Are Free Movie Downloads Legal?

It is a fact that people like free things; free food, free clothes, free TV's etc. We enjoy the thought of getting something without paying for it.

Sometimes we get free things from family or friends, sometimes we get free stuff from winning something or from promotional programs like raffles or "buy one get one free" promos, and sometimes we even get it through a "not so legal" way.

Many people, especially movie enthusiasts, are now downloading movies via the internet. Usually, movie download websites charge a fee for every movie you want to download or charges a membership fee to enable you to download.

Some websites offer movie downloads free. However, most free movie download websites usually only allow movie downloads free if the movie's copyright has expired. This means movies allowed to be downloaded free are usually old movies.

Some websites offer completely free downloads for recently released movies. However, you have to dig deeper in the internet to find such websites.

These websites are usually illegal and could get you into trouble, especially in the United States where the authorities have the technology to track down illegal activities in the internet and have a strict policy against piracy.

Another illegal way people use to get free movies is by using file sharing program or P2P network programs. These work by downloading file sharing software such as iMesh or Kazaa, and installing them to your computer.

After installing the software, all you have to do is type in the title of the movie and the program will search the computers of users with the same program.

Then the program will display search results with similar filenames that were searched from other computers, all you have to do is choose from the results and you can start downloading. Some of these programs even have features that display the availability of the file and the download speed.

This software is very much like Napster, and is a growing trend that the movie industry is cringing on the thought of losing millions of dollars. Instead of buying original copies of the movies, movie buyers will turn to this kind of software just to get it free.

Often times, this type of software enables people to download new movies before it can even make it to their traditional debut in theaters.

With broadband internet, higher drive capacity, faster processors, downloading movies from the internet is getting as fast and easy as downloading mp3s.

Because of this, movie studios are finding ways to control this growing trend, they try to file lawsuits against websites that offer free movie downloads.

This method is not always successful, since the internet is a vast place and sometimes the website developer is in a country where there are no anti-piracy laws or might have one but does not enforce it very well.

Another way to control this problem is that movie companies are offering alternatives to consumers by letting them download a movie for a small fee. This works much like a rental video store and a customer should watch the movie before a specific time expires.

After the viewing period expires, the downloaded movie files become unusable.

Microsoft is also developing a new operating system that has strict anti movie piracy policy to make it impossible or difficult for internet users to download illegal movies and other programs.

Luke Garfield
Respected computer scientist and author.
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