The online streaming sites have mushroomed everywhere over the past years, and there is an increasing number of people around the world prefers to watch movies there at the very comfort of their homes instead of watching movies at a theater.
So why is this happening? For obvious reasons, it is easier to access and watch movies by just browsing the internet and look for a reliable site that can stream movies for free compared to buying a ticket for a movie which costs a considerable amount of money, not to mention the effort and the time that you have to spend just to get to a cinema.
It is legal to stream movies online, however, a lot of these streaming sites fall into a legally murky environment, unfortunately.
Everyone has been to one of these sites before and right now, because these sites let anyone stream a movie without paying a single penny, and if it sounds too good, it sorts of it is true.
However, the question is not as easy to answer it the right way which is why in this article let us talk about how to address the question if is it legal or illegal to watch free movies that are streamed online.
- Copyright law and intellectual property law- Films, movies, television shows, and documentaries are all protected by copyright law, and if you are born in the 1990s, perhaps you have experienced watching movies in VHS tapes where there is a disclaimer before you can play the entire video about the FBI warnings of recopying, distributing, and illegally duplicating these videos because intellectual property law deems that it is totally illegal to distribute a movie for your own profit without a proper and due permission of the owner and the copyright holder of it, however, nowadays, people are less likely to watch VHS tapes and were replaced by DVD’s and CD’s, until such time that today, movies can be watched as an Mp4 file either on your computer, television or smartphone which is more difficult to track and determine if it is a counterfeit or legally downloaded which creates legal lines more blurry because it depends on whether you are downloading, streaming, or uploading a movie on the internet.
- Downloading and streaming- The United States government already had plans of passing an act to stop piracy because it was clearly hurting the movie and film industry, however the law was very controversial that the government itself eventually set it aside for the moment which makes it totally blurry regarding the online streaming sites that offer free movies, however, you should keep in mind that there is a clear difference between downloading and streaming movies online. If you are streaming a movie online, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) will not apprehend you like streaming movies at movie2k, but if you download a movie from an illegal copy, you are facing jail time. Sadly, there is a very low percentage of people getting jailed for this because the law simply has less implementation.