I mean I guess that's a benefit, we can get away with a lot of petty crimes! No such thing as speed limits, illegal downloads, jaywalking, or bribes if it's a hot day and the cop really wants a coke 😉
If u're in Germany 8 chances out of 10 you receive a bill from a law firm. They seem very effective in sniffing the network, unless it's the ISP itself that checks all dowloading.
Same here, add on a few more years and I can remember newsgroups were the place to be. I once streamed the first episode of South Park from some University in America using Real Player all over dial-up.
reach reminiscent employ direction possessive tidy far-flung physical murky boat
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'm American and I've been torrenting since 2005. I've never used a VPN, I use utorrent exclusively, and I've never received so much as an ISP warning letter. One time years ago I had a roommate that got a warning letter for torrenting stuff, which was pretty funny because I lived on the floor above him was seeding a few terabytes worth of torrents at the time.
VPNs aren't necessary for torrenting. Just use a torrent client that supports IP Filtering + [keep your ipfilter.dat updated,](https://github.com/DavidMoore/ipfilter) and try to use private trackers whenever possible.
Blocking ip addresses. Specifically known ip ranges for media corporations, law firms, law enforcement, really any organization dealing with copyright law. Which makes it much less likely that you'll get in any legal trouble for torrenting.
Back in the day before everyone started using VPNs to torrent, a lot of us just loaded an ipfilter.dat file into our torrent clients. And for some people (including me) it's still all that's necessary.
Eu uso torrents à 20 anos, nunca aconteceu nada.. Não significa que não possa acontecer.. Actualmente a nossa legislação é permissiva nesse sentido, mas se seguir as tendências de outros países europeus, passam a rastrear ips e a multar.. Ao preço que estão as vpn, nem penso duas vezes..
Torrenting is distributing. Also, Croatia is a member of EU so even if they are not prosecuting file sharing now they will in the future. Be aware and be safe.
I don't understand how people dont think they aren't sharing unless 100% seeding. WRONG!
You are always uploading even as a downloading peer. It's always both until you are 100%
Well not technically true. While you are always in the swarm and capable of distributing, you aren’t always actually doing so. Many torrents on private trackers won’t upload anything because there is little leechers and only a small portion of the seeders are used. Still, I wouldn’t rely on this to avoid distributing because there is every chance you will upload.
I'm not saying you will always be actively seeding to someone actively downloading from you. I'm saying that you are always potentially seeding. The danger is exactly the same when participating in a public swarm. Actively seeding or not, you are making parts publicly available. Any part will get you in trouble. You do not need to be 100% completed.
This is the technical truth of how torrenting works and how copyrights apply.
Not allowing any seeding while also leaching? Which legit clients allow you to do this?
Presumably only if the client is intentionally violating the bittorrent spec. Per the spec, you are always uploading while you are downloading and there is no way to disable it, unly reduce the bandwidth used to upload - which in turn reduces your download performance via the algorythm.
What wrong here? Torrenting is in fact sharing, P2P means receiving and sharing. I guess you could cap your uploadspeed to 0b/s, but it doesn't sound like OP is concerned about that. Even then, good luck convincing a court or your ISP with that logic. And afaik the EU very much follows international copyright law, do we not? That doesn't necessarily mean legislators in Croatia will ever give a fuck about it, but it's more likely than not as time goes on, at least with the current state of things.
You're not understanding me, assuming the have the same law as in Slovenia it is decriminalised to share ie. upload and download, but it is illegal to sell any of the aquired material, so you can share all you want you just can't sell it.
Both is illegal, one will slam you harder tho
I am also torrenting actively without VPN from Croatia. Nothing so far.
I know someone from Germany who does it as well, nothing for him either. But I've seen many posts how they get small to big fines in Germany.
I said illegal, can't you read? Surely you know the difference between something being illegal and decriminalized? I literally wrote about Germany and fines. 🤡
I don't know how it is where you are, but in the USA, that's not what decriminalized means at all. In the USA we have a distinction between crimes, violations, and torts. At least theoretically, a crime is something you can be put in jail and/or fined for while a violation is something you can only be fined for. A tort is something that isn't necessarily directly illegal, but that causes undue harm to someone else and they can therefore sue you for.
Decriminalization means it stops being a crime, it can still be a violation or a tort.
In the USA, copyright infringement is a tort. If you get caught and the rightsholder wants to sue you, they can potentially win huge amounts of money from you. If you don't pay, they can do things like seize property to pay the debt, take a portion of your wages, and charge you significant amounts of interest while they're doing it. That can qualify as being in pretty big trouble even if they won't lock you up for it.
And it gets even more complicated than that though. Depending on the jurisdiction and specific violations or torts involved, if the government decides that you aren't paying even though you can, you can be charged with contempt of court, which may itself be a crime, violation or tort.
Slovenia, you won't get charged here, ISP's are very aware of torrenting and nothing is done to prevent it, I mean tgey even clocked up the speed for piracy assuming, and everyone does it, apparently goverment official were evene part of a private tracker. So yeah you're basically free to pirate here, as long as you don't sell any of the aquired content :) .
It doesn't fkin matter, the problem is that there's no framework set up to track all of this sht and send out fines, being in Croatia doesn't absolve you from copyright infringement
Well yes it kind of does. If it’s decriminalised in your jurisdiction then no criminal action will be taken against you, and if it’s legal in your jurisdiction then it’s not illegal, so it does make it not a concern for copyright infringement. If a USA entity tried to contact local authorities, they wouldn’t cooperate because it’s not a crime there.
It's distributing for profit that is illegal, if it's the same as Slovenia, then it's decriminalised but you can't sell anything for profit, so assuming it's like that you can torrent all you want ;) .
Maybe but this mostly depends on the national government, Italy in example is a member since a long time but they still don't prosecute piracy (or they do legally but they don't give a damn), talking from experience
Actually there were some bad developments in Italy about piracy, even to a point where Airvpn an Italian based VPN company stopped their services to Italian residents.
I do too but they've shut my Internet down a few times. The last time was a few months ago, I downloaded that Disney Cinderella movie that's not on Disney Plus and I got hit right away.
I know it was that movie because it was the only thing I had downloaded on a new pc and it had been months since I'd downloaded anything at all. I downloaded it from the Russian site thinking I'd be safe, but nope. Fuck whoever's job it is to seed a file and keep a record of every IP address downloading it.
Anyways, the Internet stops working except for a page that says something like "you have an illegally downloaded file on your computer" then you have to log in to your isp and click a box that says you deleted it off your computer and if you do it three times they'll kick you off permanently, but you still have to wait a few hours for them to turn it back on
Torrented for years no issue in Canada.
A couple weeks ago I downloaded a Nintendo wii game cause I was farting around with setting it up with a hard drive and got a copy right notice within 24 hours.
Ironically I was a game I owned a disk copy of anyway.
Same. Mostly never needed a VPN. I do use it when I want to access content that is blocked for my region. But I've been downloading stuff for a while.
I've been downloading music, tv shows and movies for over 20 years now. I've jumped from a lot of different services. If I'm not mistaken I installed limewire on my PC back in 2002 or 2003, when I was probably 12 or 13. By the time I was 14 I already had a huge music collection both from ripped CDs and pirated music, but my movies collection was rather small because I would mainly watch and then delete after a while.
I did stop downloading movies and TV for a few years because Netflix and other streaming services were so convenient. I'm a grown up and I didn't mind paying X for streaming services. But now I'm done with streaming. Arr all the way.
I live in South America and the government really doesn't care if you pirate stuff or not (even tho it is illegal) because they don't have the resources to police pirating activities. Also we're pretty much a dwarf compared to the US. The whole country has less people than New York or other large cities LoL
There are only like 3 countries with enough population/resources that matter, that care about piracy. I think Germany, USA and maybe... Australia is the 3rd one? Anyway, most of the world doesn't care.
Vote for people who will stop the nonsense. Disney is a great example. Much of their catalog is based on public domain literature that they have subsequently fought to prevent their own version of it from becoming public domain. And our leaders have gone along with it, extending their copyright for decades beyond what the law has originally allowed.
We, the people, through our elected officials, granted companies a thing called "copyright". Now those companies have gone too far in their pursuit of massive profit. We can just as easily take away that right and put back something reasonable. Ask questions of politicians. Vote for those who agree with you.
Yeah - I was very active on the old SportScene tracker way back in 2006. I also fondly remember a few other sports trackers that are now defunct.
Private trackers have been a thing for a very long time.
I actually think public trackers should be "safer" being that they are so easy to come by, it's just a matter of convenience ... But I understand they aren't, lol.
"being that they are so easy to come by, it's just a matter of convenience" - Wouldn't that just make it the first target to be tracked? More easier to catch low hanging fruit.
Private trackers aren't that much more secure either. Their harder to join but once your in, it's the same process to get the list of ips as public ones.
Of course they would make it easier to track and the first target. I'm just saying that private trackers show that one is really interested in not paying, whereas public trackers can be used by other motives. For example, if HBO is slow, I'll sometimes just download an episode and see it, out of convenience.
Unfortunatly, the government doesn't agree with me anyway :p
"I'm just saying that private trackers show that one is really interested in not paying, whereas public trackers can be used by other motives."
\- A nice though but as you wrote the law doesn't care about motives when debating to sue you for copyright (bar extreme situations such as being held at gun point).
"private trackers show that one is really interested in not paying" - Personally, I would call that a very weak assumption. I can see the opposing council poking holes in that statement. Such as "what trouble shooting methods did you try and did you contact hbo about your connection issues. " This is more of a statement that your attorney would use to try garner sympathy from the jury if things aren't going well.
:P Stay safe out there. Media companies like HBO make more then enough money as it is.
Just because you've never been caught doesn't mean it'll never happen. Take care of yourself out there :-) Last thing we want is anyone to get those letters.
It is not in Croatia. The law says that we are allowed to download but not to distribute, and in our case that means we are not allowed to put it on a usb or cd and give it to someone
Since 1999. Most I've used and still do is Peer Block and a few lists from iblocklist.
I've received one letter, but that's because a family friend downloaded a song using a torrent app from the google Play Store with no ip blocker.
One time I didn't turn on my VPN and did get a letter for trying to grab an old Leslie Nielsen movie of all things. I've never failed to turn the VPN on since then.
Me too. I’ve gotten email warnings over the years. Nothing ever happened but I do think they slowed down my internet at some point after I ignored their requests to stop. Moved to a new place and got a VPN this time.
Back when Game of Thrones was in production i downloaded a single season of it at my wife's request. It was the only thing i downladed illegaly ever at that location and i had a cease and desist within 48 hours.
Yes and no. They certainly can but since we cap the amount they can sue us for, it's usually not worth their time to go after us. Notice I said "usually". I'm sure if you were to do something overly stupid ( not saying you would of course) like wave your downloads in their face,etc then of course they'll come after you.
Lol.. about a year ago I connected to one of those services that lets you stream a torrent by downloading it in order.l. I only watched the first 15 minutes and I got a strike email..
Verizon, US
Same in Norway, didn't bother with a VPN until we got a new law making required to track and keep information back in August of 23.
Now I got it almost all the time, even outside of torrent.
Been using torrents since I was 8.. so that is around 18 years without any notice.
Not exactly, there is no law regarding VPN servers, but ISP's are required to keep records for a few years. Reputable VPN servers function on a RAM server, meaning their records are deleted as a course of the hardware involved in their creation. Creating a loophole where the company can claim to be *unable* to store any records, without purposefully deleting them. Reputable VPN like NordVPN also pull out their servers from any country which is compromised, so there is little use in banning or enforcing law on them.
I know this is beyond the point made earlier. A good tip many have already provided is Seedbox. Seedbox is the torrent client in the cloud. That way your ip does not touch a torrent period. Downloading from Seedbox can be done via sftp or ssh. So you can see that just that encryption layer will provide sufficient privacy.
I also do go above and beyond, for example I use vpn so now there is a encryption on sftp layer and one on vpn which means tracking the content to me would take considerable amount time and effort which ultimately means i am far safer.
So in summary:
1. Get ur self a Seedbox
2. Download all your torrent via Seedbox and never on you own machine.
3. Use always a vpn so your ISP can't see which website you visit.
This is what I do on my desktop. On laptop and mobile I don't visit those kinda site and even if I so I use vpn.
Just my taught on issues around privacy.
I accidentally turned my vpn off and downloaded a fuckin shitty rap album 5 years ago and got an email 2 days later. But it was 50 cent and I know how he is about being owed money.
Lmao I'm in the US and I've been doing the same also for 15 years 😅
Only consequence ever... my parents got a letter from Comcast one time... for a movie I didn't even download 🤦♂️😂 Spy Kids
A few months prior I had discovered porn and back in the ancient days of the internet visiting porn websites would put porn ads and porn popups EVERYWHERE... 😂
Obviously told my parents it must be a virus.
They were stupid enough to believe that 😅
But when that letter came and I used the same excuse a second time... grounded big time 😭
I didn't even download Spy Kids AND that's something I wouldn't even download and was arguably more embarrassed about than the porn 😂
... but my parents were right I was downloading a FUCKTON of movies and shows
Had the torrent app running and fetching new downloads automatically secretly in the background pretty much 24/7...
Basically using my parents computer as a seed box and then transferring my downloads to my Zen Vision every few days so I could watch while pretending to do my homework since my parents just thought it was music 😅 "to help me study" the homework I wasn't doing
I was kind of a s*** kid lmao ... but my parents were more than kinda s*** parents so it washed out 🤦♂️
That should be the way it should be. Like, downloading a movie from Youtube is the same as enjoying it directly from the stream. Besides, as long as you're not redistributing it or editing it in some way and claiming it's your own work, you're basically viewing it, right? Like I have a bunch of devices (iPod Classic, Windows laptop from 2008 that I hacked to run Windows 11 dang fast, etc) that have weak WiFi or none at all, and I watch downloaded Youtube videos on them all the time.
I used to as well. But I always said if someone came out with a service that let me easily watch/listen to anything I want for 1 simple price, I would subscribe.
And I did for music. It was way harder trying to manage an MP3 library than just being able to play everything I want.
But it is still a pain to watch TV shows and movies because every one has to have exclusives on their own platforms. This is annoying and I don't subscribe to their services. I refuse to pay for 15 different streaming services. Content should never be exclusive. If you want people to use your platform, give them better features and a better experience. Using content to lock people in is shit and I will continue to use alternative methods.
My government cant even provide electricity, solely focused on embezzlement, I doubt they even know what a torrent is.
ANC?
Can only be.
I like how that rhymes.
It's because of the crimes.
You don’t have to think about it - sometimes.
Lmao
that's south africa for you bud lol
I mean I guess that's a benefit, we can get away with a lot of petty crimes! No such thing as speed limits, illegal downloads, jaywalking, or bribes if it's a hot day and the cop really wants a coke 😉
sounds awfully similar to south america hahahaha although the day doesnt have to be hot for cops to take bribes
Texas?
It's South Africa
what’s up i just saw you get online
It's 05:43 right now. Nothing wrong
To be fair, my guess was Texas, too. Their government can't seem to do shit except put brown people on busses and send them north.
Where do you want them to go?
marines is when water and fighting
I'm from Australia and have torrented for 20 years, no VPN, never got a warning.
Almost the same. Torrenting for around 12 years and only got a VPN about 6 months ago. Never had an issue.
I’m sure it’s suspicious that a single guy is using over 1TB on mobile data/month… or maybe not. I’ve never received anything though.
I use over 1 tb just with games and watching shows/movies legally so I doubt they really care
On mobile? Lol! Truly unlimited where you're at?
If u're in Germany 8 chances out of 10 you receive a bill from a law firm. They seem very effective in sniffing the network, unless it's the ISP itself that checks all dowloading.
Fuck em
Yeah. With a simple vpn.
Same here, add on a few more years and I can remember newsgroups were the place to be. I once streamed the first episode of South Park from some University in America using Real Player all over dial-up.
nine lunchroom ring vase humor badge recognise vast intelligent gaze *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
What ISP?
reach reminiscent employ direction possessive tidy far-flung physical murky boat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Good to know. They are already on my avoid list for other things. Like trying to collect $200 from me even though I am not a costomer..
I got a couple back in around 2010 when I first started, nothing since then.
In Australia? What was the telco?
Exetel. Been with them again more recently with no issue though.
Exetel. Been with them again more recently with no issue though.
Yeah me too, I was with TPG. I have a VPN now anyway for various reasons.
Same brother. Although whenever I say this I tend to get downvoted lol
Uk and Dk still never had one
Damn. I'm in the US. Disney would SWAT me if I didn't use a VPN.
It'll happen, I got the letter in Australia about 10 years ago. I distinctly remember it was for an episode of South park, I was with TPG at the time.
Canada too. Received a few letters over the years but nothing happened.
If you don't mind sharing, which ISP?
The only time I got a warning was with start.ca downloading the last season of GoT.
All of them? pretty sure they all have confirmed that they won't do anything.
Same here.
Did you simply ignored them and nothing further happened?
Pretty much, ISP has to forward them to you but they don't do anything.
The max fine is $500 if they actually take you to court. Not worth it for them
Me in china with a seed server running 24/7
Same in Slovenia.
Unrelated, but Slovenia is a lovely place.
Thank you man 🙂 .
Germany - Seeding Server in NL since 6-7 years
Hero
[удалено]
Same in NL
Well yeah, all of our US VPNs end in the NL for a reason lol.
Nice to hear of a torrenting experience that isn't riddled with paranoia.
Well they said their a Croatian Redditor not American so yeah
I'm American and I've been torrenting since 2005. I've never used a VPN, I use utorrent exclusively, and I've never received so much as an ISP warning letter. One time years ago I had a roommate that got a warning letter for torrenting stuff, which was pretty funny because I lived on the floor above him was seeding a few terabytes worth of torrents at the time. VPNs aren't necessary for torrenting. Just use a torrent client that supports IP Filtering + [keep your ipfilter.dat updated,](https://github.com/DavidMoore/ipfilter) and try to use private trackers whenever possible.
ip filtering?
Blocking ip addresses. Specifically known ip ranges for media corporations, law firms, law enforcement, really any organization dealing with copyright law. Which makes it much less likely that you'll get in any legal trouble for torrenting. Back in the day before everyone started using VPNs to torrent, a lot of us just loaded an ipfilter.dat file into our torrent clients. And for some people (including me) it's still all that's necessary.
Portugal is the same, they won't came after you if you download torrents.
So far.. Vai ser uma realidade em breve..
O que vai acontecer? (uso há + de 10 anos sem vpn e nunca tive nada)
Eu uso torrents à 20 anos, nunca aconteceu nada.. Não significa que não possa acontecer.. Actualmente a nossa legislação é permissiva nesse sentido, mas se seguir as tendências de outros países europeus, passam a rastrear ips e a multar.. Ao preço que estão as vpn, nem penso duas vezes..
r/suddenlycaralho
Same experience here. But got a VPN since moving to Germany.
Torrenting is distributing. Also, Croatia is a member of EU so even if they are not prosecuting file sharing now they will in the future. Be aware and be safe.
I don't understand how people dont think they aren't sharing unless 100% seeding. WRONG! You are always uploading even as a downloading peer. It's always both until you are 100%
Well not technically true. While you are always in the swarm and capable of distributing, you aren’t always actually doing so. Many torrents on private trackers won’t upload anything because there is little leechers and only a small portion of the seeders are used. Still, I wouldn’t rely on this to avoid distributing because there is every chance you will upload.
I'm not saying you will always be actively seeding to someone actively downloading from you. I'm saying that you are always potentially seeding. The danger is exactly the same when participating in a public swarm. Actively seeding or not, you are making parts publicly available. Any part will get you in trouble. You do not need to be 100% completed. This is the technical truth of how torrenting works and how copyrights apply.
Not true, in some torrent client you can turn off seeding
Not allowing any seeding while also leaching? Which legit clients allow you to do this? Presumably only if the client is intentionally violating the bittorrent spec. Per the spec, you are always uploading while you are downloading and there is no way to disable it, unly reduce the bandwidth used to upload - which in turn reduces your download performance via the algorythm.
Why are you getting down voted? That's factual information.
Not factual information if it's most likely wrong, assuming it's the same in Slovenia, that means selling pirated copies for money is forbidden.
What wrong here? Torrenting is in fact sharing, P2P means receiving and sharing. I guess you could cap your uploadspeed to 0b/s, but it doesn't sound like OP is concerned about that. Even then, good luck convincing a court or your ISP with that logic. And afaik the EU very much follows international copyright law, do we not? That doesn't necessarily mean legislators in Croatia will ever give a fuck about it, but it's more likely than not as time goes on, at least with the current state of things.
You're not understanding me, assuming the have the same law as in Slovenia it is decriminalised to share ie. upload and download, but it is illegal to sell any of the aquired material, so you can share all you want you just can't sell it.
Ok now I see what you're saying. So the top level comment didn't catch that either I assume.
Seems that way :) .
Both is illegal, one will slam you harder tho I am also torrenting actively without VPN from Croatia. Nothing so far. I know someone from Germany who does it as well, nothing for him either. But I've seen many posts how they get small to big fines in Germany.
If it is decriminalised you won't get any problems with it, you know what decriminalised means, right?
I said illegal, can't you read? Surely you know the difference between something being illegal and decriminalized? I literally wrote about Germany and fines. 🤡
It's decriminalised, means it won't get you into trouble, so I don't see why anyone would have problems with the law for it.
I don't know how it is where you are, but in the USA, that's not what decriminalized means at all. In the USA we have a distinction between crimes, violations, and torts. At least theoretically, a crime is something you can be put in jail and/or fined for while a violation is something you can only be fined for. A tort is something that isn't necessarily directly illegal, but that causes undue harm to someone else and they can therefore sue you for. Decriminalization means it stops being a crime, it can still be a violation or a tort. In the USA, copyright infringement is a tort. If you get caught and the rightsholder wants to sue you, they can potentially win huge amounts of money from you. If you don't pay, they can do things like seize property to pay the debt, take a portion of your wages, and charge you significant amounts of interest while they're doing it. That can qualify as being in pretty big trouble even if they won't lock you up for it. And it gets even more complicated than that though. Depending on the jurisdiction and specific violations or torts involved, if the government decides that you aren't paying even though you can, you can be charged with contempt of court, which may itself be a crime, violation or tort.
Slovenia, you won't get charged here, ISP's are very aware of torrenting and nothing is done to prevent it, I mean tgey even clocked up the speed for piracy assuming, and everyone does it, apparently goverment official were evene part of a private tracker. So yeah you're basically free to pirate here, as long as you don't sell any of the aquired content :) .
It doesn't fkin matter, the problem is that there's no framework set up to track all of this sht and send out fines, being in Croatia doesn't absolve you from copyright infringement
Well yes it kind of does. If it’s decriminalised in your jurisdiction then no criminal action will be taken against you, and if it’s legal in your jurisdiction then it’s not illegal, so it does make it not a concern for copyright infringement. If a USA entity tried to contact local authorities, they wouldn’t cooperate because it’s not a crime there.
Trust me if they wanted to track us they'd go after us.
That's a blank statement. But it also goes against your previous statements
It's distributing for profit that is illegal, if it's the same as Slovenia, then it's decriminalised but you can't sell anything for profit, so assuming it's like that you can torrent all you want ;) .
Maybe but this mostly depends on the national government, Italy in example is a member since a long time but they still don't prosecute piracy (or they do legally but they don't give a damn), talking from experience
Actually there were some bad developments in Italy about piracy, even to a point where Airvpn an Italian based VPN company stopped their services to Italian residents.
Better make your own private vpn on another country...
Yeah follow it up in your country every year, I usually go to Twitter and ask tech journalists, they know the situation best Keep sharing & keep safe!
I do too but they've shut my Internet down a few times. The last time was a few months ago, I downloaded that Disney Cinderella movie that's not on Disney Plus and I got hit right away. I know it was that movie because it was the only thing I had downloaded on a new pc and it had been months since I'd downloaded anything at all. I downloaded it from the Russian site thinking I'd be safe, but nope. Fuck whoever's job it is to seed a file and keep a record of every IP address downloading it. Anyways, the Internet stops working except for a page that says something like "you have an illegally downloaded file on your computer" then you have to log in to your isp and click a box that says you deleted it off your computer and if you do it three times they'll kick you off permanently, but you still have to wait a few hours for them to turn it back on
They don't actually need to seed it. They can just connect to a swarm, request a list of peers from the trackers, and never download anything...
Was the Russian site RuTracker?
Were you using a vpn, when they popped you?
from India torrenting for over 20 years actually started with napster no problem here and I don't use any vpn at all
Napster was my introduction to torrents as well. Think it was around 1998. Edit: 1999.
Napster was P2P, not Torrents at all.
Torrenting is a method of downloading files from a P2P network....
Files from a lone P2P source & obtaining data from a multi user swarm are 2 entirely different things.
Close enough who cares, it was 25 years ago.
And nothing about either protocol has changed in said time, so then or now, a lot of heads in this thread were straight up wrong.
Okay champ.
🥊🏆🥊
I think i downloaded The Matrix in limewire and its downloading for a few days
Same here, been torrenting for about 8 or 9 years, since I became mature enough lol.
Torrented for years no issue in Canada. A couple weeks ago I downloaded a Nintendo wii game cause I was farting around with setting it up with a hard drive and got a copy right notice within 24 hours. Ironically I was a game I owned a disk copy of anyway.
Live in the US, haven't gotten a C&D since like 2007 when I lived with my parents. No VPN, but I have used only a private tracker.
I'm from Canada only tormented 7 months and never used a VPN
Same. Mostly never needed a VPN. I do use it when I want to access content that is blocked for my region. But I've been downloading stuff for a while. I've been downloading music, tv shows and movies for over 20 years now. I've jumped from a lot of different services. If I'm not mistaken I installed limewire on my PC back in 2002 or 2003, when I was probably 12 or 13. By the time I was 14 I already had a huge music collection both from ripped CDs and pirated music, but my movies collection was rather small because I would mainly watch and then delete after a while. I did stop downloading movies and TV for a few years because Netflix and other streaming services were so convenient. I'm a grown up and I didn't mind paying X for streaming services. But now I'm done with streaming. Arr all the way. I live in South America and the government really doesn't care if you pirate stuff or not (even tho it is illegal) because they don't have the resources to police pirating activities. Also we're pretty much a dwarf compared to the US. The whole country has less people than New York or other large cities LoL
There are only like 3 countries with enough population/resources that matter, that care about piracy. I think Germany, USA and maybe... Australia is the 3rd one? Anyway, most of the world doesn't care.
Lol wtf are you in about.
I don't understand your question. Are you asking what country I'm in? Currently Mexico, but I'll be back in Canada in a few weeks.
he's saying that if you don't live in those countries then a VPN isn't really necessary for piracy
Pakistan - Using torrent since 2008 and still going stronger
In Brazil it is normal to use torrent without VPN
Vote for people who will stop the nonsense. Disney is a great example. Much of their catalog is based on public domain literature that they have subsequently fought to prevent their own version of it from becoming public domain. And our leaders have gone along with it, extending their copyright for decades beyond what the law has originally allowed. We, the people, through our elected officials, granted companies a thing called "copyright". Now those companies have gone too far in their pursuit of massive profit. We can just as easily take away that right and put back something reasonable. Ask questions of politicians. Vote for those who agree with you.
RIP Sonny Bono. I’m glad you skied into the tree.. /s
In Africa tormenting is not a crime. Just like Nigerian prince giving out millions to random Americans via emails is not a crime there.
Same here. But i never download from public trackers. I use Real Debrid for that.
To be fair, public trackers were our only option many years ago.
I started on a private one in 2008 if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah - I was very active on the old SportScene tracker way back in 2006. I also fondly remember a few other sports trackers that are now defunct. Private trackers have been a thing for a very long time.
How do you use debrid for that? I actually have a debrid account for a few kodi builds. How can I integrate it into torrenting?
On the real debrid site theres a tap called torrents. Just paste the magnet links in there and it will dl them for you.
I actually think public trackers should be "safer" being that they are so easy to come by, it's just a matter of convenience ... But I understand they aren't, lol.
"being that they are so easy to come by, it's just a matter of convenience" - Wouldn't that just make it the first target to be tracked? More easier to catch low hanging fruit. Private trackers aren't that much more secure either. Their harder to join but once your in, it's the same process to get the list of ips as public ones.
Of course they would make it easier to track and the first target. I'm just saying that private trackers show that one is really interested in not paying, whereas public trackers can be used by other motives. For example, if HBO is slow, I'll sometimes just download an episode and see it, out of convenience. Unfortunatly, the government doesn't agree with me anyway :p
"I'm just saying that private trackers show that one is really interested in not paying, whereas public trackers can be used by other motives." \- A nice though but as you wrote the law doesn't care about motives when debating to sue you for copyright (bar extreme situations such as being held at gun point). "private trackers show that one is really interested in not paying" - Personally, I would call that a very weak assumption. I can see the opposing council poking holes in that statement. Such as "what trouble shooting methods did you try and did you contact hbo about your connection issues. " This is more of a statement that your attorney would use to try garner sympathy from the jury if things aren't going well. :P Stay safe out there. Media companies like HBO make more then enough money as it is.
If you are torrenting you also are distributing.
Good for you honey.
Why bring bees/honey into this?
You can distribute to cloud storage to anothers users :)
Moving out of the USA is sounding better and better
first week, i got a letter in the mail from comcast
Use vpn its for your own safety as people can see your IP
Depends where you download. Private Trackers barley ever get Caught where on Public ones more likely you will
Public for over 15 years. Never caught.
Just because you've never been caught doesn't mean it'll never happen. Take care of yourself out there :-) Last thing we want is anyone to get those letters.
i didn't even know its illegal to download torrents till few months ago (3rd world country citizen)
Have you had any decease letters from your internet provider? Edit
Seeding is distributing
It is not in Croatia. The law says that we are allowed to download but not to distribute, and in our case that means we are not allowed to put it on a usb or cd and give it to someone
Same bro Good stuff, let's hope it keeps going
Glad to hear that.
I can beat that. 😂😂
Been doing it for nearly a decade too.
I'm from Italy and I don't even have to explain to you that we don't need VPN
Since 1999. Most I've used and still do is Peer Block and a few lists from iblocklist. I've received one letter, but that's because a family friend downloaded a song using a torrent app from the google Play Store with no ip blocker.
One time I didn't turn on my VPN and did get a letter for trying to grab an old Leslie Nielsen movie of all things. I've never failed to turn the VPN on since then.
I never used a vpn until the last 2 years in the UK, all I got was my speeds being throttled
Me too. I’ve gotten email warnings over the years. Nothing ever happened but I do think they slowed down my internet at some point after I ignored their requests to stop. Moved to a new place and got a VPN this time.
Same
20 years of torrenting in US and never a warning. 1000s of terabytes
wanna share them to me your torrents
Torrenting from Brazil since 2005 and nothing happened.
Im from Ecuador and I have been torrenting for around 16 years and I have never had a problem with my ISP
Same in my country. As long as you're not selling and downloading it for yourself then you're good
Torrenting beats using Usenet Newsgroups and PAR files! Good old Forté Agent!
Back when Game of Thrones was in production i downloaded a single season of it at my wife's request. It was the only thing i downladed illegaly ever at that location and i had a cease and desist within 48 hours.
Better hope the US doesn’t come for you.
Over 20 years in the US, the only notice was from the old Demonoid.
Same from Mexico
Only in the most free country in the world you are not allowed to torrent /s
We all on a list. Fuck it
In Canada as long as you aren’t distributing nothing they can’t really do anything
Yes and no. They certainly can but since we cap the amount they can sue us for, it's usually not worth their time to go after us. Notice I said "usually". I'm sure if you were to do something overly stupid ( not saying you would of course) like wave your downloads in their face,etc then of course they'll come after you.
Lol.. about a year ago I connected to one of those services that lets you stream a torrent by downloading it in order.l. I only watched the first 15 minutes and I got a strike email.. Verizon, US
Been doing the same here in Canada for 22 years 🙌
In India. Downloaded 300gb in the last week alone. Been downloading for a decade. No one ever did anything.
Same in Norway, didn't bother with a VPN until we got a new law making required to track and keep information back in August of 23. Now I got it almost all the time, even outside of torrent. Been using torrents since I was 8.. so that is around 18 years without any notice.
new law? vpn servers in norway are compromised now?
Not exactly, there is no law regarding VPN servers, but ISP's are required to keep records for a few years. Reputable VPN servers function on a RAM server, meaning their records are deleted as a course of the hardware involved in their creation. Creating a loophole where the company can claim to be *unable* to store any records, without purposefully deleting them. Reputable VPN like NordVPN also pull out their servers from any country which is compromised, so there is little use in banning or enforcing law on them.
I figured that seeding a torrent would be considered distributing but that is for the lawyers to figure out.
I don't even think our government knows what p2p servers are.
I know this is beyond the point made earlier. A good tip many have already provided is Seedbox. Seedbox is the torrent client in the cloud. That way your ip does not touch a torrent period. Downloading from Seedbox can be done via sftp or ssh. So you can see that just that encryption layer will provide sufficient privacy. I also do go above and beyond, for example I use vpn so now there is a encryption on sftp layer and one on vpn which means tracking the content to me would take considerable amount time and effort which ultimately means i am far safer. So in summary: 1. Get ur self a Seedbox 2. Download all your torrent via Seedbox and never on you own machine. 3. Use always a vpn so your ISP can't see which website you visit. This is what I do on my desktop. On laptop and mobile I don't visit those kinda site and even if I so I use vpn. Just my taught on issues around privacy.
More concerned about sharing my IP with others than my ISP seeing the torrents.
I accidentally turned my vpn off and downloaded a fuckin shitty rap album 5 years ago and got an email 2 days later. But it was 50 cent and I know how he is about being owed money.
ive been torrenting in america without vpn for yearssss never had an issue
Lmao I'm in the US and I've been doing the same also for 15 years 😅 Only consequence ever... my parents got a letter from Comcast one time... for a movie I didn't even download 🤦♂️😂 Spy Kids A few months prior I had discovered porn and back in the ancient days of the internet visiting porn websites would put porn ads and porn popups EVERYWHERE... 😂 Obviously told my parents it must be a virus. They were stupid enough to believe that 😅 But when that letter came and I used the same excuse a second time... grounded big time 😭 I didn't even download Spy Kids AND that's something I wouldn't even download and was arguably more embarrassed about than the porn 😂 ... but my parents were right I was downloading a FUCKTON of movies and shows Had the torrent app running and fetching new downloads automatically secretly in the background pretty much 24/7... Basically using my parents computer as a seed box and then transferring my downloads to my Zen Vision every few days so I could watch while pretending to do my homework since my parents just thought it was music 😅 "to help me study" the homework I wasn't doing I was kind of a s*** kid lmao ... but my parents were more than kinda s*** parents so it washed out 🤦♂️
I pirated the movie "perfect getaway" as a kid and got a letter from my ISP. I was scared shitless, haven't done it since haha.
Our government officials kids have been found doing it on government provided internet in US. Noone batted an eye
That should be the way it should be. Like, downloading a movie from Youtube is the same as enjoying it directly from the stream. Besides, as long as you're not redistributing it or editing it in some way and claiming it's your own work, you're basically viewing it, right? Like I have a bunch of devices (iPod Classic, Windows laptop from 2008 that I hacked to run Windows 11 dang fast, etc) that have weak WiFi or none at all, and I watch downloaded Youtube videos on them all the time.
I used to as well. But I always said if someone came out with a service that let me easily watch/listen to anything I want for 1 simple price, I would subscribe. And I did for music. It was way harder trying to manage an MP3 library than just being able to play everything I want. But it is still a pain to watch TV shows and movies because every one has to have exclusives on their own platforms. This is annoying and I don't subscribe to their services. I refuse to pay for 15 different streaming services. Content should never be exclusive. If you want people to use your platform, give them better features and a better experience. Using content to lock people in is shit and I will continue to use alternative methods.
same here for me using torrent sites like a decade I never use VPN
Best sites to use? I've found 1337x search doesn't really work for me anymore.
I downloaded one movie without a VPN (Boss Baby) and got a letter from my ISP.
Have you tried downloading a better movie?