In July 2001, federal judges shut down Napster, the brainchild of Northeastern University student Shawn Fanning, after the Recording Industry Association of America sued.

The lawsuit highlighted an important issue -- not everything one does on the Internet is free of legal action.

Napster itself did not pirate music; they simply facilitated others to trade copyrighted music on its network.

This time, Hollywood is the alleged victim.

A 26-year-old British man faces charges after being arrested by Gloucester Police.

Police are saying he allegedly violated English law, according to UK paper The Guardian.

The crime -- linking Web sites.

Tv-links.co.uk was the 43rd most popular Web site in the United States, according to alexa.com.

Internet rankings, provided visitors with links to other sites that hosted TV shows and movies.

These links, however, were often times hosted illegally.

The Web site, thought to be untouchable under current copyright laws, was shut down in late October after the arrest of the Web site's creator and administrator.

Many college students found this to be a clever and convenient way to catch TV shows they did not have time to see at the normal air time.

"I would go to the gym and then come back and watch the shows I missed on TV-links," Kyle Kozlowski said.

"It was really convenient because I could watch TV shows whenever I wanted."

What Kozlowski (sophomore-business) and other students may not know is that convenience is at odds with conduct expected by Penn State.

"You should not be illegally consuming copyrighted content," said Kevin Morooney, vice provost of information technology.

"If you have not acquired a license to consume a copyrighted product -- whether it's a book, song or movie, you do not have the right to consume it."

Morooney said the question falls in the gray area that exists among nations concerning intellectual property.

This is especially seen in an Internet phenomenon called "deep linking."

"Deep linking" is when sites post links to other Web sites within their pages and was the same function that the TV-links Web site performed.

"In our country, that is not a violation of copyright," he said.

For those who cannot afford to invest in a DVR such as TiVo, all hope is not lost.

Many sites have risen up to try to take the place of TV-links.

Even the major television companies are now changing their attitudes.

The owner of MTV networks, Viacom sued YouTube in March for $1 billion.

The company announced this past Thursday they would make every episode of South Park available online.

The episodes will be free to appeal to a larger audience.

This followed the online release of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in October, which the company said did not affect its TV viewership.

There are also free sites like Joost -- which has signed major TV networks including Viacom -- and Hulu, the product of a News Corp. and NBC partnership.

This network plans on providing major shows such as The Office or Heroes.

There is a catch, though.

You still have to watch the commercials.