Copyright law would likely disagree, I believe the MPAA would also likely disagree and put to responsibility on the person consuming the content to only consume content from "Authorized" sources, and of course they have no responsibility to report who the authorized sources are.

I'm sure the MPAA would like to disagree, but what is your source on copyright law?

Copyright law prohibits those who have copy of something from making and distributing unauthorized copies. But if you receive one of these copies, I don't see what law that would break or why the receiver would be responsible.

So then if were to download a copy of a movie off bittorrent or some other place and I prevent uploading then you would say I am not in violation of Copyright law. You believe it is UPLOADING, not the DOWNLOADING that is illegal

Interesting position, Most of the lawsuits however have sued over DOWNLOADING and uploading, not just uploading or "distributing" infact in some cases it has been shown the copyright owners themselves were distributing the content to catch people "illegally downloading" the content.

That would also mean downloading from Usenet would be completely legal...

I would like to see some cases quoted here. It's been my long time understanding that bittorrent services come under fire precisely because of their distribution model. Catching users in the act of uploading copyrighted content is the signal to press charges. I was under the impression that even the honeypot torrents were seeking actively sharing IPs for this reason, and would ignore users with uploads disabled because they wouldn't have as strong of a court case. Maybe I'm wrong! I have not actually studied the cases.

I'm not a lawyer and I wouldn't bet on how the court case would go, considering that the MPAA will hire very expensive lawyers and you probably will not. Most likely, it won't get that far and you'll settle out of court to avoid the court costs, so you'll pay regardless of whether it was actually illegal.

However, yes, my understanding of copyright law is that it only limits those who currently own a copy from making and distributing more. The relevant US Law is actually very short, take a look at Section 106: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106

(Edit: 106 lists what it is against the law to do, as you can see from 501 which talks about punishment etc. https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html )

Like everyone who ever got sued was for distribution and not downloads.

> Most of the lawsuits however have sued over DOWNLOADING and uploading, not just uploading or "distributing"

I'd like to know more about these lawsuits.

Can you cite a (US) case where someone was sued for just downloading where no distribution of any kind occurred?

...as long as it's not uploading while downloading.

Services like Popcorn Time work by uploading the file to others as you are watching it. That would be copyright infringement.

Agreed.