If you live in Canada it isn´t illegal, if you live in the USA it is, this depends on the country where you live but the most say the download itself is illegal.

Morgwen

@Morgwen: The download itself is in most countries legal. Only resharing it violates copyright (for you can't really know the file, until you downloaded it, and you can't know if it wasn't released by the artist herself/himself).

To find materials, which don't violate copyrights, try, for example, to search for "Draketo" in LimeWire.

If you find something, it is free to share (and if someone wants to tell you otherwise, kindly ask them to come to me to ask, if they can license my music and give me lots and lots of money to abolish my right to publish my own music in any way I want).

I don´t know all laws but as far as I know the download is illegal in the USA and in Germany. The German law says that if you donwload a copyrighted file from a illegal source the download is also illegal.

Btw you don´t need to download a file to find out if the file is copyrithed or not... and if the file is released by the artist its usually also allowed to share the file and burn it - this has nothing to with copyright.

Morgwen

I just checked it a few days ago, and saldy you are right.