Legal Question in Technology Law in California

Yes. Both. the illegal act can be that of DISTRIBUTING COPIES or SIMPLY MAKING COPIES. Since when you download a song, it is copied onto your hard drive, that is COPYING, and constitutes copyright infringement.

Recently, a woman named Jammie Thomas-Rasset was held liable for something like $80,000 PER SONG (she had 24 illegally copied songs, which added up to 1.92 MILLION dollars). (This case is currently scheduled for a re-trial, but the lesson is the same).

The take-away is: DON'T DOWNLOAD COPYRIGHT PROTECTED MATERIAL USING LIMEWIRE OR ANY OTHER FILE-SHARING TECHNOLOGY. How do you know if it's copyright protected? If it was created since 1923 or so, it's a good bet that it IS.