"If it's free, it's illegal"

I'm talking about downloading music through the internet.

A few years ago a coworker of mine recited his young son's enthusiasm about their new fast internet connection, and how it would be possible to download all sorts of music. Laughing "but I had to tell him that would be illegal". But really, is it always?

I found a very funny American tv series on the internet for which I am developing a new addiction, the name doesn't really matter (it is "Weeds") but aparrently it is very popular in the US and has been going for a few years already, however it is't on the air here and I only found it after checking out The Pirate Bay - the site that our National Pride *cough* anti piracy organization BREIN recently dragged into court for illegally facilitating the breaking of copyright. That case still has to reach a conclusion.

And now I wonder.. is it illegal to download a tv series that is not aired in your country and that you wouldn't know anything about if it weren't for the so called "piracy" sites... ? Or rather is it illegal to upload it and share it (strictly speaking downloading for personal use is not illegal but would be impossible if someone else wasn't uploading it in the first place, so even if it isn't illegal that is sanctimonious to say the least...) these copyright issues are not always clear to me at all. This particular tv series has been running for four years already and no-one here has even heard of it. When were they planning on legitimately releasing it on the Dutch market, in another five or six years maybe? I predict that it will be really successful here ten or twenty years from now, next to the Avengers, Dynasty and The Six Million Dollar Man.

Comments

  1. It's maddening. Add to the conversation the business of the folks who do remixes of adds (Slap Chop) that become the marketing tool of the originator. Really seems to depend on the mood of the guy who made the thing in the first place.

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  2. It's not easy to square the circle!

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  3. Sandy: but on this tv show they have some really good background music, by musicians and songwriters that aren't well-known enough to have their music all over the usenet sites yet, like Dan Reeder, Gideon Freudmann and many others... (the title song "Little Boxes" is sung by a different artist each episode, it is fantastic) I think the series will do a lot to increase their popularity!

    Readerwil.. more than one!

    Pietro.. easy as pi! ... pi * R^square to be precise... :-D

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