If you live in the US then It all depends on copyrights, Bittorrent itself isnt illegal, Downloading a free linux or game patch is completely legal, but downloading something like The.Fast.And.The.Furious.Tokyo.Drift.XViD.TS-maVen is illegal since you didnt pay for it and its copyrighted. In some other countries downloading songs and other content that is copyright protected in the us is legal there though. Like Canada.
