No. They're middle-men ensuring that private interest organisations can circumvent the courts. That's why people are upset. These organisations have lobbied the legislature to avoid having to deal with a judiciary system that often found their methods to be unlawful. Some of these sites are outlets for people committing felony copyright infringement, but others are not. Torrenting, for example, is not a crime. It's a tort handled as a civil matter.
Originally Posted by &&toasties
Originally Posted by &&toasties
its a huge grey are you're getting into. limewire was shut down for the fact that people were able to download songs that the artist or record label owners did not want them to be that easily (cheaply availiable). in my view torrenting falls under the same category as limewire and napster. there is almost no way the government or torrent provider/search engine can regulate every single thing that people can torrent, its just not plausible at all. regardless of these points, i understand both sides because i too, enjoy torrenting music and downloading from p2p search engines, but i also understand the governments point of view and the need to censor/ban certain content. you shouldn't need court to see if you can stop illicit activity, a cops not gonna walk down the street and say, oh theres a guy robbing a store, i'm gonna go see if i can get a court order to stop him. yes, eventually it should/will go to court, but you have to take care of business first
they don't need a court order to stop them, if they have exigent circumstances they can shut it down, then later prove that they were doing something illegal, then go though the proper channels. the trouble comes when they do that and later can't prove that something illegal was happening.