DoctorWho said:
You can buy and download games off of PSN. Why wouldn't you just assume that is what he's talking about.
Just leave him to the mods. He knows not what he does.
The legality of that would be on some serious shaky ground if you prove you have the original. I understand that the law reads doing such would be illegal, but I would love the day a movie studio sues someone for downloading a digital copy of a movie they physically own. I'd hope the public would begin to see how bad companies are getting with some shit.
I always read the law as stating that only the actual copying
and distribution of copyrighted works was illegal, and that merely downloading such copies was a civil matter - that's why the MPAA/RIAA and thugs of their ilk try to sue downloaders into submission rather than having them arrested, and also why you hear so few stories about it nowadays (at least compared to a few years back).
In short, yes, it would be
technically unlawful, but since you already own the blu-ray version, the copyright owner/s would have a hard time making a case - even if they caught you to begin with, which is still unlikely.
The problem comes when you use BitTorrent to download files. BT works by downloading data, then uploading that data to others who don't have that data - and it's the uploading bit that can get you in trouble, since that can be seen as
distribution of copyrighted works, the illegal part of piracy. The best thing to do would be to either stop uploads from your BT client (which goes against the whole point of BT), or just use file-storage sites like MegaUpload (since there's no uploading involved in the act of downloading from these sites).
But Zoe is right on this - it's best to make your own backups of discs you own. It may or may not be technically unlawful (depending on where you live), but there's also no chance you'll get caught backing up your own discs in your own home.
Oh, and sorry for the derail/wall-o-text.