Are torrents legal?

[Games master]

Hello all i have heard a lot about torrents and people do make bad use of them by downloading illegal things.But i don't use them.I want to ask if torrents are legal or illegal.

[kingjacob]

torrents as in the download method that uses seeders instead of a central server isnt illegal but using that method to download copyrighted files is illegal.

[j.blu]

Yeah, what kingjacob said. BitTorrents are protocols for downloading, and are very LEGAL, just like P2P networks. However, the content that you download may not be legal. So I recommend being cautious of the things you download.

[paranoid87]

lol i agree..the means is itself legal..but the thing which we are downloading could be wrong

like driving a car itself is no crime, but drinking and driving is a crime!

[Xenigo123]

The argument from the torrents companies is that since they aren't hosting the content they aren't liable for copyright infringement. But ask yourself this before you download something via a torrent site...if you wrote a killer product, like an affiliate e-book, wouldn't it tick you off to lose sales because someone put it on a torrent site and people are able to access it for free. It wouldn't feel so good then.

[paranoid87]

i agree Xenigo..and thats why torrents are so famous :-p

[exculiber]

It is a convenient way of sharing files online. But this is being abused since illegal copies are made available for public consumption. Torrent's purpose is noble. But contents available are mostly illegal.

[Rajat]

Torrent,P2P and others are made so People can share files online with each other but nowdays all are heavily abused ..

So,Most of torrents are illegal

-- Rajat

[Nixon1]

any torrent site you go to whether it be private or a public torrent search engine
the majority of the files (99.9%) are going to be illegal to download

[thegetpr]

in any way torrent is illegal all over the globe except asia and netherland

[justin11]

Torrents are legal but how it is being used makes it illegal. It depends on how it will be used.

[jeffanderson264]

I think torrents are not illegal because there should must be many issues with them if they be.

[eileen10101]

Pretty nice concern has been put forward.. needs to be appreciated..!!

Eileen..
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[johnniedice]

Originally Posted by justin11

Torrents are legal but how it is being used makes it illegal. It depends on how it will be used.

This is correct. Alot of websites these days release software on torrents because it reduces bandwidth. But just like alot of new online technology, it can be used for legal purposes as well as illegal purposes.

[Ryley]

Torrents are definitely legals, but at least 70 % of torrents trafics concern illegal downloads , which is why every countries are trying to shut torrents websites down now .

[homemodifications]

It uses seeders instead of a central server isnt illegal but using that method to download copyrighted files is illegal.

[jinnah007]

Torrent it self is Legal, it depends the way how it is used, I myself used Torrent for downloading movies.

[employement]

Torrents themselves are not illegal. They are simply small files that help a BitTorrent client connect to a tracker and find peers to download files from. Nor is downloading stuff using torrents necessarily illegal. The BitTorrent protocol is a legitimate way to distribute large files without straining a server too much. It is used for legal software like Linux distros and OpenOffice, as well as some public domain music and videos.

[DuncanCox]

Well, Although it is illegal but still I use it. Just because it has all the solution of my problems.

[richjr]

torrenting is legal, but the files you are downloading/sharing more than likely is illegal.