Many Free Movie Downloads Are Illegal Movie Downloads That Contain Viruses

Sunday, April 4th, 2010 at 7:31 am

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.

Downloading music on iTunes or books onto a Kindle has made the notion of downloading entertainment mass market. To assume that being able to download a movie is the the next logical step. The notion, however, has always been fraught with thoughts of legality, that perhaps whatever is downloaded is nothing but a bootleg copy that will put a computer at risk and get you into trouble.

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.

If a government agency wanted to crack down on sites that gave out free movie downloads, almost all web site owners would have no issue in handing over the list of IP addresses that had used the site in exchange for leniency.

Does this scenario ever happened? Yes, not with movies. The rampant file-sharing of music has resulted in the music industry cracking down on individual customers by instigating large fines instead of bringing arbitration into the mix. With all of this experience in terms of music, it's logical to assume that movie downloading customers will be the next target.

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.

To make sure that what you're doing is legal and safer, it's best to use websites that charge a fee for joining. Many websites charge only one-time fees at around $40 for unlimited downloads, much like the music site Napster. The fee will most likely protect you from inadvertently downloading any adware or spyware because of the added virus protection that many of these sites contain.

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.

Unless you're flying transatlantic, you probably won't get a movie to watch. Movie Rental Company Why not get the movie download and see if you like it enough to add into your collection first? Sometimes it's hard to find independent or foreign films in local stores.