| my two cents
>>Can someone please tell me if it is legal or not to use sites like Torrentopia to download TV programmes.
If Torrentopia has the consent from the owners for distribution in the internet, then it is legal. It is very depends on how much rights the owners granted to torrentopia.
>>TV is a gray area.
TV program is similar to movie property which generally own by a producer/ co-producers. Each program is an intellectual property protected by copyright law. The owner possesses rights such as broadcasting rights, merchandising rights, distribution rights, etc. Even a TV program is broadcasted in many different countries, it doesn't affect its ownership and make the program free from protection. Without owner's permission, it is illegal for downloading. Same thing applies to pay-tv (eg NOW, TV8) and free tv (eg TVB Pearl, ATV, France 3)
DVD / VCD / VHS, these are merchandising rights of the TV program. Even DVD is released on street, it doesn't change the ownership or make it legal for reproducing or downloading unless the property owner agrees.
>> I fail completely to see how a copy righted material is allowed to be distributed through torrents/P2P/FTPs based on how the TV channel operates.
It is possible that someone is willing to share /donates their properties for whatever purposes. Just like a producer who provided a TV program about fighting against SARS 3 yrs ago to a HK broadcaster free of charge, and they welcome free distribution on web. Another example for intellectual property in general, IBM donated 500 patents for new technology R&D. But still, I cannot find a reason for CBS to free a popular program like CSI for torrents.
>>Everything are copy right, so what can we download using BT then?
>>Non copy right material or material that has been given consent to be distributed
To protect their creative idea and the ownership, generally they will registered for it, but they reserved the rights to take any legal action. Certainly, property owners aware of these downloading activities or kind of expected it, but some owners would consider it as activities for arosing noise that help boosting the merchandising sales. Besides, they also concern the time cost and expenses for chasing unauthorized downloading and going through lawsuit procedure. That is part of the reasons why not all infringers' doors are being knocked on ...yet.  | 
