[poofyhairguy]

You're saying a civil offence and legality are different? The only difference between civil law and criminal law is that with civil law you can't be imprisoned and it's between legal parties and not the government. It's still against the law, therefore illegal, unlawful, whatever you want to call it.

Its the difference between crimes and torts. I am NOT a criminal, but I maybe COULD BE held financially liable if they could prove their case (which I make it hard to do).

Any form of sharing copyrighted material without approval from the copyright owner or by purchasing a license (that's all you do when you buy an album/movie/etc.) is illegal. It makes no difference if you give it or receive it.

Thats the thing though, the laws with copyright are all set up that just HAVING the content isn't an illegal offense, but distributing IS. Without any sharing I never distribute so they can't hit me with that.

And as far as I know (and I have looked), there is NO legal precedent where a media company sued a person for just having copyrighted info. It would be a nightmare for them, as they would be left with a burden of proof that I didn't just time-shift the content from my satellite. My opinion is until there is a legal precedent that says that what I am doing is illegal, it is not illegal.

The honest truth is that its in the same gray area as EULA- are EULAs binding contracts that I violate when I hackintosh? Who knows, they have never been proven in court! My situation is the same way, hence I believe that what I do is not illegal.

With that said I do believe that eventually the laws will get changed to reflect drug laws where possession itself is illegal. At that point I leave my downloading days behind and enjoy what I have while I am ahead.

but don't for a second think you're being legal.

As I said above, there is no certain legal precedent that you can point to that says what I am doing is illegal. Unlike ripping DVDs the DMCA doesn't cover what I am doing.

With that said, there IS a difference between legal and moral and it could be easily argued that what I am doing is immoral. I won't debate that, I will call myself a thief and a pirate. I take responsibility for what I do, I just don't plan to stop anytime soon....