It's never been more legal than it is today - it's not like in 1997 KaZaA and Morpheus were bastions of legal activity.
Then suddenly the highest court disallowed it. Guess what, we still pay the copy tax.
Clarification: The copy tax was meant to compensate copyright owners for consumers making copies (for private use) of purchased media. It was widely interpreted as to allow downloading from the internet as well (even from pirated sources).