When it comes to torrents, the most common discussion goes around its legality and possible persecution of person using it. Many people wonder, is torrenting legal? And what will happen if they caught, where there be charges pressed? Is it like theft? – Don’t worry, this article will put your mind at rest.
In case you were wondering, torrenting is not illegal at all. Downloading torrents is perfectly legal and 100% allowed by the law. What is illegal is downloading copyright content and cracked software.
When it comes to torrenting there is a lot of gray area – sometimes without realizing you break the law. You don’t realize what you are downloading was copyright restricted and that is where you can get into little bit of trouble.
Your ISP and internet piracy authorities keep track of your activities especially the torrenting. Hence, yes, you can get red flagged.
There are two aspects of torrenting that you should be careful about. One is downloading restricted stuff by accident and the other is keeping yourself safe from hackers via torrents.
There are more fake torrents than real ones. Ever wondered what the fake torrents do? – They steal your information. Using VPN which allows torrenting and p2p file sharing is a good idea. It will keep you safe from everyone.
Can you get caught?
What happens if I get caught? Can I get caught at all? – Yes. You can get caught if you are downloading illegal stuff. But it is not like they show in the movies. Internet piracy isn’t a big crime.
Normally you will get fined and if repeated offences, you will get banned by your ISP. Therefore while legal charges can be pressed, it is not something you should really be worried about. We all live on the edge don’t we?
Selling and retailing pirated DVDs however can land you in jail and so it should!
But with new internet protocols and cyber policies coming into play who knows what laws will be created in the future. The best way to deal with all is to protect yourself. This bring us to the next section in this article: protection.
How to protect yourself?
We have already discussed how you can protect yourself via VPN. Although VPN is a very efficient way, it is not the only way you can achieve anonymity. There are tools like PeerBlock that replace your IP with a fake one.
Of course there is the infamous TOR (The Onion Routing) browser that layers all your incoming and outgoing traffic with heavy encryption and makes you completely untraceable.
Usenet is another easy solution. It will cost you around 10 bucks per month. They have servers where the data will be downloaded to, and then you can download it on your machine from their servers.
Should you use these tools?
The short answer is yes. Internet security has never been as insecure as now. It is not only the government or agencies but also hackers that want to access your information.
You should take your internet privacy very seriously.
About the author:
Nuur Hasan is a software developer and a political activist, he intends to dedicate his life to the becoming the voice of the voiceless.
