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EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number and they say piracy is going to receive a huge blow. Obviously I have no intention of stopping but now I'll have to start using a VPN, if I want to continue my way. However, I do not trust VPNs a lot and I do not like the idea of paying for them (I could just pay for the movie in the first place)

I looked into using Tor network to torrent but it seems like it'd be a hindrance to the network itself, which is going to be a huge inconvenience for other users. Additionally I know that even if I found a way to throttle my bandwidth to remove this problem, Tor isn't exactly made for this sort of thing anyways.

Now, obviously it doesn't have to be torrenting, but I would gladly hear any suggestions on how to avoid paying and getting movies and shows without being caught doing it. Truthfully I was only streaming from websites for many years, so I do not know a lot about torrenting vs direct downloading either. Thanks in advance for any responses.

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[-] lime@feddit.nu 114 points 1 month ago

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number

no they're not.

the EU ruled that IP addresses are personally identifiable information (PII) for the purposes of GDPR compliance EIGHT YEARS AGO. this means that internet services cannot store your IP address without your consent and explicitly telling you why they need it, they have to delete it when they're done with it, and if they are to be stored in any way for aggregate data then it needs to be anonymised so that it can no longer be associated with you.

any change to associate IPs with you would break the GDPR.

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[-] drspod@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 month ago

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number and they say piracy is going to receive a huge blow.

Sounds like an April Fools joke.

[-] Tm12@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago

Unfortunately needing a VPN is not.

[-] black0ut@pawb.social 3 points 1 month ago

I torrent without VPN in the EU. I've been doing so for years. Still no letters as of writing this comment.

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It massively depends on the country - it's probably fine in Southern and Eastern Europe but not for example in Germany were if I'm not mistaken copyright violation is even part of Criminal Law rather than Civil Law as in pretty much the rest of the World.

Personally ever since I lived in the UK - which has the most insane levels of civil society surveillance in Europe, including of Internet usage - I got into the habit of doing pretty much everything behind a VPN, which also helps with peace of mind for the whole torreting thing no matter which country I'm living in at the moment, plus I pay 5 euros a month for the VPN which is less than a single streaming service, so in a way it pays itself (it's funny how piracy compensates for the costs of protecting myself from dragnet surveillance).

[-] therantechguy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

I live in Germany and my brother and me torrent and no letters for years so I do not know what you are on about.

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I vaguelly remember reading that Germany made Copyright Violation even for personal use a Crime, rather than merelly a Civil Law affair like it is in most countries.

Mind you, I might be wrong on the countries or on the details (i.e. maybe it's only a Crime if it's for profit).

Edit: So I searched for it and from here I got that:

Are there criminal copyright provisions? What are they?

Copyright infringements under German law also constitute criminal acts, which are punishable by fines or up to three years' imprisonment. If the infringement is done on a commercial basis, the maximum punishment is five years in prison.

According to German copyright law, unlawful exploitation of copyrighted works, unlawful affixing of the designation of an author and the infringement of related rights are subject to imprisonment of not more than three years or a fine. In addition, any attempt shall be punishable.

The unlawful exploitation of copyrighted works on a commercial scale is subject to imprisonment of not more than five years or a fine.

The infringement of technological measures and rights management information is subject to imprisonment of not more than one year or a fine.

As I said, in most countries copyright infringement is not a Crime, just a Civil Law matter (i.e. you can be sued by the owners of the Copyright for damage but you won't be sued by the State to pay a fine or even be jailed for it). Frankly judging by what it says there German law is very draconian on this.

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[-] Nuxleio@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 month ago

You need to pay for a VPN. It's like a condom for the internet. Frankly, stop trying to avoid something that you should already be using.

Mullvad is a good start. Go purchase it.

[-] Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 1 month ago

Didn't mullvad stop port forwarding? That ain't great for seeding.

[-] Ilandar@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago

Yes, Proton VPN is a better option if you require that feature.

[-] Kumikommunism@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago
[-] Ilandar@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

I believe Private Internet Access also offers this feature if people need a cheaper alternative, although it comes with tradeoffs regarding trust and ethics.

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[-] Nuxleio@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

Perhaps? It works just fine for me but I'm a bit of a filthy casual who doesn't torrent all that much

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[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 18 points 1 month ago

Do you have some source for this IP thing in the EU? I wasn't aware of any new privacy laws.

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[-] AlexisFR@jlai.lu 12 points 1 month ago

Where have you heard about this nonsense law?

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[-] oldfart@lemm.ee 9 points 1 month ago

It's a lifestyle, not a way to save money. I pay for piracy related tech more than a netflix subscription costs.

[-] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 month ago

This. I don't do much but I have spent $1,200 on HDDs alone. Then there's the true saviors of the internet with hundreds of TB, even PB of backed up, virus-free content

[-] jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

I don’t do much but I have spent $1,200 on HDDs alone.

this might interest you when its ready in a couple months. this is exactly the issue its working toward resolving.

Seedboxes go from €2 to €100+ a month depending on how much you will torrent and how much space you need on the box alongside other factors. My personal choices are Gigarapid and Ultra but there are others

[-] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number.

If that's true, then even VPNs won't help. Not sure how they will implement such a thing, but it's obviously to protect the children !

There's also the I2P network, which is similar to TOR but with torrenting in mind and other nice tools and utilities ! However, it's slower, has less traffic/seeder and don't even bother to try and find some older movies/music or hidden gems.

It's getting better and some applications, like qbittorrent, are adding the i2p network. In the near future, when they have protected the children, I2P will be the place to be for a free and open Internet. However, you will probably be tagged as criminal...

[-] Banana_man@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago

I'm not sure what the entire EU is doing, but they did this in my country, Greece. They say it has already been implemented so I don't know what exactly this is going to entail. Will be checking this I2p thing out soon enough though.

[-] stupid_asshole69@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago

Free vpns sell your data. It’s why they’re free. Processor cycles and bandwidth cost money so if you want someone to use their processor cycles and their bandwidth to encrypt and route your traffic through their servers without clandestinely peeking, and using lawyers and advanced security techniques to ward off the police, you gotta pay them.

In order to seed torrents you need to have a port on your vpn endpoint that is accessible to the internet and gets passed to the computer running your BitTorrent client. This is called port forwarding. There are only so many ports, so a vpn provider that offers port forwarding will probably charge more and you might not be able to get certified hood classics like :42069 because someone is already using it.

I use airvpn for torrents but depending on your European country you might not be able to. There are other port forwarding vpns. The cost is cheap, most come out to less than $5 a month.

Most let you run multiple devices at the same time so you might have your computer at home torrenting through the vpn while you’re away at work browsing porno on the toilet connected to the vpn which lets you get past the work content blockers.

So… just pay for a port forwarding vpn.

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[-] 0x0@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago

I use Tor to get magnet links and feed them to my clearnet torrenting client, no issues so far and the ISP would have to breach my privacy to provide my IP.

[-] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago
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[-] BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yo, 2 things:

  1. I too heard that about Greece, but I couldnt find any article about it, only stuff I heard from others which they probably read them on FB. Do you have any (reputable) article coverthing this? I just considered those roumors it as fearmongering and moved on.

  2. Yo, since I haven't seen you around, just to know, we have a sonewhat active greek community at https://fedia.io/m/Greece

[-] Banana_man@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago

Hey, thanks for the heads up on the Greek community, I'll be giving that a visit for sure. Also yes, I can find articles that are trustworthy but they are all in Greek, sadly xD. I might look again sometime though, will let you know!

[-] BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

but they are all in Greek

Haha sure, send me the greek ones, μπορω να τα διαβασω:)

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this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
9 points (55.7% liked)

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