Download is mostly “ilegall” by law but tolaratet, even in Germany where they have strong copyright rules. If the “police” would catch you in germany, nothing will happen. The problem is when the owner complains against you Civil- law.
Whole lawyer offices are busy to setup servers with illegal content “in order of they’re clients” to catch people downloading.
In the most cases i’m talking here about the music industry, they go straight and hard to court and are complaining for compensation if you don’t pay the “lawyer warning fees/compensation”. is a really nasty business!
The most users even “really” didn’t know that torrents go in both sites, downloading and uplaoding but the holders and they’re lawyers of the music are using argument against them when it comes to court and that can cost you easily from
500 to 5000 Euro when caught the first time…
Personaly i think whole copyright subject is a bit overrated but where money is there is **** for more… Hollywood is complaing all the time because of illegal downloads and streaming but braking the same time, from year to year, from movie to movie
,new sales records… )
But like i wrote at the very beginning the problems usually start when sharing stuff… downloading and keeping stuff for learn purpose and watching movies online is for me “ethically” fine…