Pointguard

I, like you, live in the UK and I am aware that UK laws, even the simplest of them, are very complex, especially now that we have to take account of EU legislation as well. And, as you can imagine, copyright laws are just as difficult as anything else on the statute books to interpret and understand.

So therefore, Hyper-kun is correct when he says that it is far more difficult than just the simplistic "it is illegal to download copyrighted material". For example, you can download singles from the Tesco.com website at 79 pence each quite legally but it would be illegal if you freely downloaded those same songs using a P2P app. However, downloading via P2P in itself is not illegal, you can download illegally using your browser as well, it's just that you have to be careful what you download. And likewise, you can freely download some copyright materials as long as you agree to abide by certain restrictions.

Nevertheless, if you want a simple explanation of what you can and should not do then the following, though not strictly accurate, should help:

If you can download something, e.g. books, music, pictures, etc. for free when they can and should be bought then that is illegal.

Basically, you are depriving the copyright owner of the monetary rewards that he/she is legally entitled to as recompense for his/her work.

Finally, you can search on Google for UK Copyright Laws, I am sure you will find, in your search results, some interesting though difficult reading.



UK Bob