If downloading is Illegal, why then are Torrent sites still up and running...?

Always legal to:

1. create and store copies of copywrited works that you own

2. to "media shift" any and all of the works that you purchased

3. to move works among your different media machines, to enjoy

4. to gather and store, use, manipulate, time shift, all works

What is Illegal is for you to SELL or distribute, "en masse" COPIES of copywrited works. Give away or sell the original!

So, most of us run a good hardware firewall, like http://ipcop.org/

and upto 50X faster http://pclinuxos.com/ on our X86 computers,

just like Microsoft does, on their Hotmail.com, MSN.com, Microsoft.com, 45,000 systems, because Linux is virus proof.

My preference is Frostwire, included with 5500 games, programs, including torrent choices, in http://pclinuxos.com/

Downloading of copyrighted materials is illegal in the US. So what most of the Torrent sites do is to host their sites on servers in countires which have different copyright laws. By hosting the site on a server in a country that does not honor US copyrights, they can prevent the US authorities from shutting them down. So instead the authorites have been going after the individuals using the torrents rather than the sites offering the torrents.

The technology behind torrents is a very powerful idea that allows people to download ANY file from there peers. Company that produce web tv shows or similar high bandwidth content would prefer to take advantage of this so instead of everyone going directly to their server they can look around and find a copy closer to them.

It is a very dynamic technology and very fast.

If you watch the news they did bust the largest illegal torrent site a few months ago, pirates bay

http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php

Downloading is not illegal. The unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials is. There is a big difference between these two, and uncopyrighted or other authorized works represent a significant number of downloads.

Granted, there are plenty of copyrighted materials available for download, however it is not practical for police to monitor and investigate everything. Anti-piracy efforts are targeted at the biggest culprits who make the most money, as these individuals are seen as bigger threats than casual downloaders.

downloading is not illegal, hacking is! though i know how to hack your computer and other sites for my personal use. Torrent sites are authorized to let people download stuff from their sites, some sites needed cash before you could download since they pay their webmaking stuff and they pay for other things. local cops with stupid guns don't know much of that kind of stuff, teens and children addicted to computer have far more intelligence than any adult. execpt when that adult has been gifted with such brain(like me) and went to a University to study the facts and things about computers and stuff.

Bittorrent is now legal.

These websites are located in different countries, not just the U.S., and laws in those other countries aren't as strict as the U.S.

And they certainly are trying - but every time one server goes down, another goes up just as fast.

Depends what kind of stuff u download...and whether the particular portal has given the rights to users to download or not?