What about the people who confess they use illegal file sharing websites?

Question

On the news they usually interview someone who confesses to using a file-sharing website such as The Pirate Bay site, so what happens to these people who admit they use them?

And why is The Pirate Bay website still up and running? Even with all the legal matters surrounding it.

Answer 1

The website is up and running because the PB guys are filing an appeal. The powers that be are also filing an appeal asking that it be shut down. As far as those who admit they use the site, who knows.

Answer 2

The Pirate Bay (and any "file sharing" site in general) does not do anything illegal as they dont host the files themselves. The BitTorrent protocol connects users directly to eachother to download files. This is done through torrent files and trackers. Torrent files will tell torrenting clients what to download and what tracker to connect to, while trackers (like TPB) tell the torrenting client who to connect to. Its really a legal gray area. I mean, if somebody asked you where to get drugs, and you told them but didnt give them drugs yourself, would you be charged?

Also, about the people who admit to using it, it all depends on laws. Here in Canada its illegal but nobody really cares if you pirate. The police wont go after you or anything.

Answer 3

Further, what makes it even more complicated is that the torrent protocol isn't illegal in and of itself. It's simply a way to "host" files without having the overhead of actually hosting the files yourself.



For instance, it is possible to download Linux distributions via a torrent. http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/