Originally Posted by LordCrash

In which countries is software piracy legal??? That would violate international laws and multilateral contracts, by the way. wink


Depends of what you understand by "piracy". While uploading and sharing copyrighted content is illegal nearly everywhere, downloading for personal use is often allowed. I'm not a cypright law expert, but here's quote form wikipedia:

"To an extent, copyright law in some countries permits downloading copyright-protected content for personal, noncommercial use. Examples include Canada[citation needed] and European Union (EU) member states like Poland,[37] The Netherlands,[38] and Spain.[39]"

I'm sure only about Poland, because I live here. Polish law allow you to download music and films for personal, noncommercial use. It is perfectly legal. And while downloading programs is technically prohibited, in reality authorities doesn't care. And while you can in theory file a civil lawsuit against a pirate, the trial can go for 2-3 years, and usually ends with pirate having to pay a ridicolously small amount of money, so going after individual downloading-pirates is just useless, and no one is doing it.


Yeah, I've probably exagerrated with "completely legal", but still, many countries have very liberal copyright policy.