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Comment by gte910h | Hacker News Reader

Oh definitely. Also definitely an illegal thing to download which will probably have court cases going after it and IP trolls fiercely finding who downloaded it, etc.

I'm a big boy: I can ignore editorial commentary if I get to not commit a crime.

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It's telling that even Hacker News users are so intimidated that they are afraid to click on a link. I find it surprising and a bit scary (but I don't live in the US).

Do you have days to spend talking to police and lawyers instead of working? I'd rather not.

It's not 'clicking on a link' that's the issue, it's making a copy of sony's website's source code, which is very possibly a felony.

How could it be any more illegal than reading wikileaks?

To download it, you (basically) are also sharing the file.

It's as illegal as mirroring wikileaks.

Oh, you mean like these?

http://boingboing.net/2010/12/03/wikileaks-blocked-bu.html

Mirroring Wikileaks is not illegal, First Amendment... highest law in the land.

The government's PR branch has really done a number on you. It's absolutely legal to host or mirror Wikileaks, under any reasonable interpretation of the law; remember that the only way that the government can dig up a case on Assange is to try to label him as a co-conspirator in directly obtaining the information. Just distributing the material is protected -- it's the same thing that newspapers do all the time.

EDIT: On reflection, I shouldn't sound so confident, because I'm not a lawyer. But that's my understanding.

It does seem to be legal, for now. That doesn't mean that the US government is unwilling to, say, question you every time you fly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Investigation_a....

(Note that Jacob was more involved than simply running a mirror, though.)

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