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bootleg Last modified: Friday, January 19, 2007

Bootleg, as a general term, refers to the illegal distribution or sale of any goods. In software, music and video terminology it refers to any materials (such as a a program, song or movie) that is illegally distributed or sold without permission from the copyright or trademark owner. In software it can also mean copies of software that are knowingly installed on more than one computer when the license prohibits more than one installation.

Webopedia's Did You Know... When Is Downloading Music on the Internet Illegal?" For many people it is as simple as opening one of many peer-to-peer file share programs, selecting the tracks, downloading and burning to a CD-ROM. What isn't so simple about downloading music is the copyright protection laws that people break everyday by downloading some music tracks off the Internet. To make matters even more muddled, some music can be lawfully downloaded, and for those that aren't, laws regarding the sharing and downloading of music on the Internet vary from country to country.