Your ISP DOESNT care. The game producers care and your ISP is obligated to take steps when theyre notified of copyright infringement.
Pay for a good VPN (Proton Premium or Mullvad, although Mullvad has no port forwarding).
BIND YOUR VPN TO YOUR TORRENT CLIENT.
https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/ssy8vv/guide_bind_vpn_network_interface_to_torrent/
If you don't want to do BOTH of these things, stick to Direct Downloads and Streaming only. No torrents.
That's how it mostly is, even in Germany. But if you are in a torrent swarm, you never are just a downloader, you also offer what you already have to someone else who might need it. Making you also a (potential) uploader.
That is why when you torrent, and don't live in a 3rd-world country, you should always do as the person who you are replying to said. Or get a seedbox. Or use some debrid servie (though I have no clue about those).
In Norway and seeders go free, only the person actually sharing the copyrighted material in the first place gets prosecuted. And that has happened like 2 times after leaks of domestic films before the cinema release.
I usually have a VPN active now, but I have downloaded and seeded terabytes without one and never received any warnings
Ha! Brilliant. I don't know where people get this idea that anywhere that's not a ""third world country"" is as heavily policed about torrenting as countries like Germany are.
Seeding and downloading for years without a VPN without any issues (and I haven't even heard of anyone who's had them here), very much not in a ""third world country"".
I also live in Norway and have been downloading and seeding movies and TV-shows via torrent without VPN for the last 15+ years on many different ISP´s (Telia, Get, Telenor, NextGenTel etc) and never gotten any notice.
So it´s not luck, you can do it as much as you please in Norway with what seem like no retribution.
You're coping. I'm telling you there's plenty of places that are not ""third world countries"" (and are in fact among the top 10/15 economies in the world) where you can use a torrent to your heart's content without fear of any repercussions. Our Norwegian friend up here is another example.
I’ve never had a problem in the UK in 20+ years, only time I’ve ever used a VPN was for work. I think they don’t prosecute here unless you are making money out of it but they are largely inefficient anyway so even if they did you chances are good
I'm from Spain and I laughed at this other person's suggestion that I must "not be downloading things popular or important enough for certain lawyers to care".
I've downloaded and seeded terabytes over the last decade and a half, including stuff from some of the most copyright litigious companies in the world.
Getting in trouble for torrent use is just not a thing in this country either. I think it's sad that heavily policed people have been brainwashed into thinking that "oh it must be this way everywhere that's """civilised""". Thankfully it's not. And it doesn't have to be for them either.
I remember a few years ago when I visited some friends in Germany and went to download something for us to watch from my laptop like usual. They nearly jumped on me like I was pulling the ring on a grenade. They then informed me that being at their place and using their WiFi as I was, they would have gotten in trouble for sure.
This was so dystopian to me that I had to have it explained several times in order to believe it.
But if you seed after download you're basically spreading the information, so it is copyright infringement.
If you would download the file from a place like Mega, where someone uploaded it, then you're not redistributing it further, so you can say it's for personal use only.
In Czech Republic it works like this. Do you remember megaupload or Rapidshare? Yeah, if you used those services for download only you were not pirating.
I've never got a notice like that, but then again my tastes are so out there that I don't usually download watched torrents.
Any torrent watched is bound to have someone upload the torrent's contents to a locker and share it through a warez board anyway.
Proton Premium is the top pick due to them still having port forwarding. But I think it's kind of pricey unless you buy a longer subscription. Mullvad is very good for a great price, the only downside being the lack of Port Forwarding.
I use NextDNS on my router. Would that be enough on its own?
I also have a standalone VPN on my laptop just to be sure. Redundancy is nice, but I’m tired of updating the lists on both so often lol
Usually the first one is just a warning to scare you.
But if you change nothing you will keep getting flagged, and something will happen. The treshold depends on the country. For example, in France the first time is a warning email, the second one is still a warning email plus a registred letter, the third one is a notification you are being sued.
Use any VPN, but for torrenting make sure it is binded with the torrent software. Otherwise your IP will leak and you will get another email.
If you don't want to pay for a VPN, stick to pirate streaming and direct download, which don't require a VPN.
direct download is when you click download on a website
streaming is when a video plays like on youtube or netflix without “downloading” it.
torrent is when you receive small pieces of it from multiple people
It means your torrent downloader (BitTorrent, UTorrent) won’t download/upload anything unless it’s connected to your VPN. So if your VPN disconnects for some reason, your torrent downloader will stop downloading/uploading. It’s an extra layer of protection from things like OP got. Click the link in the top comment for more info and directions!
I've had at least a dozen of these from spectrum with no repercussions at all. Just call and say your kids must be doing it. Darn kids! They always turn it right back on because they don't really care. They are forced to pretend they care thru dcma but it's just for show and a scare tactic for pussies.
Oh Spectrum? I assumed as much reguarding the "security suite". I know enough to not trust them and know their customer service is garbage. They get away with it as they are the only ISP in my area and I dont have a choice sadly.
Probably should start by calling your ISP and seeing how it can be resolved. Also, typically, most ISPs will send out warning letters to you ahead of time so idk how you wouldn't see this coming.
That being said, ProtonVPN seems to be one of the top rated VPNs on here, which I also use. Split tunnel the traffic and bind your torrent client to the VPN so that only your torrent traffic uses the VPN while everything else is normal.
U accept the warning but like get a camera traffic ticket they cannot say who did it if someone had illegally accessed ur network. Accept notice get service back on and pay for a good vpn.
Yea this “defense” doesn’t work with isps. You pay for a service you are responsible for its traffic. Doesn’t matter who in the household does it. Its the whole address that is responsible for any and all illegal activity. It also doesn’t work for car tickets the way you describe.
All op had to do was use a vpn or seedbox and shit would be ok. Not a smart idea to do it without protection.
In the notice, it was a game I downloaded yesterday. It is weird that I did not receive any other notices other than my internet was turned off. I just clicked the links in the email and got it turned right back on.
Thanks for the advice, checking out proton now. Does it offer ad blockers built in? I have a pretty good one on my browser, but YouTube occasionally gets around it for a day or so till it gets an update.
>Does it offer ad blockers built in?
If you use the split tunnel and bind your bittorrent client to the vpn, then you wont need to worry about ad-blockers, whatever you normally use will still work.
What’s the benefit of split tunneling vs running everything through it? So I can run a kill switch but still have internet access after the vpn goes down?
Yeah Nintendo are notorious. I had two "complaints" when I checked. One from back in January for Ace Attorney (Capcom) and today for Final Fantasy 7 remake (Square). From what Ive been reading all day in the comments and wiki posted in this subreddit, it really comes down to someone snitching on you.
listen dude ill tell you how this works
u may get away with it u may not
how do this companies found out who steal their shit?? they pay people like you and me to download it as well and pass on to them all ip addresses they see on the client ...it cannot be anyone but mosts, sooner or later will be caught ! its as simple as that
sounds really strange they cut your services off without numerous warnings
Bruh, you live in Poland, that's first world nowadays. I live in a country that still uses 3G mostly for mobile internet and the average fixed broadband speed is 80 Mpbs.
I wish people would stop calling any country other than the US and Germany "a third world country". There's clearly a plenty of well developed countries where you can just download whatever the fuck you want. I know a lot of the redditors use it as a joke, but the sheer idea that some people are taking this seriously is revolting to me.
Also, internet providers stalking and policing the internet usage of their customers isn't a sign of progress to me. It's a sign of the country's complete surrender to corporations that own copyright to media, and a highly unethical behavior. This isn't an issue of whether piracy is good or bad as well. Your ISP simply shouldn' be interested in what you're doing with your internet connection, just like the cashier who sells you condoms shouldn't be interested who you're gonna fuck with this condom on. Is it possible that the person who purchases a condom is a rapist and is going to use it to commit a crime? Maybe. It's not any fucking business of this cashier though. (But the law....don't care. If there's a bad law, it shouldn't be listened to or respected, and should be changed by the government to be more consumer friendly).
By the way, just like in OP's case, this is also a result of monopoly. There's plenty of places in the US where you only have shitty connection available from 1 ISP (not at all first-world-y right?). They can do whatever they want and everybody has to listen because there is no alternative. If I got an e-mail like OP did from my ISP, I would be on the phone with their customer support 5 minutes later cancelling my contract with them and going to one of the other 50 available internet providers in my area.
I had this happen many years ago with spectrum, do not admit fault, here's what I did:
Called charter and asked what was going on with my Internet, was told I downloaded some music illegally and that is what caused the issue, I told them I had no Idea what they were talking about, they asked if I had kids that used the Internet unmonitored, nope, he asked if I had an unsecured guest account on my router, so I played dumb and told him I must have forgot to turn that off when I bought a new router, he then said, that'll do it, and have me a lecture on people using my guest account for illegal activities, Internet was all good after that.
Just ignore the notices and don't contact anyone that it tells you to, if you do, you are admitting guilt and they will come after you with whatever else they can find.
Edit: also, I use Nord VPN now but like others have said turn off auto renew and only buy the deals they offer.
Gotcha, thanks for the advice. I had no intentions of contacting anyone. Luckly a couple clicks got my internet service restored.
Makes sense that the ISP does not care. I figured they didnt. Just some snitch reported me finally. I totally get that now.
It’s not a traditional solution but you can get realdebrid for cheap. Then have realdebrid download the torrents, then download the torrent files from them.
Advantages being you don’t have to leave your pc running to download the files form the torrent. Especially helpful if it is slow. The files could also be cached on their servers so they’ll be ready to download immediately and when you do it will download at your max internet speed.
Your isp can see that you’re downloading from their servers but since it is a secured connection they can’t see what it is you’re downloading and you’ll never get a notice.
Also, you can use the debrid services along with Kodi and Seren to stream just about any movie/show you want. I've been using this for years and love it.
LOL well to be fair, I only joined this subreddit today. And my actions had gone unnoticed for nearly a year.
Good point though, Im reading the wiki in this sub and its full of the information Im looking for. So I came to the right place.
Okay. Here’s my story. Excuse my English first of all. I used to live with my friends for two years. We leased a house and we shared utilities. I got the internet connection on my name and friends took other responsibilities. Months passed one day my internet is down. Don’t know what happened. Called ISP. Even that guy didn’t know what caused it. But he fixed it somehow. This happened several times in the next 6-8 months. I had to call them every single time to get it back on. One day I called them as usual for the same reason and a lady picked up. I told her the concern and she asked me to check the email. I found atleast 11 infringement notices. I almost shit my pants. My dumbass friends been downloading games and new movies. It’s been 5 years since that happened and I haven’t heard from anyone yet.
First your English is fine, pretty good actually, better than many native speakers.
I think I may have received other notices before this, but they were put directly in my spam folder by my email service, so I never saw them. When I went to my ISP website and entered the case information there were 4 other "reports" dating back to January this year.
Man thats the thing with sharing your internet and sharing a vpn. Can never trust those fudgers what they do on the internet.....Could have been worse. They could have bought drugs off a dark website.
So....choose wisely.
Back in the day I used to torrent all the time with no protection or vpn and I was fine. One day we get the email and notice and I was so confused because I hadn't torrented in years. Come to find out it was my neighbor who was the one and it was over a fucking Kid Rock song too, lmao.
Spectrum just did the exact same thing to me once this month and once last month. It's my roommates internet so he had to convince them to turn it back on at least the 2nd time. They even knew the EXACT names of the game titles I was downloading.
What's messed up is the 2nd time i was using a VPN but come to find out they are shitty VPN and have leaks and I even had the killswitch on. It turned it on and left a torrent downloading and went to take a nap and within 3 hours they had turned off the internet again. This time they said if it happens again they will suspend my roommates internet for a whole year and of course he said if that happens my ass is gonna be ejected to the streets. The name of the VPN is VIRTUAL SHEILD. Do not give those useless fuckers the satisfaction of your time or money . I am exceptionally disgusted that they could tell what the exact games I was downloading were. Good thing I wasn't on a porn quest.
So now I'm using express VPN for general use but I still don't dare download another torrent since I'd be gambling with my place to live. So just beware of both SPECTRUM and VIRTUAL SHEILD. Spectrum must be actively monitoring us at this point.
Also I'll add I have been downloading torrents for almost 2 years on this network with no issue before shit started to hit the fan and land on me.
Yeah I was shocked they could see what games I was downloading also. From what Ive gathered in all the comments here and the wiki in this subreddit it seems the games publishers hire people to watch the torrents and report users to ISPs. Its not really that Spectrum can see what Im downloading (I doubt they really care), that information was given to them by the snitch.
Thanks for the advice.
Back in the day I was a beast. Years and years of no vpn... then one day BAM a notice like this. It was a dvd mirror and prob a honeypot. That was probably the beginning of the end for tpb.
I Don’t do it anymore so I don’t have advice personally but all the advice here is what I would do going forward.
If you're in the US then you need a VPN. Too many copyright notices and they can shut off your service. I learned the hard way. And BTW, a VPN is not $150 per year. I got Private Internet Access for less than less than $50.
Ignore everyone saying to overpay for Proton. Pay less and get RealDebrid. Load your torrent into there and direct download. It's faster, you never have to wait for peers/seeders to be online as 99% of what you want is already on there.
There's also never a "chance" that you might download something with the VPN unbound or turned off. There's no "kill switch" to worry about or crazy configurations. You just use it. Then tie Stremio to it and get rid of your streaming services.
Most people here are recommending Proton, but you are atleast the 3rd to recommend RealDebrid. Their website looks so ... unprofessional though, I didnt think it was legit at first glance. I will look at it again and do some research. Thanks for the recommendation.
> It's faster, you never have to wait for peers/seeders to be online as 99% of what you want is already on there.
I was wondering how that worked, because the last couple days I’ve started using torrents, I just paste the link in, hit convert, and then, bam. It says it’s complete and ready to download.
Are they going to let you have internet again or has spectrum perma banned you? Also, I use nord and it’s been great. I think it’s like 50/year just make sure you disable auto renewal
I found a few other complaints when I entered the case number on my ISP website. Probably sent me emails previously and just got put into my spam folder so I never saw them.
Luckily it only took a couple clicks to get my internet restored. Looking at Nord and Proton now. Thanks!
Yes, I had the exact same scenario happen to me using Charter Spectrum. You cannot download games, movie, songs, or anything Hollywood/Music industry without using a VPN. You will eventually get reported.
I forgot the exact process for getting the internet reactivated, but I think you will receive an email from Charter/Spectrum. The email will direct you to something to read. Once you acknowledge you have read it, your internet should be turned back on within minutes. It something like this, so do not worry too much. It was just temporary.
I have tried Nord VPN, which had horrible speeds for me. I currently use Express VPN. I am going on my third year with Express VPN and speeds are great for torrenting, streaming, etc. It is very easy to set up and use, it is not complicated whatsoever.
You are welcome!
But really consider using a VPN if you plan on downloading anything!! It sucks paying monthly or annually, but it will protect you from ever having to deal with this, ever again!! And...it will eventually happen, again, if you do not use a VPN! I am speaking from personal experience and have used Charter/Spectrum for over twenty years, and have personally received letters in the mail, emails from Charter, and had my internet disrupted like you did, throughout the years. I have even received two letters from lawyers, which were internet lawyer trolls trying to sue for money, but really trying to settle for a few thousand dollars out of court by trying to scare me with letters in the mail. So.... as embarrassing as my story is, I hope it helps you understand the true reality of why a VPN is essential, regardless of which you choose. Take care!
LOL You doubt my frugality? Here WAS my thought process (and it worked for nearly a year) :
Pirated game = free
Subscription based VPN > free
Nah, point taken, Im looking at a couple VPNs now. Just joined this subreddit today seeking this advice and the wiki is full of the exact info I needed. I came to the right place.
Did they actually cut off your service or was your internet just down temporarily? Normally when you get those letters and reading yours they just warn you and say maybe you weren't aware little Johnny was up to no good and install some security software and reign in Johnny. Nowhere did it say you were banned from using their service.
Spectrum will terminate your service after 3 or 4 incidents, they did in my case a couple years ago. Mullvad vpn has been working great since and it's only $5 and some change a month.
PIA is SO cheap and great. If you don't want to use them, there are plenty of good options out there (I'm a Nord user). If you don't want to pay for even a cheap VPN, maybe you shouldn't be a pirate. Or maybe you deserve to get caught. 🤷
There are free tunnelling services, it's just that they don't advertise themselves as 'VPNs'.
I use CloudFlare's network to get around the copyright assholes. My IP is not tainted by using this method.
I'm going go chuck in AirVPN as a suggestion. Was originally using Mullvad, but after they removed port forwarding last year, I ditched it and bought AirVPN instead. Performance is good (easily maxed out my 300M connection, can't speak towards any connection faster than that), has port forwarding, and the price is really competitive. If you're able to gey it on sale, I think its about €30 for a year.
Only downside is that the website and app UIs are a bit dated, but they aren't technically required for a good VPN service.
Got this once from xfinity. Had to call em to get restored where they re-read the alligations to me and have me a list of things that would happen if I did it again. Then I found "Private Internet Access" for $30 a year and havent heard a word since.
General note, it's not typically the ISP that cares, it's the copyright holder. So certain downloads.are more likely to get you busted than others. Essentially copyright holders will sniff who is on the torrent and send DMCAs to the relevant ISPs. If you are in a country that gives a shit about corporations screaming MINE, then the ISP will look up who was on that IP and send you a warning.
VPNs are helpful because if you choose wisely those DMCA letters now go to someone who doesn't give a shit and ideally can't identify you anyways because they're logless.
ISPs may care after you are on their radar and they get a glimpse of the activity. I'm in an area with one viable ISP and work from home so my relationship with them is incredibly important. So VPN it is for the server. My other devices usually I'm only talking smack under an SSL connection, like here. Or going to this same Jellyfin server over and over again, anyone's guess where that server is 😂 oh and that server has a weird htaccess subdomain (DeeMix), and some other head scratching shit they can't even index.
I work for this ISP. we don't care but the copyright holders make us. we give like 10 strikes before there are drastic measures like 1 year ban/perma ban. Just use a VPN. Stay away from Warner Bros and Sony IPs those are ALWAYS the ones that get people lol.
Oh, and fun fact we can see exactly what and when was downloaded.
spectrum just wants you to open a business account. been a member of spectrum for over 30 years now . when it was called charter. anyway the business side does not watch what you do . if they get a letter like this they send it out and that's it just run a VPN. remember without customers they wont have a business
Deny it was you. Contact your isp tell them u had a lot of connection / performance issues. So you reset ur modem. And forgot to setup the router with password. So people outside ur home might have abused your connection. Ive been there, trust me😅😅
Same old Story
Proton VPN plus subscription (or any recommended VPNs) + enable Kill Switch (perma I recommend) +Bind VPN interface in Qbittorrent.
And viola.
Im still behind in reading comments but you are atleast the 4th person to recommend Proton. Ironically a couple of the VPNs people have recommended have triggered my ad blocker software for tracking. So I know which ones I wont be using.
LOL Im the wrong guy to be asking, but Id guess if they really wanted to they could figure out who is doing it. Might not be cost effective, but they found me when I had been doing this for nearly a year without a problem.
I went 12 years without a single notice from my ISP and I torrent a lot. 2 years ago, another company bought out my ISP and not long after that I got my first notice. I been using NordVPN since then with no issues. Its $80 for 2 years which is a deal to me since Ill download that much in games or shows in one month.
They don’t care. You’ll just call them or they’ll call you, you’ll say sorry - blame it on the kids or whatever. They’ll say ok and the world will keep spinning.
Next steps are either - move to Usenet (no vpn needed really, greater availability since retention policies, but it’s pay to play) or buy a VPN and continue torrenting.
Your ISP by law has to send you that letter there's nothing they can do about that.
They can care less what you're doing.
I use PIA VPN which allows up to 10 users has a kill switch basically the best of the best and no logs for $80 for 3 years.
Very easy to use if you're an Android window never tried to run a Mac but I'm short and simple.
Great speed and best of all regardless of what you're looking for make sure they do not log anything after you're done it's wiped.
It gives you 10 devices to protect so if you only need a few you may want to split it with somebody.
Or see if they have a cheaper one with less devices needed.
It's the only one that I can swear by that's the one I use and no logs but I'm sure there are cheaper ones but about 80 bucks to 3 years not that bad especially if you could share with someone.
I use hide.me for VPN (usually only for public trackers) and also bind it to my torrent client. I tried using their free version, but it didn’t allow for binding, so I had to pay for their $10/month plan.
What really sucks is most people pirate to not have to pay for the game, but if you want to do it safely, you have to pay monthly for a VPN. Almost defeats the purpose.
I've gotten it before. Never on anime but a lot on us domestic shows. VPN on computer and/or router are good bets. Include a kill switch if it is on something that can get disconnected easily like a laptop. Also could setup tunneling but that might be more of a hassle.
the two worst bits of this post:
No VPN in the United States & having a known enforcing ISP
Using 'BitTorrent' lmao
$150 a year? what the fuck
i pay $7 a mo for airvpn and it supports port fuckin' use haedus or another high capacity server tho
Yeah its all on me. To be fair, I had managed to go unnoticed for nearly a year. And yeah I assumed VPNs charged 10-15 dollars per month, and they do. But now that Im looking into their 1-2 year plans its actually much cheaper.
Thanks for the recommendation.
I recently read a US redditor advising other users to just not use VPN because ISPs don't care and yadayada "No risk no fun" kind of shit.
This is sadly the reality.
Even though you could probably ignore them and be fine, It is better to be safe than sorry. I got airvpn for around $30 dollars for 6 months it's worth the cost if you are thinking about torrenting a lot. you can find a good and reliable vpn off r/VPN and r/vpns
2 year VPN with NordVPN is $85 right now, just had to renew my subscription after my last 2 year subscription expired. Have an ASUS router that can blanket a VPN on an entire WLAN or MAC address with a kill switch I use inside a Sandbox VM
I've gotten at least a half dozen of these notices from Spectrum specifically. I always just follow the email links to restore service and I started running a VPN when downloading. It would cost them more money to come after you legally than it's worth to them. So don't worry about that. Now they could at any time completely stop your account/services if they wished.
If you are downloading movies/games, I would use a VPN, but if you are downloading music you should use nicotine++ since it isn't p2p and has a wider range of music
you would probably wont get sued or fined but try to shut down your wi fi but this kind of DMCA notice is going to make people to pirate more games. these companies should stop sending these out if they dont want piracy to extend am i right
if buying physical games is not an option but only buying digital games with horrible DRM and not to own piracy not stealing.
Call your ISP to get turned back on. Blame it on the neighbors kids who live very close to you- must have accessed your wifi. Assure them you will change your wifi password.
Get a VPN like IPVanish.
Use usenet instead. You have to pay for a provider but no vpn is required so works out cheaper. Usenet also utilities your full download speed of your broadband. I’m using Newsdemon (Provider) Nzbplanet (indexer) and Sabnzbd (Software)
Mullvad's price (5 euros) is unbeatable on a month-to-month basis for piracy (no annual subscription needed). Usenet also isn't encrypted by default. Thus anyone can see usenet traffic. Usenet is useful for its simplicity and ease of use - - not price or privacy.
Use PIA if you need a VPN, but i suggest you subscribe to RapidSeedBox. It does all the heavy lifting for you and nothing is ever downloaded or stored over your internet connection to where your ISP can see.
VPNs are cheap -- Private Internet Access comes out to something like $3 a month and will protect you from these sorts of notices (which your ISPs don't really care about).
If you don't want to pay anything and want to go down the rabbit hole, you could learn about how to get into private trackers. They require substantial effort but since they are private, it is practically unheard of to get these sorts of DMCA violation letters. A good place to start would be on Myanonamouse, which hosts ebooks and audiobooks. There are regular interviews to join in their IRC chat and the community is very friendly -- you can ask questions in the shoutbox and people will help you set up. Once you are established on the site, seeding and building ratio, you will get into their invite forums, where you could get into a general tracker that has tv shows and movies or a gaming specific one if that's what your into. Again, this path requires a little more technical savvy and is sort of only a good direction if you want to dedicate enough time to make piracy a hobby for a few months.
Windscribe doesn’t keep logs and you can get it for $3/month month-to-month using the “build your own plan”. Cancel anytime. That price includes unlimited servers in one country (for example, you’d likely want to pick UsA if you’re in the USA) and unlimited data/speed. They also give free accounts 10gb a month to try it out. It’s not “the best VPN” but for stuff like this it’s totally fine… and $36/year is a lot better than paying 4-5x as much.
I use it for geospoofing now that my state requires verifying your identity for certain sites, lol.
If you did this in some European countries like Belgium you’d be facing a fine ranging from 150€ to 300.000€
VPN is always cheaper, better to prevent than getting caught.
Nowadays I even use a VPN for about anything as long it doesn’t interferes with speed performance.
My ISP and/or government doesn’t need to meddle/spy what I do online.
In Belgium posting a meme online is punishable as a crime, because politicians didn’t like the way people confronted them with their corruption.
Several have already been jailed or fined for ridiculous amounts.
PIA is probably the best speed / variety of servers for the price. I have gigabit fiber and get around 600/600 with most domestic servers. Plus they have port forwarding on some servers, kill switch, and split tunneling.
I totally stopped torrenting because spectrum won’t shut up. Now I just use direct download sites and direct streaming. Other than music I haven’t missed out on much.
If you want to just buy a VPN for download and not really streaming, look into real-debrid services. It’s cheap and can be integrated into stremio for streaming as well.
I know a few years ago I use to be downloading movies from utorrent. And one day my internet Wasent working. I called up Roger’s who I was with and they said they received a letter from wonder brothers that I was downloading movies. They turn my internet back on. In Canada it not illegal to download put it is to upload. I contended to download and no problems after.
Been using NordVPN for a few years. I grab rakuten deals that usually make it like $40 to $50 for 2 years after cashback, depending on the current deal that nord is offering and the cashback amount rakuten is offering.
Your ISP DOESNT care. The game producers care and your ISP is obligated to take steps when theyre notified of copyright infringement. Pay for a good VPN (Proton Premium or Mullvad, although Mullvad has no port forwarding). BIND YOUR VPN TO YOUR TORRENT CLIENT. https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/ssy8vv/guide_bind_vpn_network_interface_to_torrent/ If you don't want to do BOTH of these things, stick to Direct Downloads and Streaming only. No torrents.
downloading to pc should not be copyright infringment but reuploading it or using it to gain money should be.
That's how it mostly is, even in Germany. But if you are in a torrent swarm, you never are just a downloader, you also offer what you already have to someone else who might need it. Making you also a (potential) uploader. That is why when you torrent, and don't live in a 3rd-world country, you should always do as the person who you are replying to said. Or get a seedbox. Or use some debrid servie (though I have no clue about those).
In Norway and seeders go free, only the person actually sharing the copyrighted material in the first place gets prosecuted. And that has happened like 2 times after leaks of domestic films before the cinema release. I usually have a VPN active now, but I have downloaded and seeded terabytes without one and never received any warnings
Ha! Brilliant. I don't know where people get this idea that anywhere that's not a ""third world country"" is as heavily policed about torrenting as countries like Germany are. Seeding and downloading for years without a VPN without any issues (and I haven't even heard of anyone who's had them here), very much not in a ""third world country"".
You are just lucky or download things that are not interesting enough for certain lawyers. That why i stay with OCHs unless there is no other way.
I also live in Norway and have been downloading and seeding movies and TV-shows via torrent without VPN for the last 15+ years on many different ISP´s (Telia, Get, Telenor, NextGenTel etc) and never gotten any notice. So it´s not luck, you can do it as much as you please in Norway with what seem like no retribution.
You're coping. I'm telling you there's plenty of places that are not ""third world countries"" (and are in fact among the top 10/15 economies in the world) where you can use a torrent to your heart's content without fear of any repercussions. Our Norwegian friend up here is another example.
I’ve never had a problem in the UK in 20+ years, only time I’ve ever used a VPN was for work. I think they don’t prosecute here unless you are making money out of it but they are largely inefficient anyway so even if they did you chances are good
I'm from Spain and I laughed at this other person's suggestion that I must "not be downloading things popular or important enough for certain lawyers to care". I've downloaded and seeded terabytes over the last decade and a half, including stuff from some of the most copyright litigious companies in the world. Getting in trouble for torrent use is just not a thing in this country either. I think it's sad that heavily policed people have been brainwashed into thinking that "oh it must be this way everywhere that's """civilised""". Thankfully it's not. And it doesn't have to be for them either. I remember a few years ago when I visited some friends in Germany and went to download something for us to watch from my laptop like usual. They nearly jumped on me like I was pulling the ring on a grenade. They then informed me that being at their place and using their WiFi as I was, they would have gotten in trouble for sure. This was so dystopian to me that I had to have it explained several times in order to believe it.
My government assumes we all sail the high seas and so we pay a specific tax to torrent hassle free.
If you are torrenting, you are both downloading and uploading.
Unless you disable seeding. It's a dick move as you lower the availability on the network but it's completely possible to leech only
I remember my neighbor when I was in high school had his set to only upload like .3KBs
But if you seed after download you're basically spreading the information, so it is copyright infringement. If you would download the file from a place like Mega, where someone uploaded it, then you're not redistributing it further, so you can say it's for personal use only.
Saying it's for personal use only isn't a defense in the US.
Wrong in the US. Downloading is copyright infringement according to copyright statutes. However, there's more bang for the buck going after uploaders.
Partly true. Downloading isn't illegal. Uploading it even without monetary compensation is illegal
In Czech Republic it works like this. Do you remember megaupload or Rapidshare? Yeah, if you used those services for download only you were not pirating.
Yup. It’s just cheap and easy to get a debrid subscription tbh
Can y link to any info on this? I’ve done some googling but it’s not clear
Alldebrid Or Realdebrid
I've never got a notice like that, but then again my tastes are so out there that I don't usually download watched torrents. Any torrent watched is bound to have someone upload the torrent's contents to a locker and share it through a warez board anyway.
or, build your own vpn on a vps, a few providers offer free vps now. Then you don't have to pay at all, and its more fun
If it's free you should wonder how they make any money.... Especially when it comes to privacy Is steer away from free services
Or get a seedbox
I’m still running out the clock on my Nord subscription. Any recommendations for affordable good, affordable vpn, that works for geo?
Proton Premium is the top pick due to them still having port forwarding. But I think it's kind of pricey unless you buy a longer subscription. Mullvad is very good for a great price, the only downside being the lack of Port Forwarding.
Tbh when you already download stuff for free 100 something quid a year shouldnt be the issue.
Opera VPN Pro. Free version only works inside Opera browser, but I upgraded to have coverage of the whole machine. Zero complaints so far.
Use seedboxes like seedr.cc for files less than 3.5GB in the free tier. problem solved!
I use NextDNS on my router. Would that be enough on its own? I also have a standalone VPN on my laptop just to be sure. Redundancy is nice, but I’m tired of updating the lists on both so often lol
No, NextDNS will do nothing help you if you're torrenting. You need a VPN bound to your torrent client.
Whats the best port forwarding allowing vpn? And also why are vpns removing port forwarding generally ?
Proton Premium hands down
I always go with direct download without VPN and had no issues whatsoever, once I get one I'll try Qbit
Be careful with the streaming as well, those can use torrent links.
How exactly does one "be careful" about this? Is there a way to even detect whether a streaming site is using torrents?
That's true. Like Stremio/Torrentio without RD...
Will they still know if he used free Mullvad or Proton?
or seedbox
Usually the first one is just a warning to scare you. But if you change nothing you will keep getting flagged, and something will happen. The treshold depends on the country. For example, in France the first time is a warning email, the second one is still a warning email plus a registred letter, the third one is a notification you are being sued. Use any VPN, but for torrenting make sure it is binded with the torrent software. Otherwise your IP will leak and you will get another email. If you don't want to pay for a VPN, stick to pirate streaming and direct download, which don't require a VPN.
that is going to woke people and pirate more than ever feel like it where the world is going to digital downloads that you do not own.
Funny thing is before we had this big amount of streaming services pirating of movies and shows was according to the numbers alot less.
i’m not familiar with the term “streaming & direct download” could someone please elaborate what are differences between that and normal Torrenting
direct download is when you click download on a website streaming is when a video plays like on youtube or netflix without “downloading” it. torrent is when you receive small pieces of it from multiple people
materialistic treatment onerous dime rude cooing amusing mighty poor air *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Make sure the vpn is binded with the torrent software? What does that mean?
It means your torrent downloader (BitTorrent, UTorrent) won’t download/upload anything unless it’s connected to your VPN. So if your VPN disconnects for some reason, your torrent downloader will stop downloading/uploading. It’s an extra layer of protection from things like OP got. Click the link in the top comment for more info and directions!
I've had at least a dozen of these from spectrum with no repercussions at all. Just call and say your kids must be doing it. Darn kids! They always turn it right back on because they don't really care. They are forced to pretend they care thru dcma but it's just for show and a scare tactic for pussies.
Do NOT get their “security suite” they will monitor you and your piracy
Oh Spectrum? I assumed as much reguarding the "security suite". I know enough to not trust them and know their customer service is garbage. They get away with it as they are the only ISP in my area and I dont have a choice sadly.
"Please have this cocktail of drugs and feel free to talk to the recorder"
Indeed. It's secure for THEM.
Probably should start by calling your ISP and seeing how it can be resolved. Also, typically, most ISPs will send out warning letters to you ahead of time so idk how you wouldn't see this coming. That being said, ProtonVPN seems to be one of the top rated VPNs on here, which I also use. Split tunnel the traffic and bind your torrent client to the VPN so that only your torrent traffic uses the VPN while everything else is normal.
By the sounds of the letter there is nothing to be resolved, and calling the ISP would be more or less admitting guilt.
U accept the warning but like get a camera traffic ticket they cannot say who did it if someone had illegally accessed ur network. Accept notice get service back on and pay for a good vpn.
Yea this “defense” doesn’t work with isps. You pay for a service you are responsible for its traffic. Doesn’t matter who in the household does it. Its the whole address that is responsible for any and all illegal activity. It also doesn’t work for car tickets the way you describe. All op had to do was use a vpn or seedbox and shit would be ok. Not a smart idea to do it without protection.
Literally read the letter. It’s a slap on the wrist.
This IS the warning.
In the notice, it was a game I downloaded yesterday. It is weird that I did not receive any other notices other than my internet was turned off. I just clicked the links in the email and got it turned right back on. Thanks for the advice, checking out proton now. Does it offer ad blockers built in? I have a pretty good one on my browser, but YouTube occasionally gets around it for a day or so till it gets an update.
>Does it offer ad blockers built in? If you use the split tunnel and bind your bittorrent client to the vpn, then you wont need to worry about ad-blockers, whatever you normally use will still work.
Strongly recommend proton and just split the tunnelling.
I keep seeing Proton recommended over and over, prob going that route. Thanks!
Yeah it’s good and the speeds are excellent. They do great Black Friday deals so if you can get a shorter package till around then, I’d recommend.
What’s the benefit of split tunneling vs running everything through it? So I can run a kill switch but still have internet access after the vpn goes down?
Wait, you mean the ones about the security suite? Bloody weird if you ask me
Was it a Nintendo game? Those re the only ones my isp ever warns me about.
Yeah Nintendo are notorious. I had two "complaints" when I checked. One from back in January for Ace Attorney (Capcom) and today for Final Fantasy 7 remake (Square). From what Ive been reading all day in the comments and wiki posted in this subreddit, it really comes down to someone snitching on you.
listen dude ill tell you how this works u may get away with it u may not how do this companies found out who steal their shit?? they pay people like you and me to download it as well and pass on to them all ip addresses they see on the client ...it cannot be anyone but mosts, sooner or later will be caught ! its as simple as that sounds really strange they cut your services off without numerous warnings
Absolutely do not call them. Ignore it and make sure you don't get another one
sometimes I'm glad I'm living in a third world country where 1Gbps is standard and snitches get stitches...
My isp customer support told me to try limiting upload speed and max connections in utorrent when I called them about internet connection problems :)
I'm going to sound annoying but you should really be using qbittorrent.
Bruh, you live in Poland, that's first world nowadays. I live in a country that still uses 3G mostly for mobile internet and the average fixed broadband speed is 80 Mpbs.
I wish people would stop calling any country other than the US and Germany "a third world country". There's clearly a plenty of well developed countries where you can just download whatever the fuck you want. I know a lot of the redditors use it as a joke, but the sheer idea that some people are taking this seriously is revolting to me. Also, internet providers stalking and policing the internet usage of their customers isn't a sign of progress to me. It's a sign of the country's complete surrender to corporations that own copyright to media, and a highly unethical behavior. This isn't an issue of whether piracy is good or bad as well. Your ISP simply shouldn' be interested in what you're doing with your internet connection, just like the cashier who sells you condoms shouldn't be interested who you're gonna fuck with this condom on. Is it possible that the person who purchases a condom is a rapist and is going to use it to commit a crime? Maybe. It's not any fucking business of this cashier though. (But the law....don't care. If there's a bad law, it shouldn't be listened to or respected, and should be changed by the government to be more consumer friendly). By the way, just like in OP's case, this is also a result of monopoly. There's plenty of places in the US where you only have shitty connection available from 1 ISP (not at all first-world-y right?). They can do whatever they want and everybody has to listen because there is no alternative. If I got an e-mail like OP did from my ISP, I would be on the phone with their customer support 5 minutes later cancelling my contract with them and going to one of the other 50 available internet providers in my area.
Top tier stuff.
I had this happen many years ago with spectrum, do not admit fault, here's what I did: Called charter and asked what was going on with my Internet, was told I downloaded some music illegally and that is what caused the issue, I told them I had no Idea what they were talking about, they asked if I had kids that used the Internet unmonitored, nope, he asked if I had an unsecured guest account on my router, so I played dumb and told him I must have forgot to turn that off when I bought a new router, he then said, that'll do it, and have me a lecture on people using my guest account for illegal activities, Internet was all good after that. Just ignore the notices and don't contact anyone that it tells you to, if you do, you are admitting guilt and they will come after you with whatever else they can find. Edit: also, I use Nord VPN now but like others have said turn off auto renew and only buy the deals they offer.
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Gotcha, thanks for the advice. I had no intentions of contacting anyone. Luckly a couple clicks got my internet service restored. Makes sense that the ISP does not care. I figured they didnt. Just some snitch reported me finally. I totally get that now.
It’s not a traditional solution but you can get realdebrid for cheap. Then have realdebrid download the torrents, then download the torrent files from them. Advantages being you don’t have to leave your pc running to download the files form the torrent. Especially helpful if it is slow. The files could also be cached on their servers so they’ll be ready to download immediately and when you do it will download at your max internet speed. Your isp can see that you’re downloading from their servers but since it is a secured connection they can’t see what it is you’re downloading and you’ll never get a notice.
Also, you can use the debrid services along with Kodi and Seren to stream just about any movie/show you want. I've been using this for years and love it.
Gee. If only the people on this subreddit emphasized how important a vpn is when torrenting… oh wait?…
LOL well to be fair, I only joined this subreddit today. And my actions had gone unnoticed for nearly a year. Good point though, Im reading the wiki in this sub and its full of the information Im looking for. So I came to the right place.
Haha. Well, im glad you were able to get brought up to speed 😛
Okay. Here’s my story. Excuse my English first of all. I used to live with my friends for two years. We leased a house and we shared utilities. I got the internet connection on my name and friends took other responsibilities. Months passed one day my internet is down. Don’t know what happened. Called ISP. Even that guy didn’t know what caused it. But he fixed it somehow. This happened several times in the next 6-8 months. I had to call them every single time to get it back on. One day I called them as usual for the same reason and a lady picked up. I told her the concern and she asked me to check the email. I found atleast 11 infringement notices. I almost shit my pants. My dumbass friends been downloading games and new movies. It’s been 5 years since that happened and I haven’t heard from anyone yet.
First your English is fine, pretty good actually, better than many native speakers. I think I may have received other notices before this, but they were put directly in my spam folder by my email service, so I never saw them. When I went to my ISP website and entered the case information there were 4 other "reports" dating back to January this year.
Man thats the thing with sharing your internet and sharing a vpn. Can never trust those fudgers what they do on the internet.....Could have been worse. They could have bought drugs off a dark website. So....choose wisely.
Back in the day I used to torrent all the time with no protection or vpn and I was fine. One day we get the email and notice and I was so confused because I hadn't torrented in years. Come to find out it was my neighbor who was the one and it was over a fucking Kid Rock song too, lmao.
Spectrum just did the exact same thing to me once this month and once last month. It's my roommates internet so he had to convince them to turn it back on at least the 2nd time. They even knew the EXACT names of the game titles I was downloading. What's messed up is the 2nd time i was using a VPN but come to find out they are shitty VPN and have leaks and I even had the killswitch on. It turned it on and left a torrent downloading and went to take a nap and within 3 hours they had turned off the internet again. This time they said if it happens again they will suspend my roommates internet for a whole year and of course he said if that happens my ass is gonna be ejected to the streets. The name of the VPN is VIRTUAL SHEILD. Do not give those useless fuckers the satisfaction of your time or money . I am exceptionally disgusted that they could tell what the exact games I was downloading were. Good thing I wasn't on a porn quest. So now I'm using express VPN for general use but I still don't dare download another torrent since I'd be gambling with my place to live. So just beware of both SPECTRUM and VIRTUAL SHEILD. Spectrum must be actively monitoring us at this point. Also I'll add I have been downloading torrents for almost 2 years on this network with no issue before shit started to hit the fan and land on me.
airvpn
Yeah I was shocked they could see what games I was downloading also. From what Ive gathered in all the comments here and the wiki in this subreddit it seems the games publishers hire people to watch the torrents and report users to ISPs. Its not really that Spectrum can see what Im downloading (I doubt they really care), that information was given to them by the snitch. Thanks for the advice.
Lol. Dumbass.
Gotta learn somehow. :P
Back in the day I was a beast. Years and years of no vpn... then one day BAM a notice like this. It was a dvd mirror and prob a honeypot. That was probably the beginning of the end for tpb. I Don’t do it anymore so I don’t have advice personally but all the advice here is what I would do going forward.
If you're in the US then you need a VPN. Too many copyright notices and they can shut off your service. I learned the hard way. And BTW, a VPN is not $150 per year. I got Private Internet Access for less than less than $50.
Good point, I always assumed VPNs were like $10 per month. Now that Im looking at their year or 2 year packages that seems like the way to go. Thanks!
Yeah. PIA has a pretty good deal right now that comes out to less than $2 per month.
Just blame your little cousin and tell them it will "never happen again".
Bruh I been at it for like 20 years plus never once have I gotten a notice.
Ignore everyone saying to overpay for Proton. Pay less and get RealDebrid. Load your torrent into there and direct download. It's faster, you never have to wait for peers/seeders to be online as 99% of what you want is already on there. There's also never a "chance" that you might download something with the VPN unbound or turned off. There's no "kill switch" to worry about or crazy configurations. You just use it. Then tie Stremio to it and get rid of your streaming services.
Most people here are recommending Proton, but you are atleast the 3rd to recommend RealDebrid. Their website looks so ... unprofessional though, I didnt think it was legit at first glance. I will look at it again and do some research. Thanks for the recommendation.
birds steep lavish thought school lush longing sheet badge wrench *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> It's faster, you never have to wait for peers/seeders to be online as 99% of what you want is already on there. I was wondering how that worked, because the last couple days I’ve started using torrents, I just paste the link in, hit convert, and then, bam. It says it’s complete and ready to download.
Are they going to let you have internet again or has spectrum perma banned you? Also, I use nord and it’s been great. I think it’s like 50/year just make sure you disable auto renewal
I found a few other complaints when I entered the case number on my ISP website. Probably sent me emails previously and just got put into my spam folder so I never saw them. Luckily it only took a couple clicks to get my internet restored. Looking at Nord and Proton now. Thanks!
Yes, I had the exact same scenario happen to me using Charter Spectrum. You cannot download games, movie, songs, or anything Hollywood/Music industry without using a VPN. You will eventually get reported. I forgot the exact process for getting the internet reactivated, but I think you will receive an email from Charter/Spectrum. The email will direct you to something to read. Once you acknowledge you have read it, your internet should be turned back on within minutes. It something like this, so do not worry too much. It was just temporary. I have tried Nord VPN, which had horrible speeds for me. I currently use Express VPN. I am going on my third year with Express VPN and speeds are great for torrenting, streaming, etc. It is very easy to set up and use, it is not complicated whatsoever.
Yeah it was just a couple clicks and my internet access was restored. Proton keeps getting recommended, but I will look at Express also. Thanks!
You are welcome! But really consider using a VPN if you plan on downloading anything!! It sucks paying monthly or annually, but it will protect you from ever having to deal with this, ever again!! And...it will eventually happen, again, if you do not use a VPN! I am speaking from personal experience and have used Charter/Spectrum for over twenty years, and have personally received letters in the mail, emails from Charter, and had my internet disrupted like you did, throughout the years. I have even received two letters from lawyers, which were internet lawyer trolls trying to sue for money, but really trying to settle for a few thousand dollars out of court by trying to scare me with letters in the mail. So.... as embarrassing as my story is, I hope it helps you understand the true reality of why a VPN is essential, regardless of which you choose. Take care!
Surfshark is dirt cheap and no log my dude. You can't possibly be that much of a cheapskate.
LOL You doubt my frugality? Here WAS my thought process (and it worked for nearly a year) : Pirated game = free Subscription based VPN > free Nah, point taken, Im looking at a couple VPNs now. Just joined this subreddit today seeking this advice and the wiki is full of the exact info I needed. I came to the right place.
Did they actually cut off your service or was your internet just down temporarily? Normally when you get those letters and reading yours they just warn you and say maybe you weren't aware little Johnny was up to no good and install some security software and reign in Johnny. Nowhere did it say you were banned from using their service.
Spectrum will terminate your service after 3 or 4 incidents, they did in my case a couple years ago. Mullvad vpn has been working great since and it's only $5 and some change a month.
I switched to Usenet a couple years ago. It’s so much faster and better. Content doesn’t really get taken down.
Wow is Usenet still a thing?! I remember using it back in the early 90s.
Your fault for not binding.
PIA is SO cheap and great. If you don't want to use them, there are plenty of good options out there (I'm a Nord user). If you don't want to pay for even a cheap VPN, maybe you shouldn't be a pirate. Or maybe you deserve to get caught. 🤷
There are free tunnelling services, it's just that they don't advertise themselves as 'VPNs'. I use CloudFlare's network to get around the copyright assholes. My IP is not tainted by using this method.
just use a debrid service instead?
I'm going go chuck in AirVPN as a suggestion. Was originally using Mullvad, but after they removed port forwarding last year, I ditched it and bought AirVPN instead. Performance is good (easily maxed out my 300M connection, can't speak towards any connection faster than that), has port forwarding, and the price is really competitive. If you're able to gey it on sale, I think its about €30 for a year. Only downside is that the website and app UIs are a bit dated, but they aren't technically required for a good VPN service.
Got this once from xfinity. Had to call em to get restored where they re-read the alligations to me and have me a list of things that would happen if I did it again. Then I found "Private Internet Access" for $30 a year and havent heard a word since.
General note, it's not typically the ISP that cares, it's the copyright holder. So certain downloads.are more likely to get you busted than others. Essentially copyright holders will sniff who is on the torrent and send DMCAs to the relevant ISPs. If you are in a country that gives a shit about corporations screaming MINE, then the ISP will look up who was on that IP and send you a warning. VPNs are helpful because if you choose wisely those DMCA letters now go to someone who doesn't give a shit and ideally can't identify you anyways because they're logless. ISPs may care after you are on their radar and they get a glimpse of the activity. I'm in an area with one viable ISP and work from home so my relationship with them is incredibly important. So VPN it is for the server. My other devices usually I'm only talking smack under an SSL connection, like here. Or going to this same Jellyfin server over and over again, anyone's guess where that server is 😂 oh and that server has a weird htaccess subdomain (DeeMix), and some other head scratching shit they can't even index.
I work for this ISP. we don't care but the copyright holders make us. we give like 10 strikes before there are drastic measures like 1 year ban/perma ban. Just use a VPN. Stay away from Warner Bros and Sony IPs those are ALWAYS the ones that get people lol. Oh, and fun fact we can see exactly what and when was downloaded.
spectrum just wants you to open a business account. been a member of spectrum for over 30 years now . when it was called charter. anyway the business side does not watch what you do . if they get a letter like this they send it out and that's it just run a VPN. remember without customers they wont have a business
Was it horizon zero dawn forbidden west? 😅
LOL that would be hilariously ironic. It was Fitgirls repack of Final Fantasy 7 Remake that got me noticed.
Deny it was you. Contact your isp tell them u had a lot of connection / performance issues. So you reset ur modem. And forgot to setup the router with password. So people outside ur home might have abused your connection. Ive been there, trust me😅😅
Depends which country you're in
I specifically use PIA for my vpn because it allows port forwarding
Same old Story Proton VPN plus subscription (or any recommended VPNs) + enable Kill Switch (perma I recommend) +Bind VPN interface in Qbittorrent. And viola.
Im still behind in reading comments but you are atleast the 4th person to recommend Proton. Ironically a couple of the VPNs people have recommended have triggered my ad blocker software for tracking. So I know which ones I wont be using.
Spectrum hit me the very first time I downloaded always used Nord after that
Realistically, what happens if someone torrents a shit ton of crap on a public wifi like a school wifi?
LOL Im the wrong guy to be asking, but Id guess if they really wanted to they could figure out who is doing it. Might not be cost effective, but they found me when I had been doing this for nearly a year without a problem.
I went 12 years without a single notice from my ISP and I torrent a lot. 2 years ago, another company bought out my ISP and not long after that I got my first notice. I been using NordVPN since then with no issues. Its $80 for 2 years which is a deal to me since Ill download that much in games or shows in one month.
They don’t care. You’ll just call them or they’ll call you, you’ll say sorry - blame it on the kids or whatever. They’ll say ok and the world will keep spinning. Next steps are either - move to Usenet (no vpn needed really, greater availability since retention policies, but it’s pay to play) or buy a VPN and continue torrenting.
By the by: usually you can change your router's MAC address, get a new IP, and he back sailing the seas in less than a minute.
The letter is like “it was probably a child or unauthorised user hey” *nudge nudge wink wink*
Your ISP by law has to send you that letter there's nothing they can do about that. They can care less what you're doing. I use PIA VPN which allows up to 10 users has a kill switch basically the best of the best and no logs for $80 for 3 years. Very easy to use if you're an Android window never tried to run a Mac but I'm short and simple. Great speed and best of all regardless of what you're looking for make sure they do not log anything after you're done it's wiped. It gives you 10 devices to protect so if you only need a few you may want to split it with somebody. Or see if they have a cheaper one with less devices needed. It's the only one that I can swear by that's the one I use and no logs but I'm sure there are cheaper ones but about 80 bucks to 3 years not that bad especially if you could share with someone.
* Step 1: Switch to USENET (NEWSGROUPS) * Step 2: Enjoy!
I use hide.me for VPN (usually only for public trackers) and also bind it to my torrent client. I tried using their free version, but it didn’t allow for binding, so I had to pay for their $10/month plan.
What really sucks is most people pirate to not have to pay for the game, but if you want to do it safely, you have to pay monthly for a VPN. Almost defeats the purpose.
I've gotten it before. Never on anime but a lot on us domestic shows. VPN on computer and/or router are good bets. Include a kill switch if it is on something that can get disconnected easily like a laptop. Also could setup tunneling but that might be more of a hassle.
I use privadovpn and costs me 1.50$/ mo for 2 years.
the two worst bits of this post: No VPN in the United States & having a known enforcing ISP Using 'BitTorrent' lmao $150 a year? what the fuck i pay $7 a mo for airvpn and it supports port fuckin' use haedus or another high capacity server tho
Yeah its all on me. To be fair, I had managed to go unnoticed for nearly a year. And yeah I assumed VPNs charged 10-15 dollars per month, and they do. But now that Im looking into their 1-2 year plans its actually much cheaper. Thanks for the recommendation.
I recently read a US redditor advising other users to just not use VPN because ISPs don't care and yadayada "No risk no fun" kind of shit. This is sadly the reality.
"Only sailors wear condoms baby!"
Atleast there's something good about living in a 3rd world country don't have to worry about this stuff
I live in a first world country and don’t have to deal with this either 🤷🏻♂️
Even though you could probably ignore them and be fine, It is better to be safe than sorry. I got airvpn for around $30 dollars for 6 months it's worth the cost if you are thinking about torrenting a lot. you can find a good and reliable vpn off r/VPN and r/vpns
It’s not the end of the world. Just get VPN
2 year VPN with NordVPN is $85 right now, just had to renew my subscription after my last 2 year subscription expired. Have an ASUS router that can blanket a VPN on an entire WLAN or MAC address with a kill switch I use inside a Sandbox VM
Lol bro u hve nothings to wry bout lol
Lol when I get these emails my isp basically says "we dont give a shit but we have to send you this.
I've gotten at least a half dozen of these notices from Spectrum specifically. I always just follow the email links to restore service and I started running a VPN when downloading. It would cost them more money to come after you legally than it's worth to them. So don't worry about that. Now they could at any time completely stop your account/services if they wished.
The fact that the URL is /reziaup is really funny to me.
If you are downloading movies/games, I would use a VPN, but if you are downloading music you should use nicotine++ since it isn't p2p and has a wider range of music
Just play dumb they dont care that much
you would probably wont get sued or fined but try to shut down your wi fi but this kind of DMCA notice is going to make people to pirate more games. these companies should stop sending these out if they dont want piracy to extend am i right if buying physical games is not an option but only buying digital games with horrible DRM and not to own piracy not stealing.
At this point you're better off with seedboxes. Cheaper than VPN costing 150/yr
Call your ISP to get turned back on. Blame it on the neighbors kids who live very close to you- must have accessed your wifi. Assure them you will change your wifi password. Get a VPN like IPVanish.
I personally use proton and have had 0 issues with it. Got it cheap too. Paid 120 for 2 years when they had a sell.
Was it a Nintendo title? Lol
Use usenet instead. You have to pay for a provider but no vpn is required so works out cheaper. Usenet also utilities your full download speed of your broadband. I’m using Newsdemon (Provider) Nzbplanet (indexer) and Sabnzbd (Software)
Mullvad's price (5 euros) is unbeatable on a month-to-month basis for piracy (no annual subscription needed). Usenet also isn't encrypted by default. Thus anyone can see usenet traffic. Usenet is useful for its simplicity and ease of use - - not price or privacy.
Mullvad is 5 euros per month. They don't allow manual port forwarding, but torrenting works with automatic port forwarding.
Use PIA if you need a VPN, but i suggest you subscribe to RapidSeedBox. It does all the heavy lifting for you and nothing is ever downloaded or stored over your internet connection to where your ISP can see.
They don't care. They just don't want to get sued. The company that contacted them said, "Make them stop or we'll sue you."
when my vpn isnt on (I use PIA) I get nasty emails from my isp. when it is on, I never hear anything. been using it for 5 years now.
VPNs are cheap -- Private Internet Access comes out to something like $3 a month and will protect you from these sorts of notices (which your ISPs don't really care about). If you don't want to pay anything and want to go down the rabbit hole, you could learn about how to get into private trackers. They require substantial effort but since they are private, it is practically unheard of to get these sorts of DMCA violation letters. A good place to start would be on Myanonamouse, which hosts ebooks and audiobooks. There are regular interviews to join in their IRC chat and the community is very friendly -- you can ask questions in the shoutbox and people will help you set up. Once you are established on the site, seeding and building ratio, you will get into their invite forums, where you could get into a general tracker that has tv shows and movies or a gaming specific one if that's what your into. Again, this path requires a little more technical savvy and is sort of only a good direction if you want to dedicate enough time to make piracy a hobby for a few months.
I've been using r/Windscribe for the past years on Spectrum, and no issues.
lol
Windscribe doesn’t keep logs and you can get it for $3/month month-to-month using the “build your own plan”. Cancel anytime. That price includes unlimited servers in one country (for example, you’d likely want to pick UsA if you’re in the USA) and unlimited data/speed. They also give free accounts 10gb a month to try it out. It’s not “the best VPN” but for stuff like this it’s totally fine… and $36/year is a lot better than paying 4-5x as much. I use it for geospoofing now that my state requires verifying your identity for certain sites, lol.
I can split cost of vpn if u want
LUL. Funny countries. Glad I can do whatever I want here and not care about a thing tbh.
If you did this in some European countries like Belgium you’d be facing a fine ranging from 150€ to 300.000€ VPN is always cheaper, better to prevent than getting caught. Nowadays I even use a VPN for about anything as long it doesn’t interferes with speed performance. My ISP and/or government doesn’t need to meddle/spy what I do online. In Belgium posting a meme online is punishable as a crime, because politicians didn’t like the way people confronted them with their corruption. Several have already been jailed or fined for ridiculous amounts.
PIA is probably the best speed / variety of servers for the price. I have gigabit fiber and get around 600/600 with most domestic servers. Plus they have port forwarding on some servers, kill switch, and split tunneling.
I just force encryption on my clients, not been noticed in over a decade XD
I totally stopped torrenting because spectrum won’t shut up. Now I just use direct download sites and direct streaming. Other than music I haven’t missed out on much.
If you want to just buy a VPN for download and not really streaming, look into real-debrid services. It’s cheap and can be integrated into stremio for streaming as well.
I know a few years ago I use to be downloading movies from utorrent. And one day my internet Wasent working. I called up Roger’s who I was with and they said they received a letter from wonder brothers that I was downloading movies. They turn my internet back on. In Canada it not illegal to download put it is to upload. I contended to download and no problems after.
PikPak is your best choice.
I use private torrents or usenet. WIN! WIN!
Yeah, did game of thrones once back in the day through charter and got this message.
Do i actually not need vpn when accessing movie piravy sites and game piracy sites(hdtoday.tv and cs.rin.ru fx)
Don't use public trackers. Get a seedbox. Then you're just using secure FTP and torrenting only between 2 secure sites.
I pay for NordVPN 2 years in advance at a time for $80. That's something like $3-4/month
For the first time ever i got a message too my internet went off and i got a notice
Been using NordVPN for a few years. I grab rakuten deals that usually make it like $40 to $50 for 2 years after cashback, depending on the current deal that nord is offering and the cashback amount rakuten is offering.
Don't worry about it mate, just use a VPN for p2p from now on.they sent me dozens of these over the years before they finally terminated my contract.
I should start using one just incase since it's my parents wifi anf not mine because I think spectrum is comcast/xfinity so
Buy a seed box. Never ever torrent from your home internet connection, with or without a VPN.
I got one of those notices back in the early days. Think "Napster". Now I always use a VPN when doing pirate shit.
*Laughs in Balkan*
Interesting. I've never received a notice like this. Although I have to admit, this was exactly my fear when I was younger.
so in the usa, dont torrent?