Is 123 Movies Legal and Safe To Use?

Humans tend to gravitate towards free things, that is the fact. Even with the fees for streaming sites such as Netflix and Hulu resting at the minimum. One of the most popular sites out there for free movie streaming is 123 Movies. It gets a lot of traffic because users do not even need to register or pay a fee. Though it may not cost anything monetarily, it may cost users on other fronts. That is why a common question surrounding the site is targeted at its safety. So, is 123 Movies legal and safe to use? The answer to that question and more nuggets of wisdom will be disclosed shortly.

Is 123 Movies Legal?

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) named it the world’s “most popular illegal site” in March 2018, before shutting it down a few weeks later due to a criminal investigation by Vietnamese authorities. So 123 Movies is illegal in the USA

The legality of this movie streaming site is completely relative. Whether it is legal or not is wholly dependent on the geographical region. Every country is guided by certain laws that pertain to intellectual property, anti-piracy, and copyright infringement. Based on this, the site is also subject to geo-restrictions making it impossible to have access to it from certain locations. Since the site poses a real threat to actual content creating businesses, it is regarded as illegal in the U.S.

In fact, as a whole, the streaming service has faced a number of legal issues on the basis of copyright. Over the years, this has led to a number of cloned sites popping up and down. For a brief moment in 2017, the site even went by the name GoMOvies. Nevertheless, they changed the name back the following year. Despite the whole name change, the streaming site still has cloned sites that exist under both the domain names. All in all, this whole situation has some legal professionals believing that streaming from such sites may be illegal for end users. The only good news here is that most cases have the website being liable and not the users.

So, the conclusion when posed with the question is 123 Movies legal is that the answer is relative. It is all dependent on each region and the copyright laws they are bound by.

is 123 movies legal
123 Movies Homepage (image source)

Is 123 Movies Safe to Use?

When the question ‘is 123 Movies legal to use?’ is out of the way, the next question ‘is 123 Movies safe’ is next in the mind of any potential visitor to the site. Before going into general computer health, there are still some legal issues left to tackle. Since it is a pirate site, users are vulnerable to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices, and legal suits. As a result of this, authorities are well within their rights to trace users online activities. They can also hammer down on any copyright infringements users may have committed. Another serious issue users may have to contend with is that of malware.

Sites such as 123 Movies harbor a lot of malware that can find its way into any computer it is accessed from. There is also the case of ad pop-ups that are there to redirect users to potentially harmful sites. Based on all this, there is a whole lot of risk involved when using these sites. So, anyone hoping to use one of these sites should be sure to install powerful anti-virus software or a functioning firewall protection. Another route to take is making use of a VPN since some of them come with ad and malware blockers.

Making Use of virtual private network (VPN) for Safety

Perhaps if you are still bothered whether 123 Movies is legal and safe to use and you feel your present antivirus and firewall set up and even the legality of the video streaming site in your country, then a good VPN could be your safest way to use the site. It could also be the difference between a healthy computer or smartphone. The best of the bunch offer up features such as powerful encryption. This makes it highly impossible for hackers or any third parties to view the user’s online activities. Even in the case that the system has a backdoor, thanks to the encryption hackers would be unable to breakthrough. The truth of the matter is that hackers often install malware on cloned streaming websites and in order to ensure that users information stays safe, they need to employ the use of a good VPN.

With some good software at their disposal, users no longer need to ponder on questions such as ‘is 123 Movies legal and safe to use?’. Not only will the online experience remain safe, but it will also remain private.

Obianuju O
Obianuju O
With over several years of professional writing experience, I consider myself an expert storyteller with a passion for connecting with audiences through the power of words. I specialize in creating engaging content for biographies, entertainment websites and other forms of visual media.

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