People are getting paranoid on how to avoid a bootleg movie download when they download free movies online. They can use a P2P file sharing program to download music or movies - and also games, but have read too much about it being illegal. Here are some facts on that, and how you can watch DVD movies for free without breaking a single legal statute.
It all boils down to copyright. There are two aspects of copyright: the legal and the moral aspect, so let's look at each of these in turn because most people have no idea how they are being manipulated.
Legal Aspects of a Bootleg Movie Download
A bootleg movie download is fundamentally the downloading of a movie with a valid copyright. You could safely say that, with one or two exceptions, all modern movies are copyright-protected and you would be breaking the law if you download free movies online that are so protected.
That is why the perfectly legal P2P file sharing software used for legal movie downloads can equally be used for bootleg movies and to download free movies online legally - without you being aware of the difference! In fact this type of software is becoming more commonly used to download free movies illegally than legally- but that is not the fault of the software. However, Limewire was put out of business for enabling illegal online music downloads, and so was the original version of Napster.
Social networking sites can be used to break the law and call people to riot at prearranged times and places, but that is not the fault of the software and these sites are not shut down. Why then the problems with a bootleg movie download?
The call to ban file sharing is a spurious one born of ignorance and fear. In fact, young people download free music online to get a feel for the artist before they decide to invest in the album: and quite righty too!
Many New Artists Are Talentless
In this digital age it is too easy for talentless people to digitally enhance their work and produce terrible-sounding albums fronted by one digitally-enhanced main track that has been promoted to death. The rest it sheer rubbish! Why should potential customers not be able to check out one or two more tracks on an album - digital or disk - to get a better idea of the artist's talent - or lack of it?
You can do that by using a P2P file sharing program to access and download any music or movie files stored on the hard disk of another user of that file sharing network. Is it legal to do that? Yes and no! Limewire was put out of business for enabling illegal online music downloads, and so was the original version of Napster.
Public Domain Movies
Yes, if the file being downloaded is in the public domain, such as 'The Outlaw' with Jane Russell, but not if you download free movies online that are currently showing "in a movie theater near you!" That would be referred to as a bootleg movie download, and therefore illegal. The Battle of Midway and the 1945 color version of Narnia are also free to download legally and there are many more listed online of you carry out a search for public domain movies and music.
However, that understood, there was a time that we knew the copyright period - it changes too frequently now. The Copyright Act of 1790 covered an author's work for 14 years, or 15 if he or she was still alive. Over the years this has extended to 95-120 years or life + 75 years - something that most people cannot understand.
The basic concept is fine, but the way the law is applied and continually changed is confusing - little wonder that so many download free movies online believing them to be in the public domain. It's as if people should own their own work years after they are dead. After all, Walt Disney made his billions from the works of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and others.
A Legal Bootleg Movie Download
Night of The Living Dead is in the public domain because the title was changed just prior to release, and the new title was not included in the copyright notice. As soon as the movie was released, P2P file sharing could be used to download this movie without it being a bootleg movie download - it was perfectly legal. It also written in the law of America that copyright law cannot be applies retrospectively, so once copyright has lapsed then the work will be in the public domain forever.
This is not to suggest that when you download free movies online everything is free to download: far from it, but if you are using a good file sharing software service, it should let you know that there is no license to download the specific file.
To summarize, it is not easy to avoid a bootleg movie download when you download free movies online because the same software is used for each. However, it doesn't take much of a brain to understand that new movies and music are illegal to download. In saying that, it is nevertheless stressed that it is not the fault of the P2P file sharing software but that of those using it illegally.
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