Well......................yea......................er..............n..............hmm...............I'm........not......sure. This is a tuff question which only someone who is an experienced user of file-sharing programs can answer. But I'm gonna try anyway ;)

Basically, since the rise of Napster, and the court case with them, people have debated the fact on whether "sharing" files is either legal or illegal - and the outcome of the court case would give us the answer. The case separated the bands apart saying whether they thought if it was right for their fans to download MP3s off the net. Just some examples were Limp Bizkit and U2 who all believed that Napster was a great new medium to get there music out there, whereas the obvious two - Metallica and Dr. Dre - disagreed strongly.

Napster themselves didn't seem too sure, and you can tell this by looking at the bottom of their homepage on the actual client where it states:

"Napster, Inc. makes no representations or warranties regarding MP3 files possessed by Napster users. Thousands of MP3 files have been authorized for distribution over the Internet by copyright owners; however, Napster users should understand that MP3 files may have been created or distributed without copyright owner authorization. Neither the MP3 file format nor the Napster software indicates whether a particular MP3 file has been authorized for copying or distribution. Copying or distributing unauthorized MP3 files may violate United States and/or foreign copyright laws. Compliance with copyright law remains your responsibility."

I think the last line they use in that statement kinda sums up where file-sharing is in terms of the legal matter. The fact that this type of distribution "remains your responsibility" sorta means that file-sharing of this nature is illegal.

However, at the end of the day, if file-sharing was nothing but an illegal thing then the clamp-down on Napster would have been much different. But it wasn't. The thing is, file-sharing IS illegal if you download a file that you do not have the license to own. However, it is true that people can and do use file-sharing programs to get the files that they do hold the license to for whatever reason. So we are kinda caught between two possible reasons on why file-sharing is both legal and illegal. But the thing is, you won't go to jail for downloading and listening to MP3s that you download off the net, and that seems to be the bottom line. Until people begin to hear of people being prosecuted for downloading MP3s that they don't have the licence to own, people will still use file-sharing programs to their full advantage - Rish