Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Do your ISP a favor and use a VPN when torrenting. They will know you're torrenting based on traffic patterns, but they won't know what you're torrenting. That way they don't have to serve you a notice or kick you off their service at the behest of movie or music studios. Your ISP may not care what you're doing, but those businesses do, and the law is on their side.

VPN makes it extremely difficult for your ISP to spy on you, which is the whole point.

What you were doing online is being watched. It is being recorded. Right now, some ISPs will will protect your identity and send warnings to you, to a point. Some ISPs will just give up your information.

They are currently working on legislation to force ISPs just shut you off If piracy is reported.

Right now, for every ISP that I'm aware of in the US, No action is actually taken against you for reports of piracy. But that doesn't mean that this will stay the same, or, that they won't retroactively go on a witch hunt.

You can find VPNs for a couple bucks a month. Make it a birthday request.

Don't subject your family to nasty letters in their mail from your ISP. You won't go to jail, but you might risk your internet service getting canceled, which won't be a fun conversation with your parents.

If you're 18 and healthy, go donate plasma at a local clinic. In the USA depending on where you are, you can make $40-$80 per week, sometimes even more if they have a big shortage. Takes about 90 minutes a session, and you just chill with a needle in your arm and browse on your phone, super easy.

Proton VPN's most expensive plan is $108 for 2 years, you can afford that. Go to your friends or neighbors and offer to do some yard work for cash. Mow their lawn, shovel bark, dig up dead shrubs, whatever. That's the main way I made money when I was in my teens. People will pay 20-30 bucks an hour in most places for that kind of work, so a few hours of that in a week or two and you've got your $108 for Proton VPN, or whatever other VPN you want to use.

Sell some crap on eBay, FB marketplace, Craig's List, etc. Old clothes, computer parts, consoles, weights, people will buy anything. You'd be surprised how fast I've gotten rid of junk buy posting it online for 10 bucks.

I got one threatening letter (they are uncommon where I live in Czechia but they will write you after a while). I got a VPN and no more letters.

Use the Windscribe 10gb per month free. It works well. And if you need more use RiseUpVPN. But note it is slow. And that its completely free and volunteer run. It’s the kind of thing that if you get an income you should probably donate to if you used a lot. It’s mainly used by activists in authoritarian countries.

No idea what happens nowadays also probably depends on your location too, but a friend of mine downloaded fallout 4 when it released and his isp disabled their houses internet until he went to a web page and checked off a box saying "i have deleted the following file(s) from my machine" lol

It was a tame outcome relatively speaking, but it could have been worse.

I think that depends very much on your jurisdiction and the type of content you download. In Germany when I did things without VPN I most of the time downloaded english content and not the latest blockbusters. Copyright enforcment companies, at least back then, were hired for specific newer movies. Now I have things more automated so I'd rather not risk tripping any wires.

The reason i cant get a vpn is because im just broke and im young enough to live with family so i cant really get a job.

I don't know your situation (and age) but small jobs like delivering newspapers can usually be taken up at relatively you age. They should easily cover a VPN subscription.

E.g. I was delivering newspaper biweekly for a few hours at the age of 13. Even today, the monthly pay would've been enough to pay for a year of my current VPN. Your guardians will have to approve the job but legally it shouldn't be an issue.

If you torrent without a VPN the conversation about a warning by the internet provider on behalf of some rights holder will be way worse than asking about ideas for a small (summer) job.

I use Spectrum, I get warnings, so vpn it is. I'd also rather no one know than know and willingly ignore it, logging it anyway for some government goon to discover in 10 years.

im young enough to live with family

Tell your parents that they'll lose their internet if they don't give you $20 per year for VPN.

Ask people from your country, or look online to see if torrenting is prosecuted there. If people don't get letters from the ISP, you can just enable encryption in your torrent software and forget about it.

I've been torrenting without VPN for a decade (Spain), and never had any issues, not even traffic slowdowns.

Edit: You're probably gonna see a lot of advice to always use a VPN. Most of this advice is from US users, who are not used to torrenting without VPNs. The truth is, as with everything, it really depends. I'm not a fan of generalized answers to questions, and the same advice isn't as good for every situation. VPNs are a barrier of entry, and they also come with a slowdown. If you're starting to torrent and VPNs are not necessary in your country, don't be afraid to torrent without one. But of course, if you're from the US, you'll have to use one!

depending on what you you plan on downloading you can probably use direct downloads instead, and you won't need a VPN if I'm not mistaken. no idea if and how available things are, though

Just use ProtonVPN. They have a free tier. No credit card required. Its slightly slower speeds, but it will keep you from getting in trouble while sailing the high seas 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️