this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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Programming
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That depends on the license. Music is also available on Youtube without authentication requirements but I don't think you can just download those and do whatever you want with them.
Could be wrong, but the act of downloading music isn't what gets people in trouble, it's the uploading. When people torrent both happen, but afaik it's only the uploading portion that is actually bad.
When people torrent only a part of the file is being shared by all peers. Technically only the original seeder shared the whole thing and after a few seeders it’s a tiny portion of the file.
This depends, but not because of piracy. If you have to bypass DRM to download the music, you may be violating DMCA §1201 (even if you are otherwise allowed to use the music).
Edit: This obviously doesn't apply to GitHub, but might to YouTube.
I think there's a difference between the laws for individuals and corporations. I don't think they're allowed to download either.
Downloading is illegal.
Find me a repo on GitHub with a license that disallows cloning it. I'll wait.
Any repo without a license disallows reproducing it in any way, which includes cloning it for business purposes.
The only exception is that public repositories can be forked on GitHub as new GitHub repositories. Forking doesn't give you a license to use or reproduce the code, though.