File-Sharing Illegal?

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n as “share-ware.” Many of the products that would fall under the previous category are now marketed first as share-ware. Companies and individual programmers use this as a marketing strategy, allowing you to test the product for a limited time after which you then have the option to buy it. Examples would be dbPowerAmp or Music Jukebox. Share-ware would find a real-world equivalent in the program that GM was running a few years ago where they allowed you to take a new car home overnight as an extended test drive. The difference is that with most share-ware you can still use the product after the trial period without payment, only many of the functions are disabled. While this type of use is legal, it is obviously not the seller’s intent; they would prefer that you buy the “full-version” (the unrestricted whole product).
The last type of download is known as “free-ware.” As the name implies, it is information that can be downloaded or copied from various sites at no cost to you. Things like pictures and text can be copied, cut and pasted from any site while software programs and music or movie files can be downloaded easily. Now just because a product or set of information is free-ware does not mean it is illegal to download or copy. There are many private websites that allow you to use their information freely and there are sites such as Downloads.com by CNET or SnapFiles.com where you can find many useful free-ware products that the creator(s) chose to provide free. One quick “beware” here, most of the Trojans, worms, spyware, malware etc. travel into your computer via some of these free-ware applications.
Now that we are familiar with what downloads are where can they be found? There are an infinite number of niches in cyber-space where you may find any of these three types of downloads but they can generally be narrowed down into three categories as well. The first being direct sites, meaning you are downloadi...