If downloading from a torrent is illegal,then where can u get good stuff online..?

Question

If downloading from a torrent is illegal,then where can u get good stuff online..?

Answer 1

Torrents are legal, downloading copyrighted content via a torrent, isn't.

Answer 2

Using BitTorrent is NOT illegal in and of itself.  It depends on what you download.  So Torrenting is Great if the "good stuff" you want is free and legally re-distributable or (if not re-distributable) is made available (for free) via Torrent by it's owner.

Owners have rights.  THEY get to decide who can and can not use their stuff. (That's true of the stuff that YOU really and truly own too isn't it?  Would you have it any other way?)

Owning something that can be easily copied is usually protected by Copyright law.  It turns out that copyright law is also useful people and corporations to use when they want to allow things that they own to be copied (either with out any restrictions at all or under specifically specified circumstances.) This extension of some of the owner's rights to another party is generally refered to as a Licence.  

By default it IS illegal to copy stuff that is protected by copyright that belongs to someone else.  (There are a few exceptions but they are probably not worth getting into now.)

So, if the "good stuff" you want is in the "PUBLIC DOMAIN"

(which means the owner has released it without any restriction whatsoever, or it's copyright protection has expires [true of LOTS of REALLY good OLD stuff] ),

or has a license that specifically grants YOU certain limited rights to use it, then downloading it is OK.

But there is a lot of ILLEGAL 'good stuff' out there. There is also a LOT of very good stuff that is perfectly legal to download (and USE according to the terms of it's license).

How you 'download' it has little (or nothing) to do with legality.

I really hope that this helps.  It IS complicated, and I confess that I find it pretty difficult to try to explain.  If you have specific questions, and you probably will, please ask.

-FIS