Illeagle downloads prosecution

This scenario requires you to focus on having the charges and fines for illegal downloading reduced. As mentioned earlier, accusers will ask for compensation that makes up for the lost income. In addition, they will attempt to make you pay for each record after you download songs illegally or install pirated versions of videos. If you show that you only downloaded the material for personal use, the amount that you have to compensate the record holder with may significantly drop.

Secondly, identify the platform that you used to download the music or videos. For example, if the content was on YouTube, the prosecutor will only make cents in ad revenues each time you play the song.

Because of this, their lost income from YouTube or other ad-paying platforms will be relatively small. However, if you download songs illegally from sources that require you to pay such as iTunes , then they may ask you to pay them back the cost of each song. Above all else, you should make sure that everything is organized and well-documented.

After all, the longer the case becomes, the more legal expenses and damages that you have to incur. In certain circumstances, you may still defend yourself even if the evidence of piracy is strong. Under United States federal law, the statute of limitations on copyright infringement is only three years. That is to say, prosecutors cannot sue you if you illegally downloaded a song or movie more than three years ago.

Equally as important, you may rely on the fair use doctrine as a defense. However, this is only the case if you used the copyrighted content for educational or informative purposes. The fair use doctrine is exempt from illegal downloading laws. Yet keep in mind that you need to provide sufficient evidence that you used the copyrighted material for an educational or charitable purpose. Otherwise, the fair use doctrine will not help your case.

Keep in mind that most piracy cases are civil and not criminal. Yet when someone attempts to distribute or sell copyrighted material, they will very likely face criminal felony charges.

It is important to remember that the statute of limitations for civil charges is only three years. In criminal cases, on the other hand, prosecutors can sue you for up to five years after you download songs illegally or make pirated copies of videos. Both the prison sentence and fines are much harsher for criminal copyright law violations. Additionally, the government, rather than the record holder, might act as the prosecutor. In those instances, your first step should be to understand whether you are charged with violating state or federal illegal downloading laws or both.

If your state is filing charges, then it is crucial to know how piracy is defined and the punishment for it. Some states, such as Michigan, have an expanded list of crimes that constitute copyright infringement porch piracy, for instance. Here, finding a local attorney is a must. However, even if your trial is in a federal court, a lawyer that specializes in copyright law may provide you with a variety of defenses and options.

There are two aspects that determine whether or not the federal government will file felony charges against copyright infringers. Firstly, the scope of the violation. Secondly, the strength of the case. To clarify, federal authorities will not prosecute criminal offenders unless they commit a serious violation such as selling or distributing pirated materials. Otherwise, infringers are more likely to face civil charges, if any at all.

Moreover, federal prosecutors handle cases that have strong evidence. For example, a court charged you with civil penalties. After that, if you continue to break piracy laws, the federal government may step in. Your previous convictions provides them with a solid case and potentially key pieces of evidence, especially when you commit other crimes.

Similarly, if you have a strong defense or justification such as the fair use doctrine , the federal government will likely not file charges.

However, perhaps most importantly, illegal downloading laws give federal authorities the right to prosecute all types of violators, even first-time infringers and cases without solid evidence.

In other words, the scope of your violation and your defense only define the likelihood of whether or not you will face criminal charges. Otherwise, the federal government can still prosecute anyone who breaks piracy laws. The fines for illegal downloading are hefty in civil and criminal cases, alike, although the latter tends to be more punishing.

Peer-to-peer file sharing sites, such as Pirate Bay, have long been the bane of film companies for tacitly approving of people sharing files — illegal or legal — with impunity. The tide is starting to turn, however, with recent lawsuits being made against a high profile torrent site and the owner and the closure of Megaupload. New congressional bills such as SOPA and PIPA were designed to help crack down on illegal content sharing, however the privacy and civil liberties groups all rallied around the fact that it would even affect mega-giant sites like YouTube, perhaps the biggest online content sharing site in the world.

Save the money, right? For one thing, the internet is already too uncontrollable to allow illegal file sharing to just disappear. There are always workarounds to torrent sites, and inevitably somebody will come up with a solution to it. Instead, why not try and rework your business model to counter — not control — the piracy movement, and make it work in your favor. Imagine if everyone who wanted to watch The Avengers could download it for a dollar or two from a sanctioned site, in high resolution and good quality, and stream it to their television set in the comfort of their own home.

Lower your buy price, and get more people buying. Am I wrong? Then of course you have the inevitable issue of disc cost — the amazing cost of a Blu-Ray new release to purchase — which still manages to make studio coffers bulge more than ever. Surely the budget balance can handle this brave and ingenious solution, right? Do you have an opinion on illegal downloads? We want to hear about it! Rant away down in the comments section!!

See author's posts. Yeah, it is an issue which never will be solved. The copyright police are banking on the idea that there are more people illegally sharing major movies like "The Avengers" than stealing music from small, independent record labels.

It is still unclear how willing courts will be to prosecute individuals based only on the fact that their IP address was recorded. This month a U. The New Scientist reports that "anyone who has downloaded pirated music, video or eBooks using a BitTorrent client has probably had their IP address logged by copyright-enforcement authorities within three hours of doing so.

They successfully pressured the Department of Justice to halt Megaupload and managed to prod the Ukrainian government into shutting down Demonoid , the popular private tracker.

The next step seems to be bring Internet service providers like Comcast and Time Warner into the act. Someone breaking copyright laws by regularly downloading movies is using more bandwidth than the next-door neighbor who's just streaming funny videos on YouTube. At that point, third-party monitors might take a closer look into what someone is doing online.