Useful tips for safe behaviour
Photo: Hello I M Nik
Is it legal or illegal?
This question can often be asked in a time when illegal services have become so good at camouflaging their illegal activities that they can be difficult to distinguish from the legal ones. In Rights Alliance, however, we have some useful tips on how to find your way to legal services and how to spot the illegal ones.
Find your way to the legal services
There is a countless number of legal services and sites offering, movies, series, books, design furniture and more. To help you get to the exact content and products you are looking for, the Share With Care campaign has compiled a list of legal services available on the Internet.
If you use a service from the list, you can be sure that you are on a legal and secure website where the artist you see, read or listen to is paid for his/her work.
You can also use the search engine FilmFinder, which allows you to search for a specific movie or series, after which you are presented with all the legal services that offer it.
How to spot an illegal service
The illegal services are gradually becoming so well developed that they can easily be mistaken for legal ones. That’s why we have a few good tips for spotting an illegal service:
Use your common sense. It may sound banal, but if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. If, e.g., you have the opportunity to access a brand new movie currently in cinemas for free, it is in all likelihood an illegal service that you have moved onto.
Are there many pop-up adds when trying to download or stream a movie? Then the site is most likely also illegal. Only a few legitimate movie services are advertising-funded, and few use pop-up advertising.
Do you have the opportunity to see what type of subscriptions you can sign up to? Do you see the terms and conditions, and is there contact information for the people behind the service? Legal services will clearly state what options you have as a consumer and who you can contact if you have questions. You don’t usually have that on the illegal ones.