I'm not aware of any court case where downloading and watching movies without the rights owner's permission was considered OK. Instead, the downloader always had to pay a fine.
Copyright infringement is not theft.
Theft is legally distinct. It is also morally distinct - the 'owner' of the 'intellectual property' is not deprived of their ownership if someone violates the transactional model by looking without permission.
Copyright infringement is not theft. It is interference with a business model. Please stop saying obviously incorrect things.
> And the rhetoric by rights owners has always been downloading==theft.
Do you echo every pressure group's rhetoric?
IP companies such as media companies and patent holders often try to spin unlicensed access to media or information as theft because it sounds worse, but in practice the actual crime is "illegal access to intellectual property" or something similar to that.
However it is illegal to mass distribute movies on the net, like bittorrent-style to people you do not know personally. Yes it's a bit hard to define friends but if you find yourself burning copies of CD's in bulk, it's most likely not ok.
Usually the act of copying is not the problem, distribution is.
And FWIW, it’s very often an uploader who has to pay a fine for distributing copyrighted work (not theft). Fines for downloading are pretty rare.
No. In many places simple copyright violation is not a crime, and so there are no fines. The rights holders can sue for losses. But this isn't a criminal case between the state and an alleged criminal, it's a case between two citizens (although one of them may be a corporate person).
There are things that tip copyright violation into a criminal offence: doing it as part of business (selling the DVDs that you've downloaded), doing it so much it materially affects the rights holders.
However, I totally agree with the sentiment, and I’ve long felt this way about petty crimes like shoplifting, which are harshly punished and shamed, while on the flip-side you have crimes like wage theft which goes effectively unpunished and is even defended as legitimate by some.
In Poland downloading music, movies and images is legal. (software is treated specially and just downloading may be illegal)
And I suspect that "always" is untrue also after limiting to USA.
No one has ever been sued for DOWNLOADING a movie. They get sued for UPLOADING a movie.
Important distinction. Mere possession is not a crime - everything is copyrighted, and it isn't the responsibility of someone holding a copy to know if the person that gave them that copy was authorized to to so.