Comment by zeroq

It's an interesting case.

Most commonly used clients won't let you turn off seeding, but you can indeed limit the upstream to a really low value. You can also, at the same time, seed a ton of different things, preferably quite large, to saturate your upload and make it statistically improbable to fully send a copy of any single file.

Now, based on my feeling and cases I've seen in my country I'd say that the judge would make a claim that the sheer fact of making these files available is enough.

Moreover, there were rulings stating that even if you don't have the whole torrent on your disk, but only few fragments you are already in violation.

For me, it make sense, as when a company gets caught red handed they are judged based on the inventory of stolen programs they have, not an actual usage of them.

Lastly, here in an european country, consuming pirated media (books, movies, music, etc.) is not a crime. However there are plenty of caveats:

- you can't share it, so torrenting, as mentioned, might be illegal; getting a copy of a movie on a hard drive from a friend only puts him in jepardy

- it has to be personal use, so watching it alone or with your wife is ok, but playing stolen music in a club is not; commercial use is strictly forbiden ("commercial" as in "commercial licence", so usage in context of a company, so facebook case here is strictly in violation)

- it has to be a media that's already been published somewhere (cinema, television, streaming service); pirating leaks and prereleases is strictly forbiden

- pirating software is whole different animal, since now it's not a copyright, but a breach of licence agreement

You can think about it as owning a tiny portion of "soft drugs" (like marijuana), which is legal in some countries. Selling is not.