Yes, it is a felony, but the plaintiff has to go through a lengthy and very costly process to do it. Since so many people do it, the MPAA prefers to harass the bittorrent servers. And most of the time, you get a warning before charges are pressed (so you can just stop then and nothing will happen). Once in a blue moon, they press charges (or typically charge a fine) against someone with a blazing T1 connection that uploaded a few terrabytes worth of data. You won't get in trouble if you have a normal 768k connection and you just like to download a few movies per month. I am no rookie bittorrent user. I know what I'm talking about.