It's never been more legal than it is today - it's not like in 1997 KaZaA and Morpheus were bastions of legal activity.

For a very long time in the Netherlands you could download movies and music from unauthorized sources, as you were indirectly paying content creators because of “copy taxes” on data drives, burnable discs etc. It was sort of a loophole but it was completely legal. Those were the days.

Then suddenly the highest court disallowed it. Guess what, we still pay the copy tax.

Clarification: The copy tax was meant to compensate copyright owners for consumers making copies (for private use) of purchased media. It was widely interpreted as to allow downloading from the internet as well (even from pirated sources).

Ah sorry yes - my comment was made from an American/Canadian perspective - I know that other parts of the world have been significantly more progressive in the past.