[OneWingedShark]

I am soooo tired of hearing about my 'freedoms' when it comes to issues like this. My freedom to do what, exactly? Illegally download materials I'm not entitled to? My freedom to steal the creative product of actors and musicians?

You are making bad assumptions here. There are legitimate programs distributed this way: I believe BeOS, OpenVMS, and some Linux distros all have official bit-torrents. Then there's [media] releases by independent groups, as mentioned on up-thread, who are literally giving their stuff away. Finally, there's the unfortunate instance where you have a program [possibly outdated] whose master media has become corrupted: should you have to go and buy another copy [assuming you can find one] even if you have all the original disks/packaging/etc?

You are starting with an invalid assumption: that file-sharing is theft. That is as stupid as assuming that the gun's purpose is murder.

[thefactor]

If that's the case, then I understand. The impression I got, however, was that they concentrated on illegally downloaded files.

When you drive on roads, you're recorded. When you go into stores, you're recorded. It's a question of convenience. You don't want to be watched or recorded? Fine. Don't drive, don't use sites that record your movements. It's not a civil right to be anonymous on the internet.