The legality of downloading TV shows is unclear due to outdated copyright laws. Some suggest it violates existing laws, while others compare it to recording broadcasts for personal viewing. Legal ways to download include purchasing episodes or seasons from authorized companies. Digital video recording devices are legal for personal use, but downloading from unauthorized sources infringes copyright. Major US networks offer authorized streaming services.
Copyright protection laws aren’t always up to date with technology, so it’s hard to say, in general, whether you can legally download TV shows for any kind of purpose. Some legal analysts suggest that consumers who do so are clearly violating existing copyright laws. Others identify the practice with videotaping or digitally recording broadcasts for later personal viewing. Currently, the most common methods used to download programs are very similar to the file sharing systems already challenged in courts around the world. There are also legal ways to download TV, usually by purchasing individual episodes or entire seasons from a company that has the legal right to redistribute the programs.
The technology for downloading television programs, legally or otherwise, is widely available, and sales of the equipment that allows digital recordings have not been banned. Digital video recording devices (DVRs) allow users to record and save television programs and some even allow them to be transferred to a computer or burned to a DVD. These devices can also allow the user to pause live television and skip commercials on recorded programs with the push of a button. At least in the United States, DVRs come under the same protection as video cassette recorders (VCRs), with the user agreeing not to commercially distribute the recorded material and to do all viewing in a private home.
With the advent of streaming video and broadband internet services, however, the legality of downloading television programs has become less clear in many cases. Producing a prime time comedy or drama can be a very expensive undertaking for network executives. Creative artists such as writers, directors and actors must be compensated for their skills and technical expenses must also be recouped. While networks recoup many of these expenses through the sale of advertising, sometimes the profit margin is surprisingly low. When a TV show is downloaded from a file sharing site, the people who spend their time and money on it are usually not compensated.
There is also the issue of copyright, which aims to establish legal ownership of the show as a creative work. Whoever owns the copyrights to the show has the right not only to profit from the show, but also to reproduce and broadcast it. When someone copies a program without the owner’s consent and makes digital copies available, they are usually infringing copyright.
At least in the United States, it’s legal to use a DVR to download television shows for private viewing. Under copyright law, it may be illegal to download programs from any source that are not authorized by the rightful owners of those programs to distribute that content. A person can legally download TV shows offered through authorized services licensed by the owners. Most major broadcast networks in the US now also have websites that stream select episodes of shows to viewers.
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