Is the Government really cracking down on Downloading??

Unless you use an anonymous network, which both direct downloads and BitTorrent are not, anyone can see you downloading something. Heck, any BT client worth it's salt normally has a "peers" window that shows you all the connected peers and seeds on that torrent. If the government ran their own torrent, or more likely their own tracker, it would be very easy to tell it's you. Same thing with direct downloads.

Basically, when you download illegally, you are taking a risk. It's up to you in order to decide weither the reward justifies the risk you're taking.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Downloading is infact legal. The problem comes when you use BT, since the very nature of BT is that while downloading you are simutaneously uploading the same material back up to others. Uploading is illegal. As far as the personal copy rationalizing, I think they ruled on that somewhere down the line, the DMCA probably has a provision on it somewhere. I don't know any specifics though...

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Eleo

Not necessarily. In many cases, yes, but in some cases you can just leech away without uploading to any peers.

Plus with all the copy protection they put on CDs and DVDs, one could claim that the only way to obtain a personal copy to which they are entitled was to download.

I heard that the best way to avoid getting in real trouble is to set up an open, insecure wireless network in your house. I read two articles claiming that people who said they had this were quickly dismissed. The bottom line is that they can track your IP but an IP only points to the person paying for the ISP, not the person on your computer or internet connection in general. Even if your network is secure you could just as easily claim it was hacked.

But then again if you don't upload to your peers, BitTorrent dies, that simple. The "Oh well copy protection sux" excuse won't work because... well you know... it's just not an argument. The judge would just say you could have decided not to legally/illegally obtain it if you didn't like copy protection.
Finally, I think your last idea may float. One could claim some random guy logged onto your network and started downloading using it all withought you knowing. That's still risky though, if they put a warrant on your computer to further investigate your claims and they catch you trying to delete any files since the warrant was made, you'd be in trouble for obstruction of justice.

I would say there are two ways to go about downloading. The first is to just take the risk. I'm sure statistics are in your favor of not getting caught. If you don't want to take that risk, then by all means find a really good private tracker. The only downside to that is, from my experiance, all the private trackers don't have nearly as many files or seeds as do public trackers.

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There is some validity to that I think. Obviously, anime like the kind you would download from sub groups that are generally unplayed in America is a very niche market. I would doubt the MPAA and the likes would honestly care if some guy is downloading the latest episode of Kokokug No De Shishi off a tracker. Nor would they care if you download the corresponding OST's. But if you try downloading say Greenday or something, yah the RIAA will take a bit more interest in you.

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I don't think there's any real way of knowing for mattar of fact. If they are, they aren't publicising it. If the public reports of litigation are any indication, they are infact cutting back on the amount of cases being brought forth. That's not really a reliable source though, since obviously you can't report on every case going on at the time, and the media will instead only focus on select few cases, until that is the whole topic loses the medias interest and they stop reporting on it.

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