(I'm trying to draw a distinction between actions that protect an individual and actions that encourage a fair society there, it's the protecting just yourself against corrupt police that isn't particularly possible)
However, in the case of torrents you are also uploading the content, which is illegal; and I believe there is precedent that you can be charged (although I do not have a case handy).
What I have yet to see is any sort of justification for why it is ok to push personal risk onto other people, many of which have no idea how bittorrent works.
If you're going to use bittorrent for works that are protected by copyright, sharing in a small amount of risk is how the protocol works. Technical changes that actually reduce risks are fine; moving risk around is merely hoping someone who is ignorant of the technical details can be the patsy.
I did not know that's the case. Do you have a source to confirm this?
Anyway, if you're still worried, I suggest you use the Tor Browser and stop worrying about these things all together.
https://www.torproject.org/ (no affiliation)
You'd think that, but stop and remember what the pirate bay actually does, again.
They don't have copyrighted files. They used to but no longer keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files. All they have is descriptions of files and ID numbers. Plus comments and a search engine.
So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it.
True.
> They used to [...] keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files
Did they get rid of their tracker? I don't know actually, but that's not important. Running a torrent tracker is considered very legal in most places (similar to running a Tor exit node or something like that).
> Plus comments and a search engine.
That's the tricky bit.
> So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it.
I'd rather you wouldn't just say stuff like that. You're basically spreading FUD. There is no sane reason to believe anybody will ever be arrested (in western countries, that is) for visiting a site like TPB. Which law would you like to stretch in order to make that happen? Using their indexer is similar to getting a menu from your drug dealer. You haven't even attempted to do anything illegal yet. What you'd need is a law that allows you to arrest people for something they haven't even attempted to do (some people call that pre-crime).
What happens in reality instead is governments blocking sites like TPB and that's the end of that.
Yes.
>> Plus comments and a search engine.
> That's the tricky bit.
Wait, you think the comments and search engine are the problem? What if they dumped a big list of the most recent 10000 magnet URLs and descriptions at you?
> You're basically spreading FUD.
Well I am pretty scared and uncertain. The Pirate Bay is already so far removed from the actual copyright infringement that I don't see how another layer of indirection guarantees safety for the people that visit the site. Perhaps you wouldn't get in trouble just for searching, but if you used the search results in the process of infringing copyright I would not be surprised to see some kind of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement charge added on for making the search. Is that completely unreasonable?
Can you explain to me how TPB's actions are illegal today? In the dealer analogy, they've never even seen a drug. They ask you what chemical you want and tell you an arbitrary code word that some dealers will recognize.
The problem can't really be that it's a search engine rather than an unorganized list...can it?
Absolutely not! Once you click a magnet link, you're on your own. I was just talking about visiting the site, searching, really not doing anything.
> Can you explain to me how TPB's actions are illegal today?
Depends on the jurisdiction, I guess. I'm not sure TPB is actually illegal, but that question is quite complex. I really wouldn't know.
> The problem can't really be that it's a search engine rather than an unorganized list...can it?
Of course it is! That's how the ended up in court in the first place. On top of all their legal-ish infrastructure (the trackers, etc.) they provide a website that allows people to aggregate, filter, enrich, etc., content. I'm not sure that alone get's you in trouble (it might not!), but it certainly will once you add ads to finance the entire thing.
Well let me put it this way. If they had a site with exactly the same interface for viewing torrent info, but no comments, no votes, no filtering, no searching. You think that would win in court?
Further reading (by Peter Sunde himself): [1] http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-foreve... [2] http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/11/peter-sunde
I'm going to sound like a paranoid nut (and I can assure you I'm not), but the reality is, if you get a target on your back the "US police" will find a way to arrest you[1].
This is the scary thing about mass data collection; they can concoct any story they want from the breadcrumbs of personal data.
[1] a fun documentary about someone getting railroaded when the police needed a suspect: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files/
I wonder how it is back? Aren't Sunde et. al. in jail for this?