I have answered your question by stating that section 106 indicates that the creator/copyright holder retains exclusive distribution rights. Section 107 (fair use) indicates the manner in which you can use content without violation. neither of these sections indicates that the items may be distributed in the manner of which you speak.

There I think that's answered.

The torrent is causing an illegal act to occur. You don't have the right to distribute material. The copyright holder does. Unless you change my mind with statutes, case law, or a judgement different from the one we are talking of, I believe that you are 100% wrong in your thoughts.

OK... there... now you can answer mine... point me to where fair use says you can distribute in the manner you talk of. No opinion.. just law.. show me. I showed you mine.. you show me yours.

This isn't about me, but I understand if you have nothing to say about my previous point.

yes, but you are too stubborn to understand the WHY of it all.

24 files, in her share directory, which she had no rights to in any way shape or form. They weren't required, as a result, to prove actually distribution, just intent, plus the obvious possession of music files she didn't have ANY rights to.

It comes down to "slam dunk". She doesn't have any rights, they shouldn't be on her system at all for any reason, and she is sharing them. DING DING DING!

There is no reason to take the time to prove the other 1690+ violations. $220,000 for someone like this is more than enough punishment, and shows other file leeches that they can't get away with it so easy.

=-=-=-=

Drjones, as for "old buisness models", things change all the time. A very funny story I read about is that there is a new cellphone player coming to the UK, that will give service away for free, provided you accept to view a certain number of ads each day on your phone (and make some sort of positive action to acknowledge seeing them, no doubt).

Now, some people would say "interesting new business model", and they would be right. However, it begs the question: When everything is supported by advertising alone, where is the money actually made? Cell phone companies are big ad buyers. If the cell phone business turns into an ad based model, will they still have the income to pay for advertising?

At what point do enough of the revenue streams get cannibalized that the whole process falls apart? TV networks would be great buyers of ad time on "ad for use" phones. But imagine if the TV networks no longer have ad revenue because all the advertisers have moved to "ads for play" models? We already have ads for play models for TV, radio, and such, and the public has proven to be not that overwhelmingly interested to pay for sat radio. At some point, something has to actually be sold for money for there to be money to pay.

Music is the same thing. If there is no money made, there is no money to spend. It costs money to make records, to made CDs, to pay for bandwidth for downloads, to buy instruments, to rent tour buses and hundreds of other things that most people take for granted. Without the income from record sales (and the exposure that comes from national and international record play on radio and such), the rest of it would be moot.

Unlimited open downloading doesn't hurt to start with, but over a period of time, when you make the value of your product ZERO, people won't pay anything more than the value established by the marketplace... ZERO.

It is easy to give everything away. It is harder to develop a sustainable business model based on it, where the people producing the content are fairly compensated for their work.

Well sure I have something to say.. that's why I ask the question. If you have no product that is being affected by this, then you have no reference to judge it from this side of the fence.

When you are just a consumer, then you think as the consumer does. I happen to be a producer of product... I think on both sides of the fence.. but when I am losing money because people want something for free and it's "common practice", then I totally disagree with that and side with all other producers.

Common practice should not be illegal, especially when the President himself is guilty of it. Remember when his daughter gave him an ipod loaded with songs? http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/12/bush.ipod/

I guess it's ok for him to do it, and even have it plastered on cnn. Meanwhile average folk are getting fined out the ass for it.

so where in that article did it say that any of his 250 songs was gotten illegally?

The task of downloading the music falls to the 58-year-old president's personal aide, Blake Gottesman, who buys individual songs and albums from the iTunes music store.

Looks to me like they buy all of them... how does that lump him in with the common practice theft group?

You are correct, if record companies don't think fast they are in deep deep trouble. There was an amazing article on Rick Rubin a few weeks back in the NY Times. He is the guy that founded Def Jam records and has a produced albums for some of the biggest acts in the world. He was just hired by Sony to run their music division and "save" it. The first thing he did was bring in a group of 18-24 year olds and asked them to be honest in how the found new music and bought music. Most of them said they get new music either from friends suggesting it or hearing it somewhere like radio/TV and that almost all download the music, don't pay, but don't consider it stealing. When asked why they didn't think it was stealing they said that over the years the industry had taken enough of their money. There have been too many CDs that had one or two good songs (the ones you hear on the radio) and the rest sucked. so you just spent $15-$20 on two songs. They figure they don't want the other stuff, so taking a few songs they like is no big deal.

Rubin claims that two things need to happen for them to survive. First they need to get out of the singles business. The last 10-15 years the music industry has become all about the single. They sell the single and forget the rest of the CD. With a hit single they had the luxury of making people buy the whole CD to get it. Now people can just get the single for free, or buy it for a couple of bucks and they don't have to buy the rest of the crap on the album. Rubin says they need to get away from this and get back into the art business. Remember that music is art and sign and develop artists that will make good records. He also says they need to rethink how they distribute. He thinks a subscription type service might work, but there are a lot of logistics to that that need to get worked out. There is also mention that the record companies would sponsor the tours and take some of the revenue from that. Either way, the record industry is dying fast. The more they sue, the more hard feelings they will create with the music buying public. It's a strange irony, but true. Look at what happened to Metallica. They were the biggest band in the world and have never really been the same since going after Napster and the people that downloaded their songs.

We (meaning this industry) have a big lesson to learn from this. As P2P and torrents and tube sites get more and more popular we are now facing the same problems as the music industry. I don't know the answer on how to fix it, but if something isn't done in 4-5 years we will all be sitting around wondering what went wrong.

...and then they will band together and become big companies that we all are suppose to hate, or their will get bought out by the big companies, or they will run out of money and die. I suggest you read up on the history of Virgin Records (it's an interesting story). Good and little don't stay little for long.

It isn't a question of saying "instead of time warner, let's have all the record companies be bob's discs". It is question of business models. In theory the record company model is broken. So how does it get fixed? Well, you fix it by replacing it with a better business model. The only one proposed so far is either "give everything away for free and make it up in volume" or "sell it for whatever people will pay, living off past glories to create value".

A new band called Radiobutt recording their own record and putting on their own website might not get 10 people to come listen to it. How would they change that? Promotion, marketing, A&R stuff. That is what the record company does. Unless you have a better business model, things won't change.

So his aide shared the itunes files with the prez. According to copyright laws, that's illegal.

well... if you can prove that the aide is purchasing the songs on his own, then sharing them with the Prez, I think you have a case.

I think perhaps you should have a DOH moment and think that he is purchasing for the president with the president's own funds to the president's personal music folder. I would also assume that the president is not distributing his music to the general public.

Oh.. and before you think it... does the president share with his immediate family??? yeah.. probably. Wife, daughters... sure... they are part of his usable circle. If he ships a copy off to Jeb in Florida, I think he's got a problem.

If the song is purchased online ONCE, and put directly onto a single Ipod device, I am not seeing an issue here. I think you are attempting to create a crime that didn't exist.

Finally someone who understands. And yes, I know who Rick Ruben is, lol. People here seem to want to argue for the sake of arguing and not try to figure out a solution to the problem.

I have friends who are in the industry so I know what's going on. They understand that there needs to be change. I suggested record companies get a piece of the touring revenue a few months ago.

Rick is right, mainstream music is way too much about the "single" and seem to care less and less about the album. As a person who listens to albums from start to finish for the most part I hope the go back to this model.

Thank you Kane for finally coming in here with a clear mind and offering something other than baseless law rhetoric.

its not baseless law rhetoric....you are saying adapt to the current situation which pretty much means give it away... many of us find that unacceptable. whos right and wrong time will tell but it doesnt mean you are right.

even with the back to album model, people still want their product protected and not given away.... why put the effort in otherwise?

you keep trying to make the arguement that the courts made their decision based on characteristics that did not EXIST at the time they made the decision.

Digital copies did not exist at that time, and the court did not have a time machine to look into the future and see that technology comming

The effectiveness of BETAMAX VCR was 3-5% degrade over the VTR that were being sold to tv stations to broadcast tv shows at the station level.

The court case in question did not make the distinction you are making because they were unaware of the technology you are aware off. The declared "time shifting" as a valid fair use right adding it to those rights that were explicitly granted by the act itself.

The best quality recording i can now make using the VCR's current day counterpart (DVD RECORDER or PVR) is the same or better quality than i can get with torrent site.

and just like the VCR in the betamax case i can use torrents for the legitimate fair use of "Time shifting" or for the illegal act of piracy. The difference is weather i owned a right to view the content in question.


but you are again ignoring that information that explains how to make a bomb
is also not an innocent piece of information. IT can be used to KILL PEOPLE
the information is protected by first amendment and by copyright law. SO again why do you have a right to violate their first ammendment rights when the government does not have a right to violate the first ammendment rights of bomb making books/webpages.

the point is she did not only have 24 songs in her share folder, she had downloaded and shared 21,000 songs

you are trying to extend the ruling for those 24 songs to argue that all the other sharing is also just as illegal, and that is NOT WHAT THIS CASE PROVED.

the RIAA wanted to avoid the fair use arguement for using KAZAA to recover lost files that she had a right too.

at best they gave up the right to make the claim you are trying to make
at worst they actually ceded the point that it was "fair use" right of recovery.

YOU DON"T HAVE A RIGHT TO MAKE THE CLAIM IT IS NOT until you try that exact situation and the COURT RECOGNIZE YOU ARE RIGHT.

Actually, you are the one making assumptions. In legal terms, when deal with a "again the law except in these cases" the exception must be clearly spelled out. All of the exception in the Betamax case apply to PERSONAL USE, not widespread redistribution.

VCR, DVR... these are all personal use, personal time shift materials. The rights granted under Betamax don't include reselling or large scale sharing of materials. You are implying rights that the court very specifically didn't grant.

Wrong again. The content itself isn't important from the standpoint of what it shows. The source is. If someone took a magazine article on how to build a bomb and put it on a website without permission from the copyright holder, they are in violation. If someone writes down a new post based on things they learned from reading that article in others, and describes it in their own way, they are not violating copyright.

The question is what the torrents / P2P files / networks offer. it isn't a question of is the content legal (ie, porn vs CP) but rather do you have the rights to distribute it. You really are confused on all this, I can tell.

You have the right to talk about how to make bombs. You have the right to make a bomb making website. You don't have the right to distribute someone else's copyrighted movie about how to make a bomb.

Again, you are wrong. Sorry. What I am saying is these particular 24 songs she had no claim of rights on, and it was a slam dunk that required no additional long drawn out court action to prove that they had been either downloaded or shared. They are the slam dunk. It was easy, the amount the jury came back with was more than high enough to prove a point, and more than enough to dissuade at least some file sharing people.

There is nothing in the judgement that says "and the other files were legal", which is what you imply. Rather, the truth is "they didn't go to court on those particular files, just the 24". There was no judgement one way or the other rendered on the other files.

However, the judgement makes it clear that sharing files is in violation of copyright, and she was found liable for a sizable amount. I suspect that if they pushed the issue and spent the time and effort, they could have proved her liability for many more. But there was no need. Anything more than what they did would be massive, massive overkill.

ok let try this again
because you seem to ignore the fact that first ammendment and copyright still protect information that could be use to commit illegal acts like making bombs, cooking up meth, hacking networks etc.
So arguing that you have to eliminate it because it could be used to commit an illegal act would only be valid if the same was true for all information that could be used to commit illegal acts.

So again why do you have a right to violate their first ammendment rights and copyright

you bring the first amendment into it??? the right to free speech? What the hell does that have to do with it.

I am talking about distribution. I could spell it slower if you like.

Section 106.... I as a copyright holder retain distribution rights.
Section 107.... fair use, they are laid out what you can do... everything else is a violation.... recovery is not one of the mentioned uses. Distribution is not allowed.

Betamax was reviewed in Grokster, which I am sure you are familiar with. It was remanded to the Appeals Court (case was from 2005) to address secondary and contributory infringment. Haven't found a decision as of yet.. still looking. Original judgement was for Grokster, but the Supreme Court indicated the ruling was wrong and sent it back.

In Grokster they address the situation of infringing vs non-infringing uses of a device or technology. When it is clear that the overwhelming use of the item in question is for infringing activities, it appears to me that the court rules it to be illegal. What's your take on it? Or do I get ot hear about bomb books some more?

It will be funny to see if the RIAA ever gets a dime out of it. Regardless, fuck the RIAA. The recording industry largely deserves what it is getting. They have been fucking everyone over for years, now it is coming back around.

Gideon is left handed
all males are part of the group men
Gideon is male
therefore all men are left handed

This is a recognized logical falacy you are trying to create with your logical progression.

Just like me being left handed is a special case
the judgement against this women is a special case as well (the circumstance when you are suing regarding content which the person has purchase no rights whatsoever)

using it to prove that putting it in the share folder is automatically proof of infringement in all case because the court ruled that it was true in a very special case (where the person had no rights to the content whatsoever and therefore would have no reason whatsoever to believe they had a right to share the content) is just as valid as claiming that all men are left handed just because i am left handed.

Here's a simple solution to stop illegal downloading. Stop putting your content on things that are so freaking easy to rip like CDs and DVDs. Companies have no one to blame but themselves for people stealing their stuff and if they put the money they spend on suing people for things like this into figuring how to make something that can't be copied then they wouldn't have such a f*cking problem with piracy :2 cents:

First off the HD magically is gone, she fucking knew what she was doing.
I love people that talk about the old business model, what model is that buying and selling goods? There is no business model in people giving your sweat and blood away for free,that they have no permission to do. I wonder if the pro download people in this thread spent time and money actually creating something only to have someone else give away for free and make money off of the act of giving it away.How they would feel. Downloading is stealing without having the balls to actually go into the store and take it.
You know what this fine did, it scared a bunch of people to stop this practice and it made parents aware this practice could be happening under their roofs.
All this bullshit we steal now because you charge alot and the music is bad.
Thats all bullshit, its not that or freedom of speech its if people think they can get away with stealing it and not paying online they will. If no one makes money, there will be less and less new product because it becomes too expensive to produce be it music,movies or porn.

For people who actually make their living in porn to support this really have rocks in their head.

Left handed isn't an issue. Inability to read is.

These particular 24 songs she had no specific rights to in any way shape or form. No CDs, no nothing. They were 24 of the clearest examples, and didnt' require the record companies to go out and show who downloaded them, when, how, etc. The mere presence of these 24 songs, listed on Kazaa from this user as "shared" is enough meet the burden of proof for this lawsuit.

No other conclusions can be drawn except that logging into kazaa or other file sharing systems and seeding files is apparently a violation of copyright.

In this case the supreme court ruled (majority opp)

""...in the absence of other evidence of intent, a court would be unable to find contributory infringement liability merely based on a failure to take affirmative steps to prevent infringement, if the device otherwise was capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Such a holding would tread too close to the Sony safe harbor."

however they ruled that it should be sent back because

"[t]his case differs markedly from Sony" based on insufficient evidence of noninfringing uses"

that was why it was sent back.

now getting back to your arguement that the be all and end all of fair use is what is defined in the act

YOU KNOW THIS IS NOT TRUE, all you have to do is look at the act and see that there is no fair use "time shifting" defined in the act, nor is there any "format shifting" (your referenced case)

Court case like ones i have quoted have ADDED THESE FAIR USE RIGHTS, and just like the ones specified in the all the cases i have referenced

when the technology can be used for a noninfinging use then technology as a whole is non-infringing.

and you must go after the people who are actually using the technology to infringe on the copyright (infringing seeders)

So far the court have not ruled on weather the copyright holder had a choice to artifically inflate the number of infringements (non time shifting, non backup using acts) of the technology by CHOOSING not to take the infringing seeders out of the swarm by targeting the infringing seeders isp. AND THEN USING this artificially inflated percentage of infringing uses to destroy the technology as a whole.

As a person who understands technology who realizes that torrent technology could be used to significantly reduce the cost of backing up files by eliminating redundancies in the backup (instead of backing up windows 100 times you can reconstruct a corrupt dll in the os from the other copies in the network). I would hate to see the technology killed.

I also don't believe the court would rule that copyright holders have a right to create the situation of a majority infringement and then profit from this action to kill what could be a legitimate technology.

The grokster case is right on point with the whole torrent situation. They paid 50 million dollars and agreed to shut down.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9959133/

Especially interesting is this:

That sounds pretty much exactly like TPB, now doesn't it?

I fully agree that everyone who creates any kind of content should have the right to protect it however they want. Porn and music are both a little different yet the same. I think there are ways to get a product out there and into people's hands without having to give it away.

The problem I see with the RIAA suing is that there is already animosity among music fans who are sick of being overcharged for what turn out to be crappy albums. Also a lot of people try new music by stealing it. They maybe weren't willing to spend $15 on a CD from a band they have never heard before, but if they get if free, they try it out. Some small bands say file sharing actually helped them get notice. The more the RIAA sues the more people tend to see them as greedy and the more they rebel against them. It's a can't win situation for the music biz. Maybe if the industry started to show that they were focused on putting good albums out again they might be more willing to pay for it again. There are some people that still sell a lot of records and I think one reason for that is that people know those artists can be counted on to put out a good album, not just a couple of singles.

The parallels of the music biz and our biz are very similar. I think the potential problems are the same. Finding a solution is not going to be easy. Ultimately suing may not be the best answer to the problem. The RIAA has filed over 20,000 lawsuits and still they haven't made a dent in file sharing. how many content producers or affiliate programs out there have the money to file that many lawsuits? It is possible that this ends up being one of those situations where some stealing is inevitable, you just end up hoping more people pay then steal.

If its a legitimate technology then use it legitimately. Its very simple but unfortunately not many care to use it on the up and up.If they did its main purpose wouldnt be a tool for theft.

you are either being really stupid or you are being deliberately daft to make an invalid point.

no other conclusion can be drawn except that logging into kazaa or other file sharing systems and seeding files is apparently a violation of copyright IF YOU HAVE NEVER BOUGHT ANY RIGHTS TO SAID FILES.

ignoring the required precondition changes the entire context of the arguement and you know that

The key point of your statement is "for this lawsuit" because this lawsuit limited the ruling to the situation where the infringer "NEVER BOUGHT ANY RIGHTS TO SAID FILES"

Again they dont have to buy the whole cd, 99 cents each you can buy the songs you like so that argument is weak.They just dont want to pay.Also all this does is up the cost of production so that means no money for the cool band that will take a few years to build a following.

the problem is that people like SF and RAW want to ignore the fair uses of the technology

I use torrents to "timeshift" (BETAMAX CASE) viewing rights to a later date, or to "recover/backup" lost files i paid for (321 Studios Software).

both of those fair use rights have been recognized as valid.

AND IF YOU WENT AFTER THE INFRINGING SEEDERS directly or thru their ISP (INTERMEDIARIES) you could guarrentee that would be the only use of the technology.

Trying to kill the technlogy kills those fair use rights as well.

Everything you stated really isnt legimate, you know this your not stupid.If denial makes you feel better then so be it. Legitimate would be something you created and then got back or a company gets files to its other offices around the world. There is no money in that.

That was nice.. you quoted the case ruling.. very nice.. but you left out the part it referenced.. seeing as your quote was a footnote. Here's the part before yours.

Second, this evidence of unlawful objective is given
added significance by MGM?s showing that neither company
attempted to develop filtering tools or other mechanisms
to diminish the infringing activity using their software.
While the Ninth Circuit treated the defendants?
failure to develop such tools as irrelevant because they
lacked an independent duty to monitor their users? activity,
we think this evidence underscores Grokster?s and
StreamCast?s intentional facilitation of their users? infringement.

Third, there is a further complement to the direct evidence
of unlawful objective. It is useful to recall that
StreamCast and Grokster make money by selling advertising
space, by directing ads to the screens of computers
employing their software. As the record shows, the more
the software is used, the more ads are sent out and the
greater the advertising revenue becomes. Since the extent
of the software?s use determines the gain to the distributors,
the commercial sense of their enterprise turns on
high-volume use, which the record shows is infringing

This evidence alone would not justify an inference of
unlawful intent, but viewed in the context of the entire
record its import is clear.
The unlawful objective is unmistakable

The discussion is whether or not Grokster was intentionally facilitating their users bad ways.

This line you took from Ginsburg rather than from Souter (Souter wrote the majority, Ginsburg concurred) and you have misquoted.... That's not what it says at all. Try reading the whole thing. The only part you got right in that whole sentence was the items between the quote marks. The rest is incorrect.

Not True.. for a man that is fighting I am a man.. all men are lefthanded logic, you just did it yourself. when the technology can be used for a noninfinging use then technology as a whole is non-infringing. Completely UNTRUE and WRONG

In Grokster, they address that issue and the court weighs the infringing uses against the non-infringing uses.

In Betamax, the non-infringing was about 10% to 90% but the technology leant itself to how the decision was rendered.

In Grokster, the opposite held true. They ruled that it was overwhelmingly being used for infringing uses. They did not rule that therefore it was acceptable, in fact they overruled the appeals decision saying so and sent it back for review. Ultimately, the ruling was against Grokster to the tune of $50 million in damages.

[/quote]As a person who understands technology who realizes that torrent technology could be used to significantly reduce the cost of backing up files by eliminating redundancies in the backup (instead of backing up windows 100 times you can reconstruct a corrupt dll in the os from the other copies in the network). I would hate to see the technology killed.

I also don't believe the court would rule that copyright holders have a right to create the situation of a majority infringement and then profit from this action to kill what could be a legitimate technology.[/QUOTE]

The technology must prove itself otherwise it will be shut down. All we have to do is prove the infringements and that the technology suppliers intend its use to be illegal. It can start out with the best intentions, but if the users break the rules and the owners do nothing about it, they can be held liable.

Now Gideon you may think Im an asshole but Im fucking tried of having to be extra sweet to have whole rips of my sites taken down only to go back up in a few more days or be told we will take it down but your wasting your time or the bbw themed bt that has over 3000 of my images but there is no way to contact them on the site, so now I have to take my time to chase these motherfuckers. This is my sweat and blood , I paid for the equipment, sat thru the ass numbing classes,dealt with ibill fucking me out of 13 grand,worked the two jobs to get it off the ground only to have it given away so people can make money off of aff/cams and fling ads. Im fucking pissed.

True people can buy singles and that is part of what is killing the record biz. their business model was built on selling albums, not singles. If they spend a ton of money recording an album, making videos and promoting an album then people only the buy the single the record company often never really makes its money back. I think people don't buy singles because they feel like the record company is giving them away free. You get it on the radio or the band's website or MTV for free, they think, "so why should I pay."

This is because they are misguided. If they want to record off the radio, that is an accepted Fair Use. They may not re-distribute this recording. It is not theirs to do with as they wish.

The money has nothing to do with it. From an early age, I knew what was stealing and what wasn't.. They are stealing

I was raised the same way. Also its alot cheaper on itunes, I wanted to buy that jewish rappers first cd.At borders it was like 18 dollars plus tax, I thought not worth it.Went on itunes and it was either 9.99 or 10.99 so there is options.

I just finally saw the movie The Departed. My wife is Irish... so the opening song spoke to her (Irish/Punk... pretty cool)... I didnt' get turned on by the whole album, so I bought two singles.... If they only offered the whole album, I may have considered it.. but they offered singles, so I bought. Seriously people... $2 is too much? (i actually spent like 50 on music last month).

now as far as the single vs album business model. I don't know how I will react until they change. For now, I have the option of the single, so I do that when I don't want an entire album. Honestly, since they didn't have to press a CD and cover art for me, they probably made $1.50 off of me and iTunes the other .50 for processing it. Not a bad profit margin I assume when there is no major overhead for materials.

No, it's you being daft. The RIAA did it this way because it is easier, quicker, and without issue to show that the material was obtained without permission and then reseeded / shared without permission. Anything that she had purchased or had a CD for would be more difficult to prove (qould require to show that they were in fact shared). These files, they just had to show (a) she didn't have any rights to have them, and (b) she place them in her sahre directory and made them available to other Kazaa users.

Don't be so dense as to think that the record companies would for a second suggest that the other 1600+ files were acceptable. The whole idea was to get a court case that could be completed in a reasonable amount of time without getting highly technical. They won.

Move on. You are making a fool out of yourself trying to dance on the head of a legal pin.

I want some of what you are smoking. It is good shit, man!

You cannot timeshift what you didn't yourself obtain. That is to say, in order to timeshift a TV show, example, you need to be the one to record it to start with. Otherwise, the person distributing the file to you is doing so in violation of the terms that were used when he was given the right to view it. That person (especially on torrents) has no way to know if the people receiving the file have the rights to see it, and in fact it is likely that a large percentage of them do not.

Recovering lost files is also a bullshit excuse, and you know it. If you needed a backup copy of a file, you would contact the manufacture for a new disk. In fact, many companies allow registered users access to download updated and such right on their websites. Obtaining a "backup" of software over a network that is both unreliable and extremely slow to download isn't easy to explain. Why would you choose to use the worst possible method to obtain your backups? Also, once again, the person providing those files doesn't have the right to make those files generally available over a sharing system, ergo you have no right to receive the stolen property.

So sorry, your excuses are total, utter, and complete bullshit, and wouldn't stand up for 2 seconds in court.

The other part is that even if we take your examples to the max, they represent less than about 0.0001% of all of the files on most torrent sites. Most of the software titles are hacked, cracked, or come with a software key generator. End users do not have the right to redistribute TV shows (read the credits, your rights are specifically limited), and certainly they cannot redistribute them in cut format (commercials excluded).

All that sums up to say that while torrent trackers, torrent sites, and torrent protocol has legitimate uses, it's illegitimate uses far outweigh the very narrow scope of use.

remember the grokster case:
The torrent site's intentions are clear. They are not there to provide a legal and legit service, but rather to encourage the posting of desirable (and most often illegally sourced) material to drive more users to their sites and to raise ad revenues. The US Supreme court is very clear on this. I don't understand what part you don't get.