As a general rule of thumb, you are allowed to download anything. What is penalized by law is to upload copyright material and offer it to other people. Here is a way to avoid any copyright lawsuit/penalty/infringement .Law firms track users uploaded the content by looking at their IP address. They can request the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to give the IP address’s name holder only within their respective countries. For example : a German law firm can only request a German Internet provider (not French or British ) to disclose the name of IP address holder. Thus it is best to not expose your own IP address on public BitTorrent.
VPN
A virtual private network ( VPN ) creates an encrypted ‘tunnel’ between the computer and the host server, with the internet traffic going in and out of the host server. An ISP or government can only see that the user has connected to the VPN server and nothing else – the activities, IP addresses visited etc. are all completely hidden from the ISP.
However, the VPN server can keep logs. After the post Snowden era, all your VPN history and logs are likely to be harvested by the NSA.
Go for a non-US provider. If possible with untraceable payment method.
Apart from the peer to peer ( P2P ) anonymity, VPNs can bypass geo-location restriction ( content only available in certain countries )
Seedbox
A seedbox
is a remote server hosted used for the safe uploading and downloading of digital file. Contrary to a VPN, a seedbox will not use your bandwidth. Most seedbox are hosted in a high-bandwidth data center. A seedbox can be safely hosted in a country where file sharing is illegal. Because data centers are considered professional use. For example, the biggest datacenter in Europe is OVH ( in Roubaix, France ). A lot of French customers use OVH as seedbox while if they use their private internet, they could get a fine.
Seedbox are more expensive than VPN.
Use an internet cafe
Since the IP address matches the owner thus the downloader , it is best not to expose one’s IP address.
There are 2 important conditions to select an internet cafe :
– you can bring your own laptop.
– no ID asked. Of course, the payment method cannot identify you ( pay by cash ).
When the legal alternative is cheaper
Maybe you had a look at the cost of a VPN or seedbox, Netflix costs about the same price as a seedbox ( 9,99 USD /month for the standard subscription ) . The Netflix catalog may be smaller than all the content available on P2P but the content creators get a better redistribution of their work. You make your own choices.