I heard that in some countries you can get fined for using torrents or seeding beyond a certain limit (Das Deutschlandlied intensifies). How to seed so that no idiot government would get hands on the fact that you are downloading torrents? I am pretty sure I can do this using Tails OS but what else? Is there a safe way to SEED TILL YOU BLEED?

It would have been nice if we (someone but not me) could have created a website where we could read a particular country’s law and how to torrent safely from there.

  • salarua@sopuli.xyz
    131·
    1 year ago

    i live in the US. seeding and torrenting in general is relatively safe here, although sometimes you’ll get a nastygram from your ISP because a copyright industry plant on one of the torrents told on you. the easiest way by far to prevent that is by getting a VPN. go with something paid (free ones do shady stuff) and with a no-logging policy. i use NordVPN because i know someone who pays for it and is letting me use it, but another great option is Mullvad

      • finestnothing@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        For those curious why it matters, torrent is built around downloading a file from multiple other people (called seeders) in little pieces, then you become a seeder yourself when you have the whole file and send pieces to other people that want the same file(s). Without port forwarding you become just a leech, you can download but can’t send pieces of the file to other people which isn’t in the spirit of torrenting (hence the term leechers)

    • Ganesh Venugopal@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      hmm… interesting. can you give me a screenshot of a nastygram? I mean, not yours, but I wonder how it looks.

      • salarua@sopuli.xyz
        7·
        1 year ago

        i don’t have one on hand, but it’s a physical letter sent through the mail which basically says “delete the copyrighted data we think you downloaded or we’re shutting off your internet”

          • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
            7·
            1 year ago

            My ISP (in Canada) sends a friendly nastygram. Like they forward the message from the copyright holder, but they preface it with “don’t worry, we’re legally obligated to pass this along to you, but almost nothing they say here is legal in Canada”

            Edit: here is the verbatim text from one I got a couple years back:

            We have received a notice of claimed infringement on behalf of $COPYRIGHT_HOLDER who has claimed a file was illegally downloaded from $IP on $DATE at $TIME. Our systems indicate this IP address was assigned to your account at the time listed in the notice. As part of Canada’s Copyright Modernization Act which came into effect January 2015, we are legally required to pass this attached notice from the copyright holder on to you as well as store a copy of the notice for 6 months.

            There are some things to keep in mind while reviewing the attached notice:

            1. While we are legally required to forward this notice to you, we have no way of verifying the accuracy of their claims as we do not track what you do on the internet;
            1. We have not provided any of your personal information to the sender as the protection of your privacy is very important to us. Only a court order can force us to provide any information and we have not received a court order regarding this notice;
            1. Many notices contain language inconsistent with Canadian law which generally limits damages to $5,000 for non-commercial infringement as opposed to the hundreds of thousands they often claim;
            1. We are not able to provide you with any legal guidance on how to interpret their claim or offers, however it is important to understand that no legal action has been taken against you at this time and you are under no obligation to respond to their notice.

            The Nastygram was then included as an email attachment

            • Ganesh Venugopal@lemmy.mlOP
              2·
              1 year ago

              My ISP (in Canada) sends a friendly nastygram. Like they forward the message from the copyright holder, but they preface it with “don’t worry, we’re legally obligated to pass this along to you, but almost nothing they say here is legal in Canada”

              hehe… thank you very much for this