Times couldn’t be better when it comes to easy access to lots of great entertainment. We can thank the proliferation of broadband use in increasing numbers of households as well as the rapid expansion of the Internet for this. With this plentitude comes issues that concern the safety of our computers and privacy as well as the integrity of our ethics.

Safety and ethics are the primary motivations for a lot people that look for legal sources of movie downloads. However, you may be making illegal downloads of movies by accident even though your intentions might be in the right place. Therefore, you may be placing your privacy and computer at risk through exposure to spy ware and viruses that may accompany these downloads.

Your instincts to stay away from download sites that appear suspicious and amateurish are correct but they’re not enough. Even using a legitimate download membership at a professionally deigned web site can result in your getting movies illegally. It doesn’t matter that you’ve paid a fee or that the owner of the download membership has great intentions, it can still happen.

So how is this possible? If the membership site offers access to a ridiculous quantity of movies (millions) for modest a fee of about $25, then he’s probably setting you up with the means for accessing and downloading movies off a peer to peer (p2p) file sharing network. He is doing nothing illegal since there are an almost infinite number of downloads on p2p and the knowledge and means to exploit p2p is certainly worth the fee.

When you know enough about using p2p to get yourself into trouble, the problems begin. The stage is set for damaging your computer with a virus or suffering from identity theft because of spy ware if you use p2p naively without an awareness of the associated risks. Unbeknownst to you, those movies that you’re happily downloading were uploaded illegally.

You won’t get complete protection from the viruses that are set loose on p2p with the anti-virus program installed on your computer. Your computer is only protected against the specific spy ware and viruses that the anti-virus software was programmed to recognize. Viruses that are obscure, new, or a modified version of something well known, will not be recognized by your anti-virus software.

A good rule of thumb for determining if a movie is legal for download is that if it is older than 4 or 5 decades, it is probably in the public domain without a copyright. If you find a free movie on a p2p network that is a recent Hollywood blockbuster, then it is illegal to download. Locating the odd movie that is the exception to this rule will demand a lot of research on your part.

So getting safe and legal movie downloads from a p2p network is not as simple as turning on a TV set. If you’re worried about threats to your computer and your personal information, then you aren’t enjoying yourself. If you are researching movie copyrights, you’re doing work rather than relaxing.

Perhaps it’s time to look around for a real movie download site that guarantees safe and legal downloads and has nothing to do with p2p networks. A movie download membership that sets you up with p2p cannot make any guarantees about safety or legality. If you are downloading movies from p2p file sharing networks, you are on your own.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Share This