Are there huge fines now for downloading torrents

Sites like the Pirate Bay and uTorrent haven't enticed hundreds of millions of people to download endless amounts of free media content without making a few enemies. The increased acceptance of illegally downloading media has affected the bottom line of the movie and music industry over the past decade, and that isn't good news for torrent fans.

Earlier this month, the BBC reported on a study by computer scientists at Birmingham University designed to find out how risky it is for file-sharers to upload and download files online. When someone downloads a torrent file from an open site like the Pirate Bay or uTorrent , their IP address is linked with other IP addresses around the world that are hosting that file. Now, those organizations are planting files online that they think people are the most likely to download.

The study, which spanned three years, found that IP addresses and other data are being collected for future use. Privacy Policy. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.

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Torrent type and variety are also important when choosing which torrent sites to use. Ad Intrusion is also important when deciding what torrent site to use. If you have to go through 8 ads just to browse for a file, it might be time to find a new torrent site.

In our research, there were about popular torrent sites that we decided not to include due to the ad intrusion level. Security is very important when downloading torrents. After all, there are plenty of shady torrenting platforms on the internet which could compromise your online security. Website: Visit a working Pirate Bay Mirror.

Attention: The Pirate Bay is blocked in many countries even mirror sites , so you might need a VPN to change your virtual location and unblock the Pirate Bay.

The Pirate Bay has been a crowd favorite for many years. However, considering the number of mirrors and blocking attempts, that number may be skewed , and million visits a month is perhaps a bit more accurate. The Pirate Bay is popular for its large community, which ensures at least one seeder on almost any torrent on the site, no matter the age.

We tried downloading obscure titles from even over a decade ago, and we found that there were still happy seeders to help out. You can also look at our list of Pirate Bay alternatives for more options. RARBG is a large directory of torrents, famous for a very active community of seeders and high-quality torrents.

Its library size is decent, and it gets updated often, meaning that you have a high chance of finding new torrents on the site. The only difference is that ad intrusion is more annoying on RARBG, so take that into account when choosing one of the two. There are a lot of phishing scams going around with RARBG-looking sites, so make sure you learn about secure browsing. Website: X website. Some people use it to browse for game torrents as well, but from our research, it does look like both RARBG and The Pirate Bay have more torrents in that category, especially for older titles.

A few years ago, X was a bad choice for any torrenting, since it was clunky to navigate and it posed a lot of security risks. Since then, it went through an entire site revamp , making it seamless to browse and safer. For shows and movies, you also have improved browsing functionalities, like searching by award nomination. Mirrors: x. Website: Torrentz2 website. While this is not that big of a torrent site — only amassing million users a month, and unable to sport much of a library for general torrents — Torrentz2 is very good for finding music.

Not to mention — any type of browsing options, like searching by album, artist or song would be greatly appreciated. Second, ad intrusion is minimal and the interface is beautiful.

Lastly, classics are readily available on the platform. If you want high-definition episodes of your favourite shows, EZTV is the place to go.

We searched for older titles like Two and a Half Men, and it had a decent library of options. We even tried going for more obscure titles, like the British show Midsomer Murders.

Those figures come courtesy of legal analytic company, Lex Machina. The analysis from the California-based company reveals there were 1, file-sharing cases filed in the United States last year — an average of 85 a month. More than half of all these were filed by adult entertainment firm, Malibu Media, which accounted for some lawsuits filed against pirates last year.

While that is far from an insignificant number, it only looks set to increase in the coming months. According data gathered by piracy-focused blog TorrentFreak , during the first month of , three copyright holders filed a total of lawsuits against alleged pirates. Strike 3 Holdings, another hugely-successful online pornography firm, is in second place with cases.