most people don't understand the difference between a civil offence and a criminal offence (which is what i would use the term "illegal" to describe).

Violating a contract is not "illegal", but is a civil offense, and requires the other party to sue you to recover damages. Copyright infringement is also not "illegal", but is a civil offense (however, i do believe that a lot of copyright lobbies want to change copyright violations to be a criminal offence, so they won't need to sue, but instead use public prosecution to recover their damages).

This is terrible legal advice. Criminal penalties for copyright infringement offenses have existed since at least 1897 in the United States, and at least 1921 in Canada.

While I understand the point you were trying to convey WRT the differences between civil and criminal offenses, copyright infringement is not a particularly good example of this.

> The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment. [0]

[0]: https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime/piracy-ip...

It may be a violation of the DMCA, which makes it a criminal offence.

The only way this would violate the DMCA is if you pirated the operating system.

That depends pretty much on the jurisdiction.