zlacker

Is copyright in America different to Britain? There, it is legal to download books you don't own. Only distribution is a crime, which most torrenters break by seeding.

>>irthom+(OP)
What do you mean by 'it is legal'?

Do you mean:

A) It's not a criminal offence?

B) The copyright owner cannot file a civil suit for damages?

C) Something else?

>>rahimn+tc
> Only distribution is a crime

>>irthom+(OP)
I think it's very similar in both countries, but you have got it wrong. Downloading a book without permission is copyright infringement in both countries, regardless of whether you distribute it.

In the UK it's a criminal offense if you distribute a copyrighted work with the intent to make gain or with the expectation that the owner will make a loss.

Gain and loss are only financial in this context.

Meaning that in both countries the copyright owner can sue you for copyright infringement.

>>irthom+fh
Only distribution with the intent to make money is a crime. If you are doing it for free you are not criminally liable. Unless I am missing something.

>>irthom+fh
What relevance does that have to the present case? The judge, in this civil matter, said there would be a trial. He didn't say anything about it being a criminal trial. The strings 'crim' and 'felon' do not appear in the ruling.

  We will have a trial on the pirated copies used to create Anthropic’s central library and the resulting damages, actual or statutory (including for willfulness).

>>rahimn+Ci
There can always be a trial, even if nothing was done to warrant it.

I think the distinction between civil and criminal trials is smaller in my home country. The fact that there is a trial at all implies that someone commited a ‘crime’.

>>irthom+(OP)
It's not a crime in the US, either, I believe, but you can certainly be sued in civil court for it.

>>throwa+ji
Any distribution of copyrighted material can cause you a big trouble.