Check out https://gnunet.org/

It works well for file sharing as well. Don't know about copyrighted material though, have only shared my own files.

Does it actually work well? I tried to play with it a while back and while sharing files appeared to work, actually downloading them from other node didn't go that well..

The thing that doesn't work well yet in my experience is the NAT traversal and finding peers in general. But I tested the same thing with two peers and I could download with no problems. It also seems to get updated quite often, I tested very recently.

> Torrenting copyrighted materials (especially if you are distributing) can be quite expensive in some jurisdictions

Why? Your ISP charges for BitTorrent traffic?

In case you are serious: Lawyer agencies are joining the swarm, recording IPs, write letters to ISPs and send you fines. That's very common for example in Germany.

Edit: I didn't downvote you if it looks like that :)

> write letters to ISPs and send you fines. That's very common for example in Germany.

And you have to pay the fines? That's nuts.

In the US, you are pretty much as likely to get fined for torrenting as you are to get arrested for jaywalking (although without the racial disparity).

> And you have to pay the fines? That's nuts.

Yes, conveniently there's a second group of lawyers that focuses on getting people out of these fines...for a fee that's not so much lower. Unfortunately it's a bit of a business model in some countries.

In the US the (very) common scenario is to get a couple warnings from your ISP and if you continue torrenting copyrighted material you will be dropped as a customer and banned.

> the (very) common scenario is to get a couple warnings from your ISP and if you continue torrenting copyrighted material you will be dropped as a customer and banned.

This is not "very" common - the ISPs don't really ban you, they just threaten you. I no longer do this, but I extensively torrented over multiple home ISPs and they would send me warnings but they would never actually do anything.

AT&T has banned a friend permanently so I would be careful about over-broad generalizations. Folks in my my household were torrenting and we got our service cut with the second offense until we went through some rigmarole promising we'd never do it again at which point they stopped. The cost to an ISP's lawyers to field these things isn't free and at least some really do respond with action.

I'm curious if the action taken depends on broadband competition in the area - do you live in a city?

France was pressured by the US diplomatically to do the same in France. It's called HADOPI.

Source: wikileaks