News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Can't pay, won't pay: streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy. Parent comment

Re:Can't pay, won't pay: streaming services are driving view... by wyre on Thursday August 14, 2025 @10:17PM (#44907917)
This is/would be a fun point, but the illegality isn’t around watching the pirated media. When I torrent a copy of Terminator, the illegal act is acquiring the material, not my watching of it.

I’m not a lawyer so I’m sure there is more to this definition.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Can't pay, won't pay: streaming services are driving view... by volkl48 on Friday August 15, 2025 @12:04AM (#44908496)
Not a lawyer but the de facto law has always appeared to only care about uploading.

Torrenting gets you in trouble because uploading at least a little bit is inherent to how it (and some other P2P) is supposed to work, and that's enough for a case.

Cases against people just downloading have always appeared to be very rare/non-existent, at least from when I used to follow the news on this stuff more. I don't think I've ever seen a case of someone threatened for solely downloading off direct download services, for example.

[ Parent | on HN ]