TorGuard Settles Piracy Lawsuit, Agrees To Block Torrent Traffic On US Servers

TorGuard has settled a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by several movie companies last year. The VPN provider stood accused of failing to take action against subscribers who were pirating films. As part of the settlement, TorGuard agrees to block BitTorrent traffic on U.S. servers; however, it stresses that user privacy is in no way affected by this decision. TorrentFreak reports: "Pursuant to a confidential settlement agreement, Plaintiffs have requested, and Defendant has agreed to use commercially reasonable efforts to block BitTorrent traffic on its servers in the United States using firewall technology," a joint statement reads. This is quite a far-reaching measure as a broad BitTorrent blockade will also affect legal traffic, which includes software updates from Twitter and Facebook. That said, people can still use BitTorrent on servers in other regions. [...]

The company confirms that it's blocking torrent traffic on U.S. servers, but that doesn't change anything for the privacy of users. "TorGuard has not been forced to log network usage data. Due to the nature of shared IP's and related hardware technicalities of how TorGuard's network was built it is impossible for us to do so," the VPN provider writes. "We have a responsibility to provide high quality uninterrupted VPN and proxy services to our client base at large while mitigating any related network abuse that should arise. This commitment to user privacy and service reliability is the reason we have taken measures to block Bittorrent traffic on servers within the United States."

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[AvitarX]

Seems more likely people using it for bit torrent will just keep using it, but with an out of country server (which honestly, is probably a good idea anyway).

Re: time for...

[Z00L00K]

If the blocking becomes a real problem then there will be a new protocol, possibly masking as some other like dns, icmp, zoom or teams. If it's masking as something else then blocking could disrupt the internet if blocked.

What good is a VPN that censors traffic?

[fustakrakich]

And how does the industry know what kind of traffic is going through a VPN? Something is very fishy.. And all that other crap about "Your privacy is important" is garbage propaganda

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[Powercntrl]

And how does the industry know what kind of traffic is going through a VPN?

They don't. They see IP addresses belonging to the VPN provider showing up on whatever software they're using to snoop in on torrents. That's how it's supposed to work, so that the VPN gets the DMCA notice rather than you. The problem arises when the VPN provider is, as is the case with TorGuard, located in the USA and totally within reach of the lawyers.

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[fustakrakich]

I guess we need something more robust than VPN

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[jonwil]

No what is needed is a VPN that is out of reach of the lawyers.

My hovercraft is full of eels

[Powercntrl]

Ostensibly, the point of having one of these VPN services is so you can be beyond the reach of DMCA notices. I totally understand that some people are paranoid that their pr0n site browsing habits are going to leak, but home broadband providers really don't care what you're getting off to (so long as it's legal, obviously), and you shouldn't be jackin' it at work (unless that's your job, in which case your employer probably encourages it). Most people get these VPN services because they received a DMCA nastygram from their ISP and aren't ready to give up their parrot and eye patch.

Ideally, your VPN or seedbox provider should be located in a country that isn't a signatory to the DMCA, so when the RIAA/MPAA send them a notice, it is promptly routed to /dev/null. As near as I can tell from a few seconds of Googling, TorGuard is located in.. Florida. Yep, one of the home states of the company which successfully lobbied to have copyright extended, so their cartoon rodent wouldn't fall into public domain. Probably not the best choice of location, TorGuard.

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[AvitarX]

Some of use VPN services to watch out of region streams too.

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[AmiMoJo]

My personal recommendation is Mullvad. Based on a reasonably safe jurisdiction, servers all over the places, no restrictions on what you use it for. They support Wireguard too.

Always use a connection to a different country to the one you are in, when you can.

BitTorrent Through A VPN?

[zenlessyank]

I don't understand this. Why would you run your torrents through a VPN anyway? I've never done that. If your traffic is encrypted properly with SSL then you are good to go. Maybe you need to use a better tracker for your torrents that enables encryption. Or a better torrent client..

Why you need a VPN to pirate using a bitTorrent

[FeelGood314]

I don't understand this. Why would you run your torrents through a VPN anyway? I've never done that. If your traffic is encrypted properly with SSL then you are good to go. Maybe you need to use a better tracker for your torrents that enables encryption. Or a better torrent client..

I don't think you understand what the bitTorrent protocol is. You download an initial file (.torrent) that has the address of a tracker and the hashes of parts of the file(s) you want to download. You then connect to the tracker to get the addresses of other members of the torrent (people downloading/uploading parts of the file). You then connect to those other computers to get parts of the file. If movie studio connects to the tracker, the tracker will give them your address because you are in the torr

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[Powercntrl]

Why would you run your torrents through a VPN anyway?

If you're pirating content from major studios or record labels, they generally have lawyers working for them that monitor torrent connections (probably by running honeypot seed servers), and once they have your IP address the lawyers will send your ISP a DMCA violation notice. Some ISPs disregard the notices, but lately they've been a bit more compliant and will figure out which account was assigned that particular IP address when the violation occurred, and will forward on the DMCA notice to the account h

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[zenlessyank]

I have been using torrents since ftp got deprecated and never got any letter from anyone about it.

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[Powercntrl]

I have been using torrents since ftp got deprecated and never got any letter from anyone about it.

As I said, some ISPs do disregard the DMCA notices. Others are extremely cooperative [spectrum.net] with the rightsholders.

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[ArchieBunker]

It all depends. I used to use Torguard but stopped because it simply quit connecting and the speed was awful. During a testing phase without a VPN I received two notices in one week for pirated movies. Now I use ProtonVPN and get my full connection speed when downloading.

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[thomst]

ArchieBunker confessed:

Now I use ProtonVPN and get my full connection speed when downloading.

I couldn't get ProtonVPN to work for me on my DD-WRT router via the OpenVPN client option using the configuration data they sent me. So I'm still using my VPNUnlimited account (which is slow and laggy), connecting to their Toronto CA server.

Are you using the standalone PC client or a router-based connection to ProtonVPN ... ?

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[Kernel Kurtz]

That just makes you lucky.

I once downloaded several seasons of a TV show without my VPN and got an email for every individual episode, like 40 of them. Fortunately where I live ISPs are required to forward these, but they otherwise don't care. Still, using a VPN makes all the emails go away.

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[StikyPad]

It just depends really. Some ISPs put DMCA complaints in the circular file, especially smaller, regional operators without financial stakes in the content industry.

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[AvitarX]

Found the guy with the shit U/D ratio.

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[zenlessyank]

I have a good ratio, thank you very much.

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[AvitarX]

So basically you are distributing stuff from your IP address that anybody on the network grabbing the same torrent can see your IP and verify that you are indeed distributing said content?

If one is doing so with copyright material they're risking a strike from their ISP.

SSL and encryption don't help you if you're literally sharing the content directly to requesters.

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[zenlessyank]

I use a private tracker that is invite only. I have 168 shared files and no problems. No VPN, no proxy.

I think people are just grabbing shit off pirate bay or something and then they get the letters, I dunno. Ive had at least 3 different isp's and not a single letter from any entity.

Just US SERVERS

[MBGMorden]

I mean, if they're blocking it at US servers and not for US users - just connect to a server in Canada and run wild (or any other non-US country but Canada would likely have only marginally worse speeds for US users due to proximity).

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[Kernel Kurtz]

I mean, if they're blocking it at US servers and not for US users - just connect to a server in Canada and run wild (or any other non-US country but Canada would likely have only marginally worse speeds for US users due to proximity).

I'm in Canada and find US servers are generally faster (using PIA).

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[slazzy]

Yeah I typically use Seattle rather than Vancouver, but it doesn't make a big difference.

ToGuard Lifetime

[moonracer]

They offer a great service but this must be why they recently emailed me a lifetime membership. They had never offered such a thing up until a few weeks ago. I bet it was done because of this. Makes sense now.

I use TorGuard

[Fuzi719]

I never use the US servers. I mainly use the SOCKS5 servers and they don't even have any of those in the US. And I get amazing speeds that max out my 200/15 service here.

How do you ID "torrent traffic" anyhow?

[rpresser]

The ports are randomizable, right?

Do they do deep inspection on EVERYTHING to tell whether it's torrent traffic?

I use TOR

[Italiano42]

Just use TOR for torrenting. No UDP so you need a DHT proxy. Worked for a decade now.