When it comes to torrents, one of the most commonly asked questions is “Is downloading torrents legal or illegal?” Torrent clients, such as uTorrent Vuze and the official BitTorrent client, are used to download immense amounts of data on the Web, and there’s no question that much of it is illegal. Here we’ll talk about how torrent downloads work, when they’re illegal, and how to protect your privacy when you’re using them.
Download Safe Torrent Without Getting Caught Using Zbigz Updated: January 9, 2019 by Paularo Safe Torrent is possible with zbigz, and these are usual torrents which can’t be traced back to you, making you able to download torrents safely anonymously without getting caught and there are a couple of ways you can do this. How They Trap Torrent users: 1. When you try to find a torrent file to download your favorite movie or game on torrent sites, such as ExtraTorrent, YiFiMovies or ThePirateBay, you must have noticed that you tend to find a lot of fake torrent files that are either empty or have no seeds except 1 or 2.
So What Is Legal and What Is Illegal?
The short answer: as long as the item is copyrighted and you don’t own it, then downloading it (for free) via torrent is illegal. Using a torrent client and downloading torrents in itself isn’t illegal, as you could be downloading things that aren’t protected by copyright.
The long answer: This varies from case to case. Most countries have basic common laws against intellectual property theft. If a piece of music is copyrighted and you don’t own it, you can’t download it legally. The same goes for a movie, a game, or anything else you may want (unless the copyright-holder decides to make it free either temporarily or permanently, as is often the case with video games). The line gets kind of fuzzy here, since people ask themselves many different questions about their own country’s laws.
In general, a copyright is registered to an individual or organization that creates something. This copyright has a time limit, usually equivalent to the lifetime of the creator and a set amount of additional years. Some copyrights are for life plus fifty years. Others are for life plus seventy years. Look up your country in the previous link if you’re unsure of your laws. Of course, your mileage may vary, as some things may not be protected by the law where you live, or copyright law may not be enforced at all.
So if you’re downloading a free Linux distribution through your torrent client, you don’t need to worry. But if you’re getting John Lennon’s “Imagine” from The Pirate Bay, you’re doing something that in all likelihood is breaking a law.
Related: How to Download Torrents onto Your iOS Device Without Jailbreaking
Torrent Privacy
Whatever it is you’re doing is not any of my business. But it is my business to make sure you know just how “anonymous” you are in the torrent network. The short answer is: you totally aren’t!
It’s handy to have a basic knowledge of how the torrent protocol works. Theoretically you should have some level of privacy since you’re not downloading any data from one particular server (in contrast to downloading something from a central server like you’d find on Microsoft’s website, where they’ll know exactly who it is that’s downloading their products).
But through the torrent system you download directions to a file. That means that the torrent file is actually just a list of trackers and some hash codes. It doesn’t really prove that you downloaded the torrent file. What you do inside your torrent client is more important, and that’s all managed by a decentralized list of servers. Once you start the download of the actual file you want to get to, you end up downloading little pieces of the file from a bunch of people.
Can You Get Caught?
Government agents and copyright trolls tend to snoop around the Torrent networks, and some of the more popular sites hosting Torrent files, downloading files and listing all the IP addresses they find under the Peers (downloaders) and Seeders (uploaders) lists. This will, of course, compromise your address eventually.
The actual number of people who get caught is miniscule, but if you want to secure yourself and don’t care much to contribute to the Torrent community, then you can disable seeding which stops your PC uploading files to the torrent network. Avid torrenters would call this selfish, and maybe they’re right, but you’re also covering yourself.
Another good option is to use a proxy or VPN, then set your torrent client to connect to peers through that. This essentially makes you anonymous by routing your connection through a different IP address.
Then there’s the onion routing network (Tor) that you can configure as a proxy for your torrent client. However, since the Snowden revelations it’s become known that even Tor has been targeted by the NSA and GCHQ for illegal activity. While the network is mostly secure, there have been incidents of these spy bodies attacking individual computers, so it’s not as anonymous as it once was.
Conclusion
Rest assured that torrenting does not equate to piracy. It does, however, provide a very convenient way to do it! The torrent protocol is just a clever transmission method for users to download files more easily. If you’re worried that you may be downloading something that’s against the laws in your country, ask below.
This article was first published in Jun 2013 and was updated in Nov 2017.
Image credit: Pirate Bay main page
How To Download Torrents Securely & Anonymously Without Getting Caught or Banned
BitTorrent, the prominent and one of the most used Torrent clients, is neither illegal nor unsafe to use, whatsoever. BitTorrent is a revolutionary tool to help you transfer large files to hundreds or thousands of users in a flash.
However, most people use torrent applications, for the most part, to download ‘copy-protected’, aka ‘copyright’, content from scores of free public torrent download websites such as ExtraTorrent, YiFyMovies, etc.
Expensive premium software tools, latest movies, hybrid games, TV seasons, etc. are some of the most extensively downloaded ‘copyright’ materials through torrent sites.
How To Download Torrent Without Getting Caught
Downloading copy-protected material through torrent sites is considered illegal across numerous global cyber regulations as it hampers the financial interests of the ‘copyright owner’. As a consequence, user activities on leading torrent sites is strictly and seamlessly monitored by applicable regulators across New Zealand, Australia, Canada, US, and several other nations to track and avoid illicit downloading of such content by the people.
Therefore, in order to download files from torrent websites anonymously, numerous BitTorrent users are always searching for ways to hide their identities from their respective Internet Service Providers and Copyright Holders such as RIAA, MPAA, and several others.
How They Track You
Internet Service Provider
Your ISP (Internet service provider) can read anything you device send over the Internet. Some also sell your web browser data to marketing companies.
How To Download Torrent Without Being Caught On Video
Your ISP can track anything you transfer across the Internet through your device. Several internet service providers also tend to sell your browser data to data analytics and internet marketing service providers.
In general, your internet service provider monitors your traffic and, if any illegal torrent activity is identified, they tend to slow down your Internet downloading speed.
Fake Torrent and Publish Torrent Trackers
Copyright managers such as RIAA, MPAA and several others have joined hands with leading ISPs to adopt and implement the “Copyright Alert System” as per which, a user is issued with a DMCA (Digital Material Copyright Act) notice if he or she is found guilty of downloading copyrighted material online.
This anti-piracy unit collects the IP address of users who are downloading copyrighted material from the web. They can easily track torrent users by creating a fake torrent, which gives them the privilege to monitor public torrent trackers.
Details collected by the anti-piracy division is, then, forwarded to the respective Internet Service Provider who, in turn, issues a copyright alert to the user.
Tips 1: Users can track it using ipMagent, a tool that helps track the IP addresses being sent by the BitTorrent Client is sending to its seeders and leeches.
Tips 2: You can use Private Torrent Trackers that significantly helps you avoid your torrent activities from getting monitored by the ISP.
How to download torrents anonymously:
To download a copyright or copy-protected torrent file securely and anonymously, you must consider using a VPN. Over millions of BitTorrent users count on VPN services to secure their privacy while using torrent sites.
Best Torrent VPN
How VPN Helps You Browse and Download Torrent Anonymously
Downloading files from a torrent site needs two principal things:
- A BitTorrent client to download Torrent file
- A browser to browse and find the .torrent file or a magnet link to directly launch the BitTorrent application for downloading the file
As already discussed, ipMagnet tool lets you track the IP addresses being sent by your torrent client to their seeders and leechers for tracking their Torrenting activities.
The image above shows certain IP addresses with a corresponding country flag. Here you can find IP addresses of the users who are currently downloading or seeding the torrent.
Copyright holders, then, gather the IP addresses and send them to the ISP who, further, sends a copyright alert to the user.
How They Trap Torrent users:
1. When you try to find a torrent file to download your favorite movie or game on torrent sites, such as ExtraTorrent, YiFiMovies or ThePirateBay, you must have noticed that you tend to find a lot of fake torrent files that are either empty or have no seeds except 1 or 2.
Some of these files are created by spammers while others are made by copyright managers such as RIAA, MPAA, and several others for trapping torrent users and collecting IPs of users who download such files.
2. Another resort is if you’re using a Publish Torrent Tracker, then your details might be tracked easily by the ISP as well as copyright holders. To prevent this, you must consider using Private Torrent Trackers which ensure your activities can hardly be monitored by anyone.