If you’ve been accused of illegally “pirating” software, music, games or movies, the most important tip of all may be to get help from a copyright lawyer. An experienced internet copyright attorney. can analyze your particular circumstances, legal options, and legal defenses; understands the technology and defenses in illegal movie download cases.
A couple companies have gained a reputation for being very aggressive in bringing legal action for illegal movie downloading and copyright infringement: Patrick Collins, Inc. and the US Copyright Group. Patrick Collins, Inc. is a pornography studio in Canoga Park, California.
In the current day, one of the biggest revenue sources for the movie industry is DVD sales. If people continue to commit illegal movie downloads, such revenue is bound to be impacted in a negative way. Any movie that is available on the internet to be downloaded at no charge can be considered to be an illegal movie download and should be avoided.
For example, one law firm sued over 20,000 people for illegally downloading the movie “The Hurt Locker.” These law firms typically are hoping to get most of the people sued to settle for around $1,000-3,000—a nice chunk of money for the law firm.
People who are caught downloading movies from the Internet could face up to a year in jail, as well as $100,000 in fines. It is important to note these are the penalties for a misdemeanor penalty.
Illegal downloading is typically punishable by a fine. The penalties for illegal downloading vary by country, but the gravest penalties for illegal downloading are usually fines.
A civil lawsuit could hold you responsible for thousands of dollars in damages. Criminal charges may leave you with a felony record, accompanied by up to five years of jail time and fines up to $250,000.
If you fail to respond to a notice, you may be sued. Copyright infringement penalties can be civil and criminal and include: Statutory damages between $750 and $30,000 per piece of work infringed upon. Civil penalties of up to $150,000 per piece if willful infringement is found.
It is illegal to download copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. Unfortunately, if you download a movie or song illegally, you could be sued. Recently, these lawsuits have been brought by law firms who contract with copyright holders.
Under federal copyright law, the damages that you may owe can range from $750 to $30,000 ... per work. So if you illegally download, say, 10 songs -- doesn't seem that offensive, right? Think again, because the penalty for that can be as much as $300,000.
It depends on the circumstances, but no, it's highly doubtful you would go to jail for torrenting. Most lawsuits regarding torrenting are civil suits, not criminal ones, so if a penalty is levied, it's usually a fine or some other monetary compensation.
And users found to have illegally downloaded movies to make money could face fines of up to $20,000.
FBI Anti-Piracy Warning: 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 up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
While many users panic when receiving infringement notices from their ISP, in the majority of cases there is no need to worry. Stopping sharing the content in question usually solves the problem and if no additional sharing takes place, no further warnings should be received, for that content at least.
Do I have to respond to the notice? The Notice and Notice regime does not impose any obligations on a subscriber who receives a notice, and it does not require the subscriber to contact the copyright owner or the intermediary.
If you infringe upon someone else's intellectual property rights by using the author's copyright without his permission, you may be guilty of copyright infringement. You may be able to assert a defense excusing your unauthorized use of copyrighted material in certain situations.
The act of illegally downloading something falls under the Copyright Act of 1976, a federal statute that governs copyright law in the United States.
Don't let out a sigh of relief just yet, though. Just because time in the slammer can usually be avoided for illegally downloading doesn't mean that you won't be paying a pretty penny for your illegal acts.
The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has also sued individual downloaders, representing such studios as Warner Bros., The Walt Disney Company, and Sony Pictures.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) had been suing individual illegal downloaders of music, forcing them to pay a settlement for each individual song downloaded (usually $750 each), with the RIAA choosing the number of songs they want the accused to pay for.
If you’re watching a video of a new TV show or movie on a site like Megavideo, it’s possible you’re watching something that was put online illegally. It is against the law for the person who posted the video to have posted it.
Just like file-sharing programs, the Internet video technology in itself isn’t illegal in any way. For example, if you’re watching streaming video on a popular website like Netflix or Hulu, then what you’re watching is most likely legal.
Lawsuits involving illegal movie downloads have to be brought by a party who has been harmed by the downloading. Most of the time, this is the movie production studio or another entity that owns the rights to the film that has been downloaded. The jurisdiction of the lawsuit is determined by the downloader’s location, however.
Countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and most of Europe have similar penalty schemes for illegal movie downloads, and the punishments allowed in these countries are in many ways comparable to those permitted in the United States. Still, in all places, the consequences factor in several things.
U.S. copyright law provides for the award of either statutory or actual damages against people found guilty of illegally downloading. Statutory damages are damages that are set by statute, and awarded at the discretion of the judge. They are awarded according to a sliding scale, with a substantial minimum fine per violation.
An actual damage award represents the damages that an aggrieved copyright owner actually sustained, which can be less or more than statutory damages, depending on the facts of the case. Making unauthorized copies of movies for friends is a form of copyright piracy. Countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, ...
Countries like China and many Eastern European nations are frequently regarded as havens for illegal downloading because, while these countries have copyright laws, they are rarely enforced. Countries without developed legal systems also pose challenges for copyright owners seeking to enforce their rights.
In most countries, downloading movies without paying for them is illegal. Downloading movies from the Internet without paying for them, whether through peer-to-peer sites, BitTorrent sites, or otherwise, is illegal in most countries as a violation of copyright law.
Making unauthorized copies of movies for friends is a form of copyright piracy. Some people prefer the experience of seeing a movie at the theater rather than illegally downloading it.
The technology for faster internet connections now in place makes it quite an easy procedure to download movies illegally from the internet. An illegal movie download can be said to be any download of a movie that is not legally allowed or permitted by the copyright owner.
Furthermore, there have been issues in which movies that have yet been publicly released in the theaters are leaked on the internet. Downloading a movie not publicly released is an illegal movie download and will have serious legal consequences if ever apprehended.
After each of the plaintiff's witnesses is questioned by the plaintiff, you will have an opportunity to cross-examine them.
Jail is pretty rare, but the U.S. copyright law allows you to be jailed for up to 10 years depending on the offense. Criminal fines. U.S. copyright law also allows the government to fine you up to $250,000. You might have to pay fees in the place of jail time or in addition to jail time.
Your lawyer might decide that it is better to challenge the subpoena that the copyright holder issued your ISP. The purpose of the subpoena is to find out your name. You could argue that the subpoena is defective in some way, or that your information is protected by confidentiality laws.
If you successfully defend yourself, you will not be liable to the plaintiff and you will not have to pay any damages. If you lose, ask your lawyer about appealing.
If you file the motion yourself, then you're identifying yourself to the plaintiff, which defeats the whole purpose of fighting the subpoena in the first place.
For example, most people settle for between $1,000-3,000, with $750 being the minimum fine for statutory damages. If you go to court and lose, you could end up paying substantially more in statutory damages.
Take part in discovery. Soon after your answer is filed, litigation will enter a pretrial stage called discovery. During discovery, you will be able to collect facts, interview witnesses, learn what the other side is going to say at trial, and see how good your case is.
In the UK, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 currently protects copyrighted materials and if you download or distribute copyrighted files without permission you could potentially face a civil action for thousands of pounds of damages.
In the UK, illegal downloading can also lead to a criminal conviction if the downloader is caught making copies for the purpose of selling or hiring them to others.
Illegal downloading has become a significant threat to the music, film and television industries. Every day millions of people illegally download music, movies and television programmes from the web. Some estimates report that half the population of the UK has engaged in some sort of illegal downloading in the last five years.
If you’ve been accused of illegally “pirating” software, music, games or movies, the most important tip of all may be to get help from a copyright lawyer. An experienced internet copyright attorney.
Typical settlement negotiations involve legal fees of $450 to $750 and a settlement amount is typically $2,000 to $2,500.
If you think about drug laws, it’s a bigger deal to be a dealer of drugs than just a consumer of drugs. That’s kind of how the copyright holders look at it when they’re dealing with copyright infringement. If you’re actually making videos available, that’s a bigger deal. If you made money off it, that’s a bigger deal.
Penalties for copyright infringement include civil and criminal penalties. In general, anyone found liable for civil copyright infringement may be ordered to pay either actual damages or statutory damages affixed at no less than $750 and no more than $30,000 per work infringed.
The United States Copyright law (1967), the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998) and the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) (2009) state that distributing copyrighted material to which you do not own the copyright or have permission to use and share is illegal. Wayne State University takes these laws seriously and is required by the HEOA to have a program in place to discourage the illegal sharing of copyrighted music, video, texts and other content. This website summarizes the part of the program that affects you.
If you don’t pay that you may find yourself being sued and may be held liable for treble (3x) damages if a judgment goes against you. The short answer is “none”. Copyright violation is a civil rather than criminal offense so generally you won’t have an encounter with law enforcement.
The term "illegal" is misused by a lot of people, which can lead to some misunderstandings. Illegal acts are in violation of the law. But, there are two codes of law in most countries: criminal and civil. Most people think of criminal laws being broken, thus "illegal" to them means you might go to jail.
These laws are about preventing crime and seeking justice. Civil laws are upheld by one civilian taking another civilian to court ("suing them") and the results are injunctions against infringing actions, payment of actual damages to the victim, and possibly punitive damages on top of that.
Copyright is in civil codes, so jail time is not an option. Technically the enforcement of the judges ruling in a civil case is enforced by the criminal law of contempt of court. So if you ignored the order to pay damages to the record company you could go to jail for that, but this is something judges try to avoid.
You will be questioned and released on bail. You will be summoned to court at a later date, where, if you plead or are found guilty, you will be fined, imprisoned, or both. As with all things involving the law and the courts, make sure you have a solicitor who knows this area. Related Answer. Malcolm Kogut.
The short answer is “none”. Copyright violation is a civil rather than criminal offense so generally you won’t have an encounter with law enforcement. (We’ll leave aside how the Copyright Cartel has turned enforcement agencies into its own police force; that’s mostly against people who run servers.)
However, movie studios have managed to pass laws that make you pay for the movie every time you want it in a different format. So, if by “download ing movies for personal use” you mean downloading the movie without paying an official distributor of that movie, yes, it is illegal.