With the resurgence of pirating, do you think there will be a “response” from the powers that be?
In general, what would that look like?
Specifically, do you think VPN companies based in the US or friendly countries will start to feel legal or corporate pressure to stop letting people use their services to download copyrighted material?
I just feel like these things always ebb and flow.
Yes and no. The movie/game companies can still easily trace torrents back to the VPN server. So the VPN provider is under constant pressure to crack down on piracy.
And some have begun to give in. Lots of VPNs have dropped support for port forwarding, because it’s commonly used by Plex/Jellyfin servers.
Actually, no. Even if they trace it back to the provider, if said provider is running little to zero logs and proper encryption, there is no way for the provider to know who is doing the downloading of anything.
It’s also not the movie/game companies doing anything. There are companies that monitor p2p for specific files for TV shows, movies, games, etc and then automatically send a boilerplate cease and desist to whoever owns any ip addresses for said files. Some isps like Google fiber (at one point) just ignored these requests and didn’t pass it on to the end user. Every other isp including VPSs, seedboxes, etc will autoforward the dmca notice and if you rack up enough they will fire you as a customer.
I suggest you and others here check out proton, they have a ton of servers including ones that support p2p. They don’t and can’t tell who is transferring what. If you do a ton of downloading of pirated content, I’d also suggest setting up even a basic seedbox. The one I am currently using takes crypto and doesn’t need any info aside from an email address. They will forward dmca notices and the auto delete the offending content after about 12 hours but if you restart the torrent you can download it again if needed and you can then let it seed for as long as you want.
If they keep tracing it back to the provider it doesn’t matter. Eventually rightsholders will squak enough at politicians and pay them big money to pass legislation banning VPNs or some stupid shit like that. If enough countries do it, VPN providers will have major operating challenges.
That's not how that works. Torrent has been around for decades and none of that actually happens. None of that will ever happen and couldn't actually be enforced even if it did.
I'm not sure some of you here actually understand how this tech or the world at large actually functions. Plenty of files are shared p2p that aren't under copyright and it would be damn near impossible to limit people's ability to connect p2p with others without fundamentally changing how the entire internet is connected and functions.
I'd suggest you look up concepts like zero knowledge encryption. I'd also suggest you look at VPN providers that claim to not keep any logs at all along with proper encryption. I'd also suggest that you look into the number of jurisdictions around the world who don't give a flying fuck about the dmca.