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Sailing the Digital Seas

A Legal Examination of Piracy and Digital Copyright

Published February 5 2025

Analysis by David Youssef


In our modern world, access to information and content is a trivial matter that we often don’t truly appreciate or take full advantage of. We have dozens of streaming services to browse movies at our leisure. But, whether it be in times of desperation or mere convenience, there are other ways to access such content, whether it be streaming services that happen to have all the shows you want, or downloading it to hold a copy to watch at your leisure forever.


Despite the dubious legality of it, illegal methods of streaming shows are extremely popular and widely used. In a year, pirated videos get almost 230 billion views, costing the US alone somewhere between 29.2 and 71 billion dollars (1). Likely, this is a vast underestimate of the true cost that piracy and illegal streaming services toll on the country, given the difficulty of tracking such activity. While video piracy is the most common, it’s just one of many forms—other popular mediums include books, games, and even audiobooks. It is likely not crossing the minds of the average illegal streaming service user about the global operation they are just a single point in. While there might be a certain amount of concern about legality, often no consequences seem to come of it, begging the question, just how illegal is it to stream shows and movies for free?


Digital Piracy is defined by Interpol as “the illegal copying or distribution of copyrighted material via the Internet.”(2) There is a certain level of trust between users and the sites they download their files from—after all, that file could be anything from a complex virus to your show with subtitles 30 seconds off. While there are numerous ways to acquire these files, often there are central repositories, one popular site being The Pirate Bay, a site first established in 2003 and still running to this day. Sites similar to the Pirate Bay are constantly under fire because they provide copyrighted materials for free or for a small fee. There are numerous cases where these sites are shut down and legal action is taken against the creators. For example, five men were recently arrested for copyright infringement for running the site Jetflicks for a profit (3). But despite the graveyards that can be filled with sites taken down, The Pirate Bay remains standing, operating in more of a legal gray area. This legal dubiousness is introduced because the website doesn’t host any of the files itself but serves more as a roadmap of where to find them, as well as not making any profit off it (4). While many have attempted to take legal action against The Bay, even arresting the original creators, it has been difficult to take legal action against the new unknown operators or shut down the site from a technological standpoint, given its small size and ability to transfer domains easily.


Yet many of the typical piracy offenders aren’t organizing vast networks of copyrighted works of art, they would be the ones downloading. The law both users and distributors are violating is a combination of U.S. Federal Code Title 17, Sections 501 and 506. Section 501 states exactly what copyright infringement means from a definitional standpoint, which includes piracy (5). Section 506 defines what actions of copyright infringement constitute what crimes and how they should be penalized (6). However, very rarely do individual pirates become prosecuted, with the target of federal penalties often being directed toward distributors. This is assuming that you are pirating from the U.S., since individual countries and international law have varying degrees of leniency, such as the U.K. being stricter on these matters. So while being a felony in the U.S., piracy is typically only prosecuted if you are actively making money off of it or actively distributing it, in an organization like Jetflicks (7). However, while criminal charges might not affect a private user’s free nightly binges, civil charges are still very much a real possibility (8). So despite the FBI warnings of the penalties for illegally downloading content at the beginning of some vintage movies, the odds of you being penalized are minimal to none.


Putting piracy aside, what happens to those websites that simply stream your shows for you? While they are putting their necks out against potential felony piracy charges, are you also liable as a user? It so happens that, from a criminal standpoint, it is not illegal to stream on sites, even if the site itself happens to have obtained the show illegally (9). However, with that in mind, you often would still need a certain amount of trust for the site, and given its illegal nature, any digital harm (i.e. data theft, viruses, scams, annoying ads) that comes from a site like this would be completely your responsibility, considering you knew the risks.


To say, while technically illegal to download for personal use, you are unlikely to face criminal charges for your private use of this content, with the targets of prosecution mainly being those who provide and stream these files. And despite having been obtained illegally, it is not illegal for you to stream on sites. Putting aside legal qualms, there is still a certain personal danger that arises from using sites and downloading files, whether it be ads or viruses. But even with those dangers in mind, you might think, “If the U.S. government won’t come after me, I’m ok right?” Wrong. In these matters, there is one force more frightening than the full extent of the law: your internet service provider.


Your internet service provider, or ISP for short, is the company that gives your devices access to the web as a whole. While they provide a very simple service, this gives them a lot more power over you, the classic internet user, than you might initially think. This can range from basic tracking of web search history or immediately sending that data to a court if they are requested. But they can also completely cut your access to the internet as a whole, or censor certain sites from being possible to visit, such as The Pirate Bay’s initial ban from the U.K.(10). There have been large pushes by those in the movie industry to have the law intervene and mandate ISPs to block certain distributors of illegal content (11).


Having the law able to influence your ability to access information, oftentimes without you realizing it is unsettling. And even if the U.S. was able to hold and enforce ISPs to block certain sites from their users, there would always be a workaround. Whether it’s users using VPNs to disguise their requests as coming from a more copyright-lenient country, or website creators finding new domains to host their website on, bypassing the block of an ISP. Nor can you simplify it down to an issue of legality, with piracy and smuggled digital data being a valuable asset to the cultures of overly censored countries, such as North Korea (12). Not all website creators are malicious crime syndicates but some people with a firm belief in freedom of information or vendetta against the music industry’s structure. Not all users mean to deprive emerging artists of valuable fanbase support, often pirating because they don’t have the financial ability to view the content for money.


Piracy has been a part of the culture of the internet for the better part of two decades, with many participating in a complex web of connections, all to watch the likes of Game of Thrones for free. Whether realizing it or not, users are taking risks from being cut off from their ISP, downloading a virus, giving up personal information, or, however remote the chance is, having legal action taken against them. And to many, in a time where media and content are so heavily monetized or censored, that risk is not only worth it but to some, it’s a moral imperative. So while governments may try to crack down and limit the ability to access information, they would have to fight a persistent internet culture that has been built up for over 20 years and still hasn’t been put down. The fact The Pirate Bay still stands despite the countless attempts to shut it down stands as a testament to the inability of the law to stop this multi-billion dollar industry. Perhaps our efforts shouldn’t be placed in trying to uphold a rigid system of art and information, with all parties knowing that there will always be gaping cracks that no amount of legal action can fill without making moral sacrifices. Rather, maybe the solution is a thorough examination of what it truly means to make creative work, to have it be supported and enjoyed by the world, and how to incentivize creators to keep doing what they love.



  1. Spajic, Damjan Jugovic. “Piracy Is Back: Piracy Statistics for 2024.” Sirisha, April 10, 2023. https://dataprot.net/statistics/piracy-statistics/.

  2.  “Digital Piracy.” Accessed November 7, 2024. https://www.interpol.int/en/Crimes/Illicit-goods/Shop-safely/Digital-piracy.

  3.  United States Department of Justice. “Five Men Convicted for Operating Major Illegal Streaming Service,” June 20, 2024. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/five-men-convicted-operating-major-illegal-streaming-service. 

  4.  Gregersen, Erik. “The Pirate Bay.” Encyclopedia Britannica, November 9, 2010. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Pirate-Bay.

  5.  Office of the Law Revision Counsel. “17 U.S. Code § 501 -  Infringement of Copyright.” LII / Legal Information Institute. Accessed November 7, 2024. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/501.

  6.  ———. “17 U.S. Code § 506 -  Criminal Offenses.” LII / Legal Information Institute. Accessed November 7, 2024. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/506.

  7.  Justia. “Piracy in the Entertainment Industry & Legal Penalties,” July 6, 2021. https://www.justia.com/entertainment-law/piracy-in-the-entertainment-industry/.

  8.  Supan, Joe. “When Is Streaming Illegal? What You Need to Know about Pirated Content.” Allconnect, April 23, 2024. https://www.allconnect.com/blog/is-streaming-illegal.

  9.  Supan, Joe. “When Is Streaming Illegal? What You Need to Know about Pirated Content.” Allconnect, April 23, 2024. https://www.allconnect.com/blog/is-streaming-illegal.

  10.  Kamen, Matt. “Pirate Bay Easily Accessible in UK after Security Tweak.” WIRED, March 16, 2015. https://wired.com/story/pirate-bay-uk-access/.

  11.  Brodkin, Jon. “Movie Industry Demands US Law Requiring ISPs to Block Piracy Websites.” Ars Technica, April 10, 2024. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/movie-industry-demands-us-law-requiring-isps-to-block-piracy-websites/#gsc.tab=0.

  12.  “Power through Piracy — Censorship and Government Regulation of Music.” Accessed November 7, 2024. https://wordpress.clarku.edu/musc210-cgr/music-censorship-and-piracy-in-north-korea-2/power-through-piracy/.

 


 
 
 

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