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Originally Posted by Centauri
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and you cant get sued for downloading non-copyrighted work  |
Sorry to burst your bubble. Got to dispel this myth.
Everything has a copyright on it. The moment somebody has created something of an intellectual nature (be it music or poetry or an article or a photograph) it is copyrighted. Patents fall under a different kind of protection.
The mere fact that you found it on the net and you can see it, hear it, read it, or that there's nothing physically preventing you from otherwise copying it, does not mean it is not protected by copyright.
That being said, the only times you'll have some explaining to do is if you were to pass that on as your own or propagate it further without the author's permission, whether or not you profit financially from it.
P2P services are particularly in the spotlight as vehicles for that last bit of trespassing: propagation without the author's explicit permission.