BitTorrent is not criminalized, it is perfectly good and legal. On the other hand using it to obtain copyrighted content like movies, music and software obviously is a crime.

Not so obviously a crime.

http://www.wired.com/2013/01/antigua-piracy-site/

They suspended Antigua's and Barbuda's obligations to comply with US intellectual property rights because the USA did not comply with prior WTO rulings. [1] It is still illegal and essentially just a means of punishment. Copyright holders could probably try to sue the USA for not complying with the WTO rulings and in consequence causing damages to them. But honestly the whole case seems pretty ridiculous to me.

[1] https://www.wto.org/english/Tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds285_e...

I use bittorrent for legal purposes every day. It's the best way, for example, to obtain daily episodes of DemocracyNow!

It was a revelation when I started using it to download large open source software, since it handily removes the "mirror dance" to find a decent peer in Australia.

or where netflix is unavailable (i.e a lot of countries)