wilbur, are you asking me if I fear that RCA or Sony will come knocking on my door and confiscate my hard drive in order to take me to court for downloading the Jeff Beck 'Blow by Blow' album?
I can assure you that that will never ever happen. I am in no danger of being sued for copyright infringement.
However, if I were running a website whose sole purpose was massive fraud, I would certainly be feeling a bit fearful.
Just look at the music tab sites. They were chugging right along, making available the tablature for every pop tune ever recorded. Mind you, these were not copies of the music, per se. They were transcriptions that kids were using to learn the songs. Not something I would object to if I had written 'Yesterday'. But the lawyers were able to shut those sites down pretty effectively, at least for the time being.
Once again, my objection to the tone of the posts here is solely based on the apparent denial of the notion that posting a piece of intellectual property, properly copyrighted, on a website that allows thousands or millions of people to access it for free, is theft, or that sharing a piece of intellectual property with a friend is the same thing as posting it on a torrent site and letting millions of people access it.