Is downloading really illegal?

Downloading from the internet is such a common trend right now that all of us are guilty of. As a matter of fact, I am guilty of downloading some stuff from the internet like reviewers and songs. After taking up the Copyright Law as part of my curriculum in law school it turned out I could have been guilty of copyright infringement, if not for one provision therein. I am referring to the provision of the law which tackles the "Fair Use" of the copyrighted work. As what the law states, "(T)he fair use of a copyrighted work for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching including multiple copies for classroom use, scholarship, research, and similar purposes is not an infringement of copyright." So it only means that if I will be downloading something from the internet which is a copyrighted work, my purpose of downloading it will make a big difference. 

The question now is that, will the act of downloading the article from the internet which was posted by another person who is not the author of said work a copyright infringement? Well, it will depend. Since Article 85 of the law on Copyright does not distinguish who will be the one who will be downloading the work. If the purpose is still for scholastic reasons, then it could not be classified as an infringement regardless if the person who posted it is not the author himself. It will be a different case for the person who posted this material over the internet. Because the fact that he posted it for everyone to have access to, then it is as if he is the actual author of said work. 

In arguendo, if the the act of downloading is to be considered as infringement, will it be appropriate for our government to adopt the infamous SOPA/ PIPA law of the United States? Before I answer that, I would like to give a short discussion first why I considered such law as infamous. The bills were intended to control online infringement but were not accepted by the majority of websites in the US thus there was even a time when wikipedia.com was blocked out and showing only its protest against SOPA. Most of the critics of said bill had their positions focused on one issue which is false accusation. There are provisions in the bill which grant immunity to payment processors and ad networks that cut off sites based on a reasonable belief of infringement, so even if claims turn out to be false, only the site suffers. How will the court appreciate what is reasonable belief?  If we are to apply such bill in our country, isn't the bill unconstitutional? Revisiting our Bill of Rights in the 1987 Constitution warrants that due process should be observed because no person shall be deprived of his life, liberty and property without due process, (emphasis supplied). I emphasized on property because having your own website wherein one can freely express himself is already a intellectual property as such is to be considered as a copyrighted law. Going back to the question earlier posted, it is my opinion that it is not appropriate for the SOPA to be applied here in the country. Some of the provisions are vague and this is important as they are given the power to shut down a website who is suspected to be an infringement. Reasonable belief could still be based on the appreciation of the judge thus this is very problematic as we will end up with closing down a website, an intellectual property, of another person and decisions would vary.