There seems to be a sub-group of salty dogs that sail without protection. They are often US saying they get lots of letters from ISP but nothing comes of it, lately. I’m one to hedge on the side of caution and will be continuing to use VPN but just wondering how much this is just a loud minority and how much truth is to it?
I torrented the vast majority of my growing 28tb library without a vpn over the last 7ish years.
This year alone, I’ve received 45 email notices from my ISP forwarding copyright claims to me. Neither the ISP nor any claimants have taken further action and the content in the claim(s) has always finished seeding and been removed from the torrent client by the time I’ve received the notice. (the notice specifies a particular torrent title/filename)
Despite not yet having legal issues or service interruptions; I have just recently decided to switch from torrenting to usenet via Frugal Usenet+NZBGeek (usenet provider+indexer). Better availability (In 2 days, I grabbed 2.8tb of content I hadn’t been able to find via torrents and 15+ indexers), continuous 70+mbps downloads, and no need for a vpn while also not receiving anymore copyright claims for only about $6/month.