Comment by mrguyorama

>Putting aside "you wouldn't download a car" jokes side, infringement on that exclusive right is only possible by distributing the media.

I don't know if I go that far, since copyright is literally about the right of exclusive control over copies, and piracy is making a copy without authorization.

However, the advent of computers limited the "literalness" of that interpretation, and my understanding is that even without such consideration, many countries do not consider copying for personal use to be a breach of law. I am not in violation of copyright when copying a program from my hard drive to ram, and I think that would be true even if the proper owner of the copyright insisted otherwise.