Quote:
Originally Posted by pip08456
It is the person uploading/redistributing copyrighted material who is persued.
Fraudulent access of PPV is another matter.
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That's because of the differing nature of the offences. Downloading a single copy of a DVD from a newsgroup is copyright infringement. The copyright owner can sue you for the price you should have paid in HMV or wherever. Basically, it's not worth their while so they don't bother. You are, however, technically at risk of being taken to the county court over what is a civil liability.
If you download the same film via BitTorrent, you are at the same time distributing material and you put yourself at risk of a far larger civil damages claim, and the possibility that they might pursue you for criminal copyright infringement (the offence which used to be commonly called video piracy and was routinely committed by people selling duplicated VHS tapes out the back of vans at the market).
In all the above cases, civil and criminal, the relevant legislation is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
If you access pay-per-view TV (or any TV channel that's behind a paywall, like Sky One) without paying for it, you are committing a criminal offence under the Fraud Act 2006, a piece of legislation designed to put the obtaining of services without paying for them, on the same legal footing as theft of physical products from a supermarket.