Originally posted by kawasaki2:
The copyright laws here only apply to those people who are using popular peer-to-peer file sharing networks such as kazaa, imesh, limewire.
If you download any media files from websites on the internet, you do not need to worry about getting caught. But downloading media files via peer-to-peer networks like the ones mentioned above is an illegal offence.
You can download the files for yourself. But you are not allowed to share it with others. That is what this law means.
Who says so?
As long as any files are copyrighted, no matter where you download them, whether via the web or via a P2P program, you have broken the laws.
The copyright law states that the whole/part of the book/program/media cannot be reproduced without permission. By downloading a file (whether or not you upload it), you are already part of the piracy gang. The one who produces the files is in the wrong, but the ones who are downloading are also in the wrong, because they know very well it breaks the laws.
When you are using P2P, you have to share, that's why it's called P2P. Yes, you can turn it off, the only thing is you will find yourself being banned by others. So to make things easier, people turn on sharing rather than turn it off.
(2) Without limiting the meaning of the expression “reasonable portion” in this Act, where a literary, dramatic or musical work is contained in a published edition of that work, being an edition of not less than 10 pages, a copy of part of that work, as it appears in that edition, shall be taken to contain only a reasonable portion of that work if the pages that are copied in the edition —
(a) do not exceed, in the aggregate, 10% of the number of pages in that edition; or
(b) in a case where the work is divided into chapters — exceed, in the aggregate, 10% of the number of pages in that edition but contain only the whole or part of a single chapter of the work.
So long you have files which has exceeded 10% of copying or reproduction, you are violating the laws.