Piracy, Legal or Not? Options

[medic]

I've noticed on this forum that they shut down almost every topic that has to do with any P2P program. Its not piracy to have a P2P program, or to use it. Its the way people use it. RealPlayer records what you play and sends it to there datacenter, that invasion of privacy, why aren't they getting sued. And NO they don't ask you if you want to participate in a consumer deal, they do it on there own will. The program is made to share information, so if you find a P2P program illegal, shut down all topics about AIM, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger - they all have P2P in there, you can send files through them - but for some odd reason there not considered ILLEGAL and don't get stereotyped as PIRACY. Consumers label a P2P program as Piracy, I think it is unjust. Why isn't TiVo illegal - it records movies without commercials and you can then burn them to a CD. If I wanted I could go set TiVo to make a copy of Assault on Precinct 13 on HBO or Stars and then burn it to a DVD. I didn't pay for that movie, I pay for the channel - but that still does not make it legal for me to do that. So in what ways does you downloading the same movie off a torrent site have any different effect. The RIAA and MPAA are just looking for more ways to screw consumers over.

I am doing what one of the mods said, to post it in debate - so I did. And I bet it gets shut down again.

[antix10_kos]

God, I know all about the hidden spyware. I lost a computer to Kazaa's madness. Most programs come bundled with the adware and spyware. I don't really trust anything that's free on the net. I've had WinMX for almost 2 years now, no bs and it's still working great. My computer is a happy camper, I must say.

However, I find it wrong that they "hide" those creepy little bugs in the TOS, which they bog down with all the tedious langauge and small print, knowing that 99% of people don't read past the first paragraph or read it at all. I think that any and all add-ons should be clearly outlined and listed in the TOS, in big, bold print so that people can make informed decisions about whether or not it's really worth it to have a P2P program.

Also, a friend of mine subscribes to cable on her computer and has it auto-record her favorite shows and movies while she's at work and school so that she can watch it on her own schedule. If it's legal for a person to use their computer as TV/VCR and time-delay their shows and all, then why should anyone have a problem with TiVo??

Another point: Very few of these so-called free P2P programs are really free because they are actually being financed by the companies that have their adware installed on the computers alongside the programs... Of course, I think that's been hinted at in the previous post, but hey, it's true, it needs to be repeated.