this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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I've been torrenting movies and software since 2000, no vpn, like I literally have torrented damn near everything I've watched for decades and have only gotten a notice once and it wasn't even me. It was from a temporary roommate who had watched a movie on a pirate streaming site.
So that tells you how good and accurate their detection techniques are.
Their methods are fine, they literally just pirate the stuff themselves, see which IPs connect to them, then connect those to an ISP and notify them. The main reasons you wouldn't get notices are getting lucky, not seeding much, not torrenting things that are being monitored, or having an ISP that doesn't care much.
The single notice from the streaming site makes sense, pirate streaming sites are usually honeypots or heavily monitored.
My routine is always use piratebay, never use a pirate streaming site, no new or big studio releases, no porn, not seeding for long and choosing less active torrents. I can't say much for how effective it is since I've never gotten hit so I can't really experiment (I've had five or six ISPs in two different countries).
And I don't even understand how this would hold up if it ever went to trial. How can an IP owner "pirate" their own IP? Even when they outsource it to services who do this they're still giving permission for the IP to be distributed.
It's like hiring someone to "steal" your own TV, putting it in a back alley and then accusing whoever takes it of being a thief.
It's generally seen as okay on a similar level to undercover work. They do it for Investigation reasons, the torrent was already uploaded before they joined, their monitoring serves a legitimate law enforcement purpose, and they're authorized by the copyright holder (themselves) to do it. They didn't put the movie or whatever out there themselves.