this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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I'm not a law talking guy, but from my understanding of it, downloading isn't illegal. But if you're torrenting it, you're uploading bits of it to others while you're downloading. That would be distributing it to others, so that's copyright infringement.
So if you could find a way to download something without uploading anything, you'd be fine. Kinda like if someone uploads copyright infringing material to youtube. You're not going to get into hot water for watching that video, but the person who uploaded is.
It is illegal to download. If you want back ups, then you need to back it up on your own - this includes physical games as well - like NES and such.
Apparently, Facebook managed to do it because they downloaded the whole pirated library without seeding it.