Playing films from a different region isnt illegal at all, I know I said that people use the older versions to play 'copies' but I said I just use it to backup original games, so I dont have to carry around a UMD all day, and have it hogging the battery life.
I'm sure you can see my point Dave, seeing as your quite a PSP fan yourself, I'm sure you'll know how usefull they can be, and that them UMDs do suck that battery life quite a bit.
Reason I stated about the Newsgroup post is because its a very well known source of illegal content, and even explains what site to use to find an index of every single file thats pirated onto a newsgroup.
Edit:
There are many UMD 'Dumpers' that put the UMD contents onto your memory card.
I don't feel robbed at all, I've purchased all my games for my PSP also, but I like to use it as a media player aswell, as it means I can sit at work listening to a streaming radio station, without lugging my laptop about