Is it legal to download movies from free sites?

Answer 1

That depends on the laws where you live, the age of the film, and whether the rights holder for the film allows you to download it.

Obviously, if the guy who made the film has put it up on the internet with a sign saying "Free film, please download", then you're safe to download it, no matter where you live.

Secondly, countries have different laws on what constitutes fair use of media - for example, some countries allow making copies of media for your own use but not distributing them (so downloading would be perfectly legal, but selling your downloaded copy would be illegal. This is the case for example in Canada, where the Copyright Act (1985) specifically allows the making of single copies so long as they are for personal use and not distributed), while others outlaw both the distribution and the making of copies (so downloading would be illegal - I believe this is the case in the United States).

Finally, copyright eventually expires, so an old film has no copyright holder, and anyone may makes as many copies as they want and sell them /give them away/ whatever. Depending on where you live, copyright on a movie may expire 25, 50, or 70 years after the film was made - no matter what, if the film was made in the 1930s you're probably okay :)

Answer 2

Because copying and distribution are exclusive rights of the copyright holder, only the copyright holder can decide whether to allow downloads. Given how easy it is to stream most movies legally (via Hulu, Netflix, and other similar services), there is little compelling reason to allow it: if their goal is to get their movie seen by the public, there are already many legal ways to do that.

Answer 3

If by free sites you mean somewhere like Hulu showing "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" for a limited time only, then you probably won't run into much trouble if you manage to download it from the site. I did this but with YouTubeDownloader when YouTube had their Good Bad Ugly showings for about a month. However, other movie streaming sites shouldn't be considered "legal", because the person hosting the streaming movie inevitably obtained it illegally from somewhere, against the original creator's wishes. Just be careful what you run into out there, especially with torrents.