# Legal Torrents **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 17, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-torrents/493483 "2009-04-17T23:57:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-torrents/493483/1 "2009-04-17T23:57:23Z")
There is are a couple of interesting discussions going on talking about the Pirate Bay court ruling and file sharing in general. And that made me think. File sharing per say is not illegal. Novell for example has been distributing software and patches via torrents for a couple of years now. So even if the bulk of the use is for copyright violation, there is true legal use going on (no matter how small a percentage of torrents the legal ones are). So my question is, is there a legal version of Pirate Bay where all the torrents are legit? I would love to have access to something like this. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-torrents/493483/2 "2009-04-18T00:00:03Z")
One big one is called (surprise) [legaltorrents.com](http://beta.legaltorrents.com/), and they have lots of stuff released under Creative Commons licenses. Another one is [Public Domain Torrents](http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/), which has lots of old, out-of-copyright movies and music. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-torrents/493483/3 "2009-04-18T13:53:37Z")
Thanks **friedo** those were exactly what I was thinking about. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-torrents/493483/4 "2009-04-18T17:47:51Z")
Yes their are several as friedo just posted. However I still tend to use Pirate Bay for things like my Ubuntu .iso downloads because it still tends to have much higher seeds than other sites. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-torrents/493483/5 "2009-04-18T17:56:17Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > One big one is called (surprise) [legaltorrents.com](http://beta.legaltorrents.com/), and they have lots of stuff released under Creative Commons licenses. > > Another one is [Public Domain Torrents](http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/), which has lots of old, out-of-copyright movies and music. The music isn’t obvious on the frontpage. Besides which, _no music recorded after 1924_ is in the public domain in the USA. You either pay for it through normal channels if the owner wishes it to be available, or [through the nose](http://blog.ninapaley.com/2008/08/26/music-industry-on-culture-killing-spree) if he does not wish it so. There are no other legal options. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-torrents/493483/6 "2009-04-18T20:21:24Z")
The problem with these sites is the “claim” to have legal torrents, but there is no real way to police it. Even legal torrents can have claiments on them. Copyright law has become so complex people don’t always get it and worse, anyone can sue you and you have to defend yourself. For instance if a work is in public domain the performance of said work may not be. Or a movie could be in public domain but the music in the movie not be in public domain. Even if it’s an obvious original work, there’s no guarantee that the person in that work is the one who submitted it