Sunday, October 3, 2010

Downloading Films Should Be Done With Extreme Caution

By Eduardo Lester

Most people revel in the simple truth that to have the music you crave, the books you long to read, and the movies you want to watch it's no longer necessary to leave the home. Many families have access to the most state of the art home theater systems that allow for an experience as good as a theater without all of the inconveniences of text message, loud talking and eating. Our entertainments can be insular and on our own terms.

Whether it is done illegally through file-sharing software or legally, as with downloading a book into your Kindle, there's an increasing market for downloading the movies you want straight into your hard drive. Many people are still skeptical, worried that any movies they watch will be bootleg copies, or somehow their computers will be at risk from the act of downloading.

In the beginning almost all online movies were indeed bootleg pirated copies, most often recorded right off of the screen with a camcorder. Watching these films was and is an act of copyright infringement.

The danger of copyright infringement is that if the government wanted to crack down on a website, most likely, you IP address which is recorded at every visit will be offered up along with all of the other addresses as a way for the site's owner to not be prosecuted as harshly.

Does this happen? Not yet. But the music industry has cracked down on illegal file sharing, levying steep fines to people across the country in exchange for not prosecuting them in court. It goes to say that logically, file sharing movies is the next step. In fact, a case is under review currently of a man who'd downloaded an unreleased film.

Using the internet to download anything is potentially full of risks, especially with websites advertising free-to-you movie downloads. The reason that a site wouldn't charge you anything for a particular service is that they want to actually take something from you; in this case it's the insertion of adware and spyware into your computer.

Adware is more annoying than anything else and fills your computer with pop-up advertisements on the thought that you will eventually click on and purchase something that you've seen. This can slow down the performance of computer tremendously. Spyware has a more nefarious purpose and does exactly what is implied, it spies on you through the computer. It can register the keys that you type in when accessing something like your bank account. To say that your identity can be stolen is not an intellectual leap.

Make sure to go to websites that charge you - money means protection. Like Napster, many one-time fee sites will give you unlimited access and with having to pay, you will most likely have virus protection that will stop you from inadvertently downloading software like spyware and adware.

The convenience of the internet is a wonderful thing and you can have the entertainment experience that you want, just make sure that you use a legitimate service in movie downloading. A little homework can go a long way. - 39815

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