Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

I think that depends very much on your jurisdiction and the type of content you download. In Germany when I did things without VPN I most of the time downloaded english content and not the latest blockbusters. Copyright enforcment companies, at least back then, were hired for specific newer movies. Now I have things more automated so I'd rather not risk tripping any wires.

What you were doing online is being watched. It is being recorded. Right now, some ISPs will will protect your identity and send warnings to you, to a point. Some ISPs will just give up your information.

They are currently working on legislation to force ISPs just shut you off If piracy is reported.

Right now, for every ISP that I'm aware of in the US, No action is actually taken against you for reports of piracy. But that doesn't mean that this will stay the same, or, that they won't retroactively go on a witch hunt.

You can find VPNs for a couple bucks a month. Make it a birthday request.

No idea what happens nowadays also probably depends on your location too, but a friend of mine downloaded fallout 4 when it released and his isp disabled their houses internet until he went to a web page and checked off a box saying "i have deleted the following file(s) from my machine" lol

It was a tame outcome relatively speaking, but it could have been worse.

Use the Windscribe 10gb per month free. It works well. And if you need more use RiseUpVPN. But note it is slow. And that its completely free and volunteer run. It’s the kind of thing that if you get an income you should probably donate to if you used a lot. It’s mainly used by activists in authoritarian countries.

Don't subject your family to nasty letters in their mail from your ISP. You won't go to jail, but you might risk your internet service getting canceled, which won't be a fun conversation with your parents.

If you're 18 and healthy, go donate plasma at a local clinic. In the USA depending on where you are, you can make $40-$80 per week, sometimes even more if they have a big shortage. Takes about 90 minutes a session, and you just chill with a needle in your arm and browse on your phone, super easy.

Proton VPN's most expensive plan is $108 for 2 years, you can afford that. Go to your friends or neighbors and offer to do some yard work for cash. Mow their lawn, shovel bark, dig up dead shrubs, whatever. That's the main way I made money when I was in my teens. People will pay 20-30 bucks an hour in most places for that kind of work, so a few hours of that in a week or two and you've got your $108 for Proton VPN, or whatever other VPN you want to use.

Sell some crap on eBay, FB marketplace, Craig's List, etc. Old clothes, computer parts, consoles, weights, people will buy anything. You'd be surprised how fast I've gotten rid of junk buy posting it online for 10 bucks.

My friend's friend's cousin was dinged 3 times in 10 years by their ISP, large provider in a populated area.

He or she really needs to add a password to his or her router one of these days, darn neighbors. And those pesky neighbors need a VPN too. After getting a VPN, the complaints stopped. For the neighbors, of course.

I use Spectrum, I get warnings, so vpn it is. I'd also rather no one know than know and willingly ignore it, logging it anyway for some government goon to discover in 10 years.

The reason i cant get a vpn is because im just broke and im young enough to live with family so i cant really get a job.

I don't know your situation (and age) but small jobs like delivering newspapers can usually be taken up at relatively you age. They should easily cover a VPN subscription.

E.g. I was delivering newspaper biweekly for a few hours at the age of 13. Even today, the monthly pay would've been enough to pay for a year of my current VPN. Your guardians will have to approve the job but legally it shouldn't be an issue.

If you torrent without a VPN the conversation about a warning by the internet provider on behalf of some rights holder will be way worse than asking about ideas for a small (summer) job.

depending on what you you plan on downloading you can probably use direct downloads instead, and you won't need a VPN if I'm not mistaken. no idea if and how available things are, though

im young enough to live with family

Tell your parents that they'll lose their internet if they don't give you $20 per year for VPN.

If you are broke and cannot afford a VPN, I suggest you use I2P.

https://geti2p.net/en/

I2P is basically an internet protocol that treats all kinds of internet activity in the manner a torrent works.

Basically, you run a local node.

Traffic is routed around in a bunch of anonymized, encrypted chunks, from many different users, which are then bunched up together into packets and encrypted again.

As a client, you can only decrypt the parts of a packet that pertain to you...

But as a node, you help move packets along to every other person who is running a node, in a sort of meshnet like fashion.

The result is a free, but very slow, but also pretty well anonymized way of passing net traffic around...

...and it is also arguably more private/secure than a VPN, which can simply hand over its server logs if legally asked to...

...and it is also arguably more private/secure than TOR, which can have de-anonymization attacks run on it if enough onion nodes, or your entry/exit nodes, are either comprimised or just outright run as honey pots, which is a thing various law enforcement agencies do.

However, another downside to I2P is that it is... considerably more technically complex for most users to actually set up and use properly, than just a basic VPN for switching your geoip to watch Brazillian netflix or w/e.

But, it does allow torrenting and portforwarding, and is totally free.

Don't expect to be able to stream any media with it though, it is again very slow.

On behalf of whoever is paying for your internet connection, do not torment without a VPN.

If you ignore this advice, be aware that the aformentioned person will get a nastygram in the mail, complete with the exact title of the torment you downloaded. They have no qualms with outing your darkest perversions to the breadwinner(s) in your household.

Don’t go tormenting without a VPN.

Save your lunch money for however long it takes to be able to buy a year of VPN like Mullvad in your country.

You aren't paying for your internet so you'd be an asshole to put the account holder under scrutiny for torrenting without protection. Especially when they are also covering your rent, elecricity, gas, food, clothing, etc. Don't be a selfish asshole.

If you can't get VPN don't be entitled and go off torrenting because other people say it is fine. You aren't paying for internet so you don't get the privilege to decide if it is fine or not.

Just use ProtonVPN. They have a free tier. No credit card required. Its slightly slower speeds, but it will keep you from getting in trouble while sailing the high seas 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Stick to private trackers, the risk of being caught is dramatically lower (harder to get it, smaller user base, companies target the big public ones)

My friend uses a VPN and has been pirating for two decades. might just be a placebo but she didn't get even one warning from her ISP

Private trackers.

In the USA when you are caught torrenting copyrighted material it is because a firm hired by copyright owners sits in the public swarm logging IPs. They then send a warning to your ISP, who in turn sends you a warning.

Private trackers are by their nature a club that tries their damnedest to prevent people working for those kind of companies from joining the site to begin with.

It is still smart to use a VPN but your ISP isn't generally targeting your data in transit itself. It's usually a third party company hired out who cannot see your data streams directly. Thus a private tracker reduces the need for such measures since you are less likely to run into a hired hand logging your IP from a private tracker swarm.