Downloading the TV show "Heroes" in Germany

I know this issue has been discussed a lot on TT, however I´m still not sure. Were I to live in the US I could watch full episodes of Heroes by downloading them legally (and for free) from the NBC website. That service is not supported here in Germany (when the NBC download begins, a msg pops up saying the service is not supported in this area i.e. Germany)...so is it legal to download them via P2P? I doubt NBC would come after one seeing as they offer the programs on their own web site..?

I doubt you're right.

It's not legal and you cannot see them on NBC.com from outside the US for a reason. Whether they would come after you or not is not something anyone can predict but I would assume it is less likely to be sued for downloading a TV show that is not yet shown in Germany (the same season anyway) than for downloading music.

Check this out.

http://www.ghacks.net/2006/05/01/howto-wat...utside-the-usa/

Until yesterday (new law) downloading of copyrighted material was legal in Germany basically. When people got sued, it was because they were sharing this material. Under the new law copying of an "obviously unlawfully-produced master" made available online is illegal, too. As far as I can tell, grabbing TV shows via P2P is not legal under German law, simply because you're (usually) sharing and uploading this material to others at the same time. The legality of the DOWNload itself is questionable though, because it can be debated whether a recording of a public broadcast is considered "unlawfully-produced", and if it is, whether this is obvious to the person downloading.

While I think it's extremely unlikely that NBC would go after internet users in Germany DL'ing their shows (mainly because they would have a hard time proving any financial damage), I'd guess the safest way to watch these shows would be using a streaming service like veoh.com (you can find links to TV shows on sites like allUC) without even making a copy.

..just download it..

@ Tex Munich, thank you for sharing your link. I hope it works for Australian TV shows as well. Would be great!

Or, you could just watch it via online streaming. No need to download.

Surf the Channel

Many thanks for the web sites, looks like I´ll try watching Heroes via that route. Am heading back to the US soon so it´ll be a moot point in the future anyway.