Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

We're not in the 2000s where the RIAA/MPAA spent hour after hour, individually going after individuals whom they suspect is pirating.

They've changed up tactics all throughout the 2010s and into today. Where, they're holding ISPs accountable and are targeting owners of services and pirating sites instead. They've actually got some victories under their belt through this, which is a damn shame, so it's telling them that it is working. Not to mention we've had the misfortune of dealing with ACE, their little treehouse club and lots of copyright trolls that act as copycats who take it upon themselves to operate similarly as to how they did in the 2000s.

You have far greater risk being an owner, being the uploader and being the source of pirating than you are these days, just downloading it. Your ISP decides when they want to take action against whatever files you've downloaded.

As people have said, your best tools are with VPNs and figuring out which VPN has your back, most importantly. That's what pirating has come down to and that is trust.

But blah blah, we get it, the feds will say copyright is a crime and blah blah. We got that decades ago, we just don't care because consumer rights have been thoroughly fucked over which in turn, causes us to pirate. A lesson these idiots refuse to learn.

Single person piracy is almost always a civil offense, not a criminal one so even caught you'd get at most a fine and maybe banned from the internet. This is assuming you're in the US.

Seeding will get you caught because that's the actual violation of the DMCA. Just downloading isn't a violation for the downloader.

My advice is get a vpn or seedbox and use those to not have to worry about it.

Assuming you are in the US, your wife's fears are totally baseless because lawsuits against people for consumer level piracy pretty much have not been happening at all since like 2010 (with the exception of porn video piracy copyright trolls, which still doesn't happen that much and maybe your wife would be unhappy with regardless). Even when they were, due to industry group backed lawsuit campaigns, it's civil law not criminal so nobody went to prison, and the few people who actually got stuck with massive fines eventually just declared bankruptcy to get out of paying them.

This is because said industry groups switched to trying to enforce copyright via ISP, getting ISPs to voluntarily forward people threatening letters, which are mostly empty threats with no associated legal action, so the ISPs are getting sued to try to obligate them to cut off people's internet access. They want a way of doing it where they don't have to take consumer level pirates to court, I'd guess because it looks really bad for them and is terrible PR to have regular people who obviously don't deserve punishment sued for huge amounts of money because they torrented some media.

You are totally safe if you have a VPN and bind it to your torrent client (which prevents torrents from working if the VPN is off or drops connection), but even if you get such emails from your ISP (I got a few myself) likely nothing will happen for now.

Heres the thing if your in the US. The federal government no longer follows its own laws when it comes to due process and the constitution or really law in general. Of course the problem with that is it goes way beyond piracy. But pointing to your piracy would likely play well with their base.

As someone else already said, it greatly depends on where you live, which you didn't mention.

Some random third world country: They most likely could not care less. Even if they have anti-piracy laws, there is no one to try to catch you or enforce those laws. They don't produce the overwhelming majority of the movies, TV shows or other files that are down/uploaded, so piracy doesn't affect them.

The U.S.: Use a VPN whenever torrenting, like Mullvad, Proton, or IVPN - https://www.privacyguides.org/en/vpn/. Use qBittorrent and make sure to BIND your VPN to qBit. Do not solely rely on a killswitch, they can fail. If you're caught uploading files without a VPN, you'll most likely just get a letter or email from your internet provider. Don't respond. If you do respond (like if they shut off your internet until you contact them), you're only answer should be is that you don't know anything about it, and maybe your neighbor hacked your wifi or into the main line. However, you mentioned the landlord owns the router (so I assume that means the landlord also pays for your internet?), which means don't be an idiot and put yourself in the position of trying to explain to your landlord (and your wife) why you were downloading / uploading some shitty music or porn. Use a VPN. I prefer Mullvad for anonymity, but Proton has some great Black Friday and holiday sales sometimes. There's a little more to it than this, but this is the basics. Also, the majority of ISPs don't care at all that you're down/uploading files, until they are contacted by someone connected to the file you were uploading. Then, they are obligated to contact you. Eventually, if you keep doing it, your ISP will get tired of dealing with the letters in regards to you and may just cancel your account.

Germany, or somewhere similar: I'd suggest using Usenet. It's a bit more complicated to setup, but it's an overall better experience in my opinion. Get 2-3 good indexers and put their info into Prowlarr for searching, get a good provider and put their info into SabNZBD for downloading. Make sure the SSL connection is enabled in SabNZBD (which it already should be by default) and then you technically will not need a VPN, because whatever you're downloading is automatically encrypted. Obviously, there is no uploading back to the hive while using Usenet. I'd still use a VPN though, so your ISP doesn't even see what you're searching for and what websites you're going to. If interested, Radarr and Lidarr can track movies and TV shows for you. The three apps I mentioned that end with "arr" are part of a group of apps known as the "arrs". https://wiki.servarr.com/

Since you don't say where in the world you are: it depends on where in the world you are.

I'm not aware of anyone ever facing federal criminal prosecution unless they were like part of an international organized crime ring, or someone doing it for significant profit. Even for civil suits, the only one I've ever heard of is that time they used a child and grandmother for like $20 trillion or something absurd.

If you think the government might change strategy and come after you, then you should stop pirating. But I don't see that happening.

Excellent questions. Additionally, I want to add "how good a seedbox is protecting you ?"

Is there really some seedbox providers not collaborating with the authorities?

Even if this is the case, aren't some authorities doing Deep Packets Inspection, trying to break secure connections to check if some IP payload is fingerprint and copyrighted ?

Nobody can force you to supply all your files. Any search must be specific and with particular intent. You don’t have to assist them either they have to get it themselves. If you’re worried about searches seizures fully encrypt your PC. Not that hard on windows and a a single checkbox on install with most Linux distros (also easy to do afterwards). You never have to provide a password.

You’re not going to be charged though unless you’re really hated by the police. Nor will you be caught if you use a VPN. It’s just not going to happen. What’s more likely is a civil suit from a company you’ve pirated from but even that’s incredibly unlikely unless you’re prolific with seeding your downloads.

Always remember cops are legally allowed to lie to you they can and do break the law and you should never speak to them more than legally needed. (Provide name\license maybe place of residence depending on where you are and the crime investigated) don’t talk to cops otherwise ask for a lawyer and keep asking until provided one. Doesn’t matter if it’s a traffic stop or murder case innocent or guilty

She just has to get over it.

If everyone sits around fearing the authorities using force until the authorities use force, the authorities automatically use force on everyone and we are all dead or imprisoned before long.

The only way to function as an adult is to understand that they can't get all of us without us helping them do it. We have to make using force as hard as sending men with guns and feeding us in a cage, not just saying scary stuff.