BitTorrent does have many legal uses (it is used to distribute World of Warcract, Linux distros, independent music/movies, et cetera) but there are also many private trackers designed specifically for the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials. If you admit you are a heavy user of one of those, you practically admit to participating in this.
Similarly, USENET is completely legal, and there isn't anything intrinsically wrong with binary newsgroups either, but NZBs.org and Newzbin specialize in illegal content distribution. If you have a subscription to a site like Giganews and need a tool like SABnzbd+ to automate the downloading process then you aren't an incidental user either.
So let's not play games; we both know how the internet works. "There might be one or two legal-to-distribute files on that site." or "Filesharing may not be illegal in his jurisdiction." are good points to bring up in a court case, but in reality we both know what it means when you are "running SABnzbd+ [..] connecting to Giganews [..] pulling from NZBs.org or Newzbin". It's sad that that throwaway240 is downvoted for just explicitly stating it.
Even if these tools are commonly used for suspicious activity, in a legal context simply stating that you use them does not constitute evidence of any wrongdoing. The former does not simply mean the latter; rather, it is speculation on your part. Whether or not it has a probabilistic basis is irrelevant.
There are many examples where this is true: BitTorrent/P2P (this is actually far more prominent than you'd think; a trendy example is Spotify), BitCoin, Usenet, Tor, Metasploit, any anonymous network, et al.
This isn't a legal context - it's Hacker News. I think we are all intelligent enough to realize & accept that John is almost certainly using SABnzbd to download copyrighted material.
It doesn't matter if we do. The original question was if he just openly admitted to illegally downloading copyrighted material, and the answer is he didn't.
It's sad that people have to hide their actions. Downloading copyrighted material is legally in the clear in .us and his particular setup sounds highly oriented towards downloads, not uploads.
Additionally, as somebody that highly seeds Linux distros through torrents, I'd like you to go back to your Jump to Conclusions mat.
They could probably swing it in court as similar to knowingly purchasing counterfeit goods, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. Thus far they're only going after people for uploading because: 1) it's less of a legal grey area and 2) the huge monetary damages serve as a warning while going to prison would probably seem too harsh, even for people that think side with the RIAA/MPAA.
If you are using bittorrent, you are almost certainly uploading.
I'm also not sure that they never prosecuted anyone for downloading is actually a sufficient amount of evidence that it is legal. I've never heard of anyone get prosecuted for uploading just one song or one movie, that doesn't mean that it would be legal to do so.
I don't know about the U.S., but at least in The Netherlands you are allowed to freely download copyrighted movies and music for personal use. For now, anyway...
Similarly, USENET is completely legal, and there isn't anything intrinsically wrong with binary newsgroups either, but NZBs.org and Newzbin specialize in illegal content distribution. If you have a subscription to a site like Giganews and need a tool like SABnzbd+ to automate the downloading process then you aren't an incidental user either.
So let's not play games; we both know how the internet works. "There might be one or two legal-to-distribute files on that site." or "Filesharing may not be illegal in his jurisdiction." are good points to bring up in a court case, but in reality we both know what it means when you are "running SABnzbd+ [..] connecting to Giganews [..] pulling from NZBs.org or Newzbin". It's sad that that throwaway240 is downvoted for just explicitly stating it.