyway, which is enough to get a copyright owner to back off. If such a suit were to happen, the argument would probably boil down to where the infringement actually occurred. Does the server infringe when it sends copyrighted material (because that's where the copy is made), or does the client infringe when it requests said material (because they asked for an infringing copy)? Courts might accept both arguments and just decide everyone is liable. Also all of that is for copyright, which (usually) covers published works. Trade secrets, which cover things not ever intended to be published, would just call both sides guilty of "misappropriating" the trade secret.