i dont see any issues with it (unless you're also seeding a lot) but my ISP might.

i usually rent from a local library and use DVDFab & Handbrake/x264 to encode from scratch with excellent settings. Most of the stuff on torrent is lousy quality that's optimized for size first. The way I see it, i already pay huge property taxes that more than covers the few select movies i rip. sometimes i already own the DVD (720p) version but not the blu ray (1080p).

> The way I see it, i already pay huge property taxes that more than covers the few select movies i rip.

I can't comprehend how one would arrive at that reasoning.

> I can't comprehend how one would arrive at that reasoning.

definitely some mental gymnastics are required. the difference between owning and renting is largely inconsequential. i rarely watch the stuff i own, and since i can rent it for free from a library, i would never buy it. i just save myself a library trip the one time in 2 years that i want to watch it.

i guess i have little sympathy for ever-expanding media conglomerates, like Comcast-NBCUniversal, given how they've treated me as their loyal customer/prisoner for the past decade. i do pay for content from smaller studios, and as i said, most of the stuff i rip is older and i already own in crappier resolution on dvd.

Your ISP doesn't care. They just forward the message to you. which you can promptly ignore.

You could just link your account to a retailer and then after the shutdown of UltraViolet you will still have access.

When it comes to copyrights even if I don't own a copy I've taken the stance of "who cares, download"

Bittorrent in particular has the issue that you're not just downloading content (which has some pretty reasonable moral justifications and even a weird sort of pseudo-legality in some places), you're also sharing it far and wide (which is pretty hard to justify unless you just categorically reject the legitimacy of copyrights).

If I bought the DVD and download a copy off torrent. There is a case to be made that this download is not a copyright infringement. So, why should I have a concern about uploading?

That is, other people may have fair use claims to the access. So why should I be on the hook for uploading.

—yes, I know the position that RIAA takes on this. I just found it interesting seeing this from a different perspective.

This is no defense at all. You can't say "Yes, I knew there was great likelihood it was wrong, but I didn't know it for a fact that it was wrong, so I was actually in the right." It's a bit like punching somebody in the face and then saying, "Well, how was I supposed to know he didn't want to be punched? Some people like to be punched!"

If you can circumvent copyright just by not caring whether you have a right to copy, that's essentially the same thing as copyright not existing at all.

Unless you're using a private tracker with a minimum ratio requirement you don't need to seed to download something with bittorrent.

You’re facilitating people downloading who don’t own the media? Just by virtue of how BT works.

I feel like it's totally ok (although lawyers may think different).