I’ve noticed many people promote VPNs for torrenting to evade legal troubles in some places. But I wonder how do VPN companies get away with legal complaints? Especially if their servers are located in Germany or Japan, where piracy is heavily penalized.

p.s. I have never used a VPN for piracy, and I have never received any DMCA emails.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
41 points

Its simple really. If you have an IP address on a torrent network, contact its owner. The owner of the IP will then be forced to contact the user… But if the owner doesn’t keep logs… Then they don’t know who the user is… And the claim can’t progress any further. But not all VPNs are created equal. Some keep logs. And that’s not good for privacy.

For you not getting DMCA, you may use private trackers only. If not, maybe you got lucky, or you just ignored the emails from your provider or your provider doesn’t follow up with complaints.

permalink
report
reply
9 points
*

But it’s VPN providers who rent the servers that have downloaded the torrents. So they can basically say it’s not done by us, but the users of our service, and thus they don’t bear any consequences? It seems like such a good business model.

VPN providers do not bear any responsibilities for providing services for piracy.

The DMCA’s principal innovation in the field of copyright is the exemption from direct and indirect liability of Internet service providers and other intermediaries.

So technically if VPN providers do not keep logs, you are fine. But since it’s impossible to know how VPN providers servers are implemented, still there are risks.


I mostly use public trackers. Maybe it’s just my ISP doesn’t care.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Correct. That’s also why it’s important to find providers thatchave passed many independant audits. Like ProtonVPN or Mulvad.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points
*

Plot twist: RIAA and MPAA own all the major VPN providers, and/or the data centers they rent from.

/ConapiracyTheory

permalink
report
parent
reply

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

!piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Create post
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don’t request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don’t request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don’t submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-fi Liberapay

Community stats

  • 4.5K

    Monthly active users

  • 1.7K

    Posts

  • 13K

    Comments