But... it's not illegal, so your entire argument is invalid. Sorry, not sorry.
I'm afraid that it's not invalid - it's entirely factual, although matters like this vary from country to country, so we'll have to use the U.S example since you're U.S-based.
Let's see:
17 US Code § 106 said:
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
Keywords in bold, especially the
exclusive part. If you're not an owner of a copyright or have the owner's express permission, you cannot legally distribute, copy or perform copyrighted work. Let's go on.
BMG Music v. Gonzalez said:
Section 107 provides that when considering a defense of fair use the court must take into account “(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. (...) Gonzalez was not engaged in a nonprofit use; she downloaded (and kept) whole copyrighted songs (for which, as with poetry, copying of more than a couplet or two is deemed excessive); and she did this despite the fact that these works often are sold per song as well as per album. This leads her to concentrate on the fourth consideration: “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. (...) As she tells the tale, downloading on a try-before-you-buy basis is good advertising for copyright proprietors, expanding the value of their inventory. The Supreme Court thought otherwise in Grokster, with considerable empirical support. As file sharing has increased over the last four years, the sales of recorded music have dropped by approximately 30%. Perhaps other economic factors contributed, but the events likely are related. Music downloaded for free from the Internet is a close substitute for purchased music; many people are bound to keep the downloaded files without buying originals. That is exactly what Gonzalez did for at least 30 songs. It is no surprise, therefore, that the only appellate decision on point has held that downloading copyrighted songs cannot be defended as fair use, whether or not the recipient plans to buy songs she likes well enough to spring for. See A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1014-19 (9th Cir. 2001). See also UMG Recordings, Inc. v. MP3.com, Inc., 92 F. Supp. 2d 349 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) (holding that downloads are not fair use even if the downloader already owns one purchased copy).
[In this case, the court upheld $22 500 statutory damages against the defendant]
The more you know - hosting, sharing and downloading illegal copies of copyrighted content instead of paying for it is... well, illegal. Who would've thought?
The case above is relatively mild in comparison to what a BitTorrent one could be as Gonzales was only charged under the reproduction right
(17 USC 106(1)),
not accused of illegaly
sharing aka
"distributing" the files under the distribution right
(17 USC 106(3)). The nature of the BitTorrent protocol is that
you simultaneously download and upload content to and from other peers - this means that
whether you like it or not, you are a cog in the
distribution machine and you
are liable to have charges pressed
against you. Technically you could leech, but that won't take you far on most BT trackers which have long since introduced Ratio systems to control traffic on a
"you share, you receive" basis.
As far as
viewing illegal
(we've established that they're illegal now on the same token as any illegal upload is) streams is concerned, the law is vague in this regard and I would wager that such matters are treated on an individual basis. Technically speaking, when watching a stream, you are a passive viewer. You don't take part in the infringing process - the uploader
(direct copyright infringement) and the hosting service
(secondary copyright infringement, but subject to debate) does.
This might not always remain the case though - one could argue that during streaming, the data
is sent to your computer, however momentarily, creating a new, temporary copy of the infringed work which is then projected onto the screen, but I've heard arguments that it is so
"fleeting" in nature that it would not stand in the court of law.
Another problem here is also so-called
contributory liability. Although not codified, this kind of liability is established on a case-to-case basis and it does not have to be a result of any active involvement in the process of distribution or copying, rather in the act of enabling or benefitting from said act as a third party. This means you, stream-viewer. Although contributory liability was often approached from the
"enabling" viewpoint
(Sony vs. Universal City Studios and Betamax which allegedly "enabled" creating pirated copies), I can see how the
"benefiting" angle could be used as well - you use a free streaming service fully aware of the fact that the copies are illegal
and you benefit as you get to watch the content, meaning you keep a blind eye to illegal activity.
Either way, it's definitely something that copyright-protecting organizations have a spyglass over.
Notwithstanding,
BortzANATOR wants to view
legal streams which give a portion of their proceeds to the copyright holders - he's not interested in illegal downloads
or watching streams on illegal hosting or linking sites.
And yes, we could argue about this all day, but smarter heads than ours have gotten bruised time and time again in this process.