Legal aspects of file sharing

This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (December 2012)

Part of a series on
File sharing
Technologies File hosting services Online video platform Peer to peer Usenet Web hosting WebRTC XDCC
Video on demand sites 123Movies Dailymotion PeerTube Putlocker YouTube
BitTorrent sites 1337x BTDigg Demonoid ExtraTorrent EZTV isoHunt FitGirl Repacks KickassTorrents Nyaa Torrents RARBG Rutracker.org Tamil Rockers The Pirate Bay YIFY YourBittorrent
Academic/scholarly ICanHazPDF Internet Archive Library Genesis Sci-Hub Z-Library
File sharing networks BitTorrent Direct Connect eDonkey Gnutella Gnutella2 Hyphanet I2P Soulseek
P2P clients BitComet DC++ eMule Filetopia μTorrent OnionShare qBittorrent Shareaza Transmission Tribler Vuze WinMX
Streaming programs Butter Project Kodi Popcorn Time Torrents-Time
Anonymous file sharing Anonymous P2P Darknet Friend-to-friend Private P2P Proxy server Seedbox VPN
Development and societal aspects Timeline Legality BitTorrent issues
By country or region Canada Japan Singapore UK USA
Comparisons Comparison of BitTorrent clients Comparison of BitTorrent sites Comparison of eDonkey software Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients Comparison of Usenet newsreaders
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File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audios, photos and/or videos), program files, documents or electronic books/magazines. It involves various legal aspects as it is often used to exchange data that is copyrighted or licensed.