Which country downloads most from torrents

Russia’s position is confusing, however. The government tolerates all kinds of digital activities, even criminal ones. But it forced several ISP to block many torrent websites. The way the legal system considers BitTorrent users is unknown for the most part.

Safest Countries for Torrenting (and Worsts) in 2023

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The internet and the BitTorrent network cover the whole world. However, the risks and rewards you can have as a BitTorrent user depend on your location. Some jurisdictions are friendly toward file sharing, some are indifferent, and others are almost violently opposed to it. This article tells you who’s who.

Sneak peek at safest and worst countries for torrent downloads

The internet has no borders. But individual users still live within a country and have to comply with their local laws. BitTorrent users have to deal with this reality, which can vary significantly from one country to another. So let us tell you all about the best locations to be a torrent user as well as the worse ones.

The BitTorrent network and other filesharing services enjoy worldwide popularity among users. However, torrenting remains confusing for most of the world’s legal systems. Hence, there is no standard regulation, and figuring out what to make of the network, its contents, and its users remains a local issue for each country to solve. Nonetheless, some privacy-friendly regions haven’t yet adopted any harsh policies against torrenting, subsequently becoming the safest countries for torrenting.

In general, the possible laws that would apply to P2P sharing networks are intimately linked with the regulations that govern the exchange of copyrighted material. And this is a gray area at the international level. So, for example, some jurisdictions allow downloading any content as long as it’s for personal use only. However, on the opposite side of the spectrum, some countries actively pursue and punish such activity severely.

So what are you to make of P2P networks? This article will tell you about the legal status of BitTorrent, how to take advantage of the best information available on the subject, and the safe country for those who love to download torrents.

Disclaimer: Neither the author of this text nor the owners of Privacysavvy.com endorse, encourage or condone the distribution of copyrighted material in any jurisdiction, even when it’s legal. This article aims to be informational. Using BitTorrent software is lawful, but piracy is a criminal activity in many countries. Please ensure that you use any P2P network responsibly.

This article does not offer legal advice because we do not purport to be legal experts. Instead, we are proposing the current understanding of filesharing legislation in some jurisdictions. Our interpretation of a country’s legal issues may not align precisely with its most specific statutes, which could also differ from the understanding of a judge.

The information we offer you is a starting point, so don’t hesitate to do your own research. Keep your downloads strictly legal within your jurisdiction. And always use a VPN.

An overview of the legality of BitTorrent and other P2P networks

Let’s start by clarifying our concepts.

First, BitTorrent is a filesharing protocol. As such, it’s neutral. It’s no more of a piracy tool than any other digital technology such as web browsers, mp3 players, USB thumb drives, etc. Instead, BitTorrent is a piece of technology permitted in numerous P2P legal countries. And torrents from legal sources are permitted as well.

The internet surprised the world’s legal systems, and they have been exceedingly slow (sometimes incompetent) to keep up with the times. The prevailing copyright laws (where they exist) are outdated and meant to protect intellectual property in a world without computers or the Internet. These archaic regulations are slowly being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. It’s a sloppy process that often condemns filesharing users with no intentions to criminalize or profit from their activities. Instead, these laws are evolving to accommodate entrenched corporate interests within a digital environment where filesharing technologies are always moving forward.

Even in those jurisdictions where the internet is relatively new or those with little or no copyright legislation, they are now trying to update their laws. It often comes as an imposition of international trading agreements.

Information is power

Let’s say that your domestic jurisdiction is not overly friendly towards torrenting. However, the geo-switching advantages of VPNs will still allow you to download torrents from a torrent-friendly territory. If you’re not conversant with VPNs, we have several articles devoted to them you can read to educate yourself.

We sincerely hope you will limit your torrenting activities to legal torrent files. We’re not joking; plenty of legal material can be pretty interesting. However, even in the perfectly legal scenario, countries like the UK and the US will put you in the same bag as pirates and attempt to thwart your torrenting abilities.

For instance, many major US ISPs will throttle your bandwidth when they realize it’s from the BitTorrent network. They won’t care if you’re keeping all your downloads legal.

In the UK, many of the best torrent sites are blocked as if their contents were exclusively illegal.

So how can you keep your ability to use the BitTorrent network untouched? By using a VPN.

VPNs will allow you to do your filesharing through servers in torrent-friendly jurisdictions. That will give you many advantages:

• Your ISP (or any other third party) will become unable to monitor your traffic.
• Avoid bandwidth throttling. If your ISP can’t tell what you’re doing, it can’t throttle your account.
• Download your content from computers in a jurisdiction that doesn’t monitor VPN traffic.
• All your traffic remains encrypted.
• Use IP spoofing to unblock torrent sites that are firewalled or geo-blocked.

So, as you can see, all roads lead to Rome. And when in Rome, do what the Romans do. Or, in plain English, get a good torrenting VPN service if you use the BitTorrent network. In some countries, it will be a helpful addition to your digital life; in others, protecting your security and anonymity will be essential.

The best (safest) countries for torrenting

Some jurisdictions see file sharing in a friendly way. They are very few around the world, but they’re there. They allow every citizen to download and keep all kinds of copyrighted material as long as it’s for personal use, and they don’t try to turn a profit from it. In these territories, the ISPs don’t care if you use your account for torrenting and don’t punish it by throttling.

Spain

Spain is almost as safe a country as Switzerland for torrenting and filesharing users. The legal precedent was set in 2006 when a judge ruled that downloading, keeping, and using copyrighted files was fine as long as no profiting was involved.

The protections for personal data available for Spanish residents are similar in that your IP address is also considered personal information. However, the issues related to file sharing are civil matters, not criminal ones, so these matters appear utterly different in the Spanish courts.

So is it surprising that Spain has twice as many BitTorrent users per capita as the rest of Europe? Obviously not. And why should the locals not take advantage of their legal advantages?

Poland

The legal status of file sharing is nowhere near as explicit in Poland as in the previous two countries. Instead, it’s more of a nobody’s land. No written law or official legal precedent refers to “personal use” as an acceptable instance of possession and use. However, there seems to be legal consent in legal opinions that point to the private use of copyrighted material as legal and acceptable.

So let’s understand the difference: as a torrent user in Spain and Switzerland, the law protects your activity. So it’s not only ok to do it, but also that nobody can mess with you for this reason. And your digital rights are at stake because your IP is a personal piece of data. The Polish case is more like an issue swept under the legal rug.

The middle-of-the-road countries for torrenting

This category includes countries in which torrenting is not a protected right. In most cases, copyright laws are not friendly toward file sharing. But the authorities in these countries turn a blind eye to torrents for the most part. So while torrenting is neither legal nor protected by your rights, the chances of you getting in trouble for sharing files are minimal.

Mexico

The Mexican legal system has done nearly nothing to regulate filesharing technologies. The country is bound by international trade agreements to enforce copyright laws, but little or nothing goes on in that regard. ISPs don’t block torrents (but sites like The Pirate Bay are banned), and there is no official monitoring directed at torrent users. So, while it may not be the safest, it’s not among the worst countries for torrenting.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands is a torrent-friendly country –asymmetrically. Downloading any copyrighted material is fine as long as it’s for personal use, but uploading is different, and you should avoid it. New legal developments in 2017 changed the theoretical legal framework. The Dutch internet remains mostly free, and the authorities ignore P2P downloads.

As the authorities ordered, two Dutch ISPs are currently blocking The Pirate Bay. It is a nuisance, but the plethora of mirrors for the legendary torrenting website make this ban irrelevant.

Central and Eastern Europe

Many countries in Europe’s central and eastern portions have governments that do not pay attention to filesharing networks. Greece, Slovakia, and Romania are good examples of the safest countries for torrenting.

Russia’s position is confusing, however. The government tolerates all kinds of digital activities, even criminal ones. But it forced several ISP to block many torrent websites. The way the legal system considers BitTorrent users is unknown for the most part.

The rest of the world

Most of the world’s countries fit into this category. However, this is a broad category with plenty of room for individual jurisdictions to differ. So here we find some countries that treat file-sharing activities as criminal (not merely illegal) and other overzealous measures.

Germany

The German government punishes alleged internet pirates more often than any other country. However, the local government and a sector of the private society keep looking out for German IP addresses in the P2P networks and using them to get the user’s identity.

The typical penalty is a fine between 500 and 1500 EUR. Remember, you don’t always need to spread Terabytes of copyrighted material to be deemed guilty. Some punished individuals only saw a movie from an illegal website. So, clearly, Germany is among the worst countries to download torrents.

Australia

Australia is facing the filesharing situation in a very similar way to the US. In other words, it’s encouraging the torrent trolls to run rampant and shoot against anything that moves.

The Australian ISPs keep user activity logs for two years. So there’s plenty of data for the trolls to mine and use against the people.

However, this is not a governmental thing. The government does little to nothing on these issues. Instead, it allows torrent trolls to create aggressive lawsuits targeting many users who downloaded a single file and asking them to pay a great deal for their violation.

Canada

Canada promulgated its Copyright Modernization Act in 2011. The purpose of this new law was to have a definitive legal framework to deal with copyright issues once and for all. Unfortunately, the anti-circumvention provisions in this act are the world’s most restrictive, so they’re pretty inimical towards torrents.

So, starting from this 2011 legislation, the “notice and notice” regime began. So the country’s ISPs are legally obligated to give their users notice of copyright infringement. Canada’s position is extreme worldwide and has many critics, especially since it’s hard to tell those “notices” from extorsion letters.

The United Kingdom

Since their inception, England and the United Kingdom have been the poster child for hardcore opposition to P2P networks. Almost every ISP or mobile carrier has banned torrent websites at some point. Many VPNs won’t allow their users to use BitTorrent and other torrent clients‘ networks from UK-based servers — this is a telling sign.

So UK torrent aficionados are usually online with a VPN so they can bypass their domestic blockades and keep using the network.

The United States

The United States is the jurisdiction that gets most of the world’s attention on this issue (and many others). Notably, the government itself does almost nothing to prevent copyright violations in the BitTorrent network except for throttling the networks’ traffic.

Most of the activity against BitTorrent and its users comes from the copyright holders (or companies claiming the rights). Consequently, the US is the best place for copyright trolls to be.

However, some excesses have been known to occur. So some jurisdictions are becoming wiser and trying to find a more balanced stance on these issues. Nonetheless, US citizens should remain wary as their region isn’t among the safest countries for torrenting.

Conclusion

Since its inception, digital file sharing has been a big deal on the internet. Many networks have come and gone (Napster, eMule, eDonkey, and BitTorrent, the current primary P2P service). These technologies disrupted the traditional media markets, as the copyright owners were unprepared to face the new realities and have tried very hard to keep forcing the old paradigms into a world that can’t accommodate them anymore.

Many countries hold a stance in which their laws honor intellectual property. But they do not consider possessing copyrighted material for personal use a crime. Consequently, one can consider them the safest countries for torrenting.

We believe in individual freedom within and without the Internet. Therefore, users should choose how to behave in this and other issues. And whatever your final decision is, you should consider adopting a VPN provider so that your security, anonymity, and privacy remain unviolated.

Not any VPN will do the trick. For a start, some VPNs do not support P2P networks. Moreover, few VPNs have the resources you need to support a P2P session. So having an effective VPN means picking a top-notch service that keeps no logs, encrypts everything you do, spoofs your IP address, and, preferably, can obfuscate traffic so your ISP never throttles your account.

If you like getting a VPN but don’t know where to start, we suggest you try your best: ExpressVPN. We have plenty of articles on ExpressVPN explaining how it excels at many different tasks.

FAQs

What is the best location for torrenting?

The best place in the world to be a BitTorrent user is Switzerland. Within the legendary neutral country, all your torrenting is legal and even protected by your rights to keep your personal data private.

Can a VPN make your torrent activities safe?

An excellent VPN will keep you safe while you enjoy your torrenting activities.

Which country downloads most from torrents?

Torrents are probably the most common and widespread application using P-2-P network architecture. Though started as a way to share some small files among peers without much hassle of setting up a server, it became a boon for transfer of copyrighted media files across internet.

Background
A torrent file is a small sized (usually less than 100 KB) metafile which contains information about all files which can be downloaded as well as address of tracker that enables communication among peers. This torrent file when downloaded and opened using bitTorrent software (e.g. uTorrent), enables downloading of files from various seeds and peers present in network (swarm).

This simple and easy working is used extensively now-a-days, by large masses of net users to download ‘illegal’ movies, softwares, songs, games, etc. This free transfer of copyrighted content has increased the threat of piracy and has become a headache for content providers.

Where torrents are downloaded most?
One of these days I was checking Alexa ranking of my site (which is pretty low) and just out of curiosity happened to check Alexa ranking of Torrentz, one of the most used search engines for torrents. From that point I started my own secondary research to find which country is downloading files most using torrents. I have used only Alexa and few popular torrent sites for coming up with results.

Countries v/s Torrent Sites

Torrentz for torrent users is what Google is for others. Most people visit this meta search engine for their torrents rather than going to torrent sites directly. Torrentz too had its tryst with strict US authorities which forced it to go from .com to .eu domain.
Torrentz is the 125th most visited site globally. Now lets take a look at regional traffic stats of Torrentz on Alexa.

Torrentz Traffic Report

From the image it is clear that India, with its large internet using population, uses Torrentz most in its quest for torrents. Incidentally other countries in Top 4 countries visiting Torrentz, are all neighbors of India. From this info it looks India might be on top list of torrent downloads. But I wasn’t convinced yet and thus i started researching on traffic of various top torrent sites (my list may not be really good because i don’t know many torrent sites). And after a bit of research zeroed down to one of the most popular torrent sites at present.

Next up was Isohunt with its global rank of 220. Unlike Torrentz it has a database of torrents with itself and this database is huge by any measure. According to isoHunt, the total amount of shared content was more than 13.44 petabytes as of September 29, 2011. So I felt this site will be perfect for my research. And results were . a bit different.

Isohunt page views Report

I just like you thought India had been beaten at least in this race to the top. But a further more investigation on my part revealed i was mistaken. Let us consider some facts
a) India has 2nd largest population in the world.
b) Though internet usage percentage is still low but number of people using web in India, is definitely more than those using it in Philippines, Denmark, Australia, Romania or for that matter United Kingdom.

Against this break drop, India’s 209 ranking doesn’t sound as bad as it did initially. So I have evaluated a torrents search engine, a full-fledged torrent site and next just to be sure about my findings (and to give them a bit more creditably) i decided to evaluate traffic to two of the most common BitTorrent softwares / clients, for any platform Windows or Mac, viz. UTorrent and BitTorrent.

These softwares help to open .torrent file and enable download of files over peer to peer network. Although country-wise downloads of these softwares wasn’t available but at least visits to these sites can give an indication of people from which country are downloading (or at least intending to download) these free softwares.

Utorrent and BitTorrent Download Indicators

After all this, I do feel India downloads most from torrents.

Factors which may be responsible for India getting ranked high in the torrents download
1) Its large internet savvy young population.
2) Increasing internet penetration and increasing bandwidth.
3) Its large local movie industry.
4) Unlike US, Indian piracy laws are still not stringent.
5) My use of Alexa to measure traffic. Alexa is not an accurate measure for visits and page views of a site. As it counts only page views from visitors having Alexa toolbar installed on their browsers. Usually webmasters keep them installed and as numbers of Indian webmasters in web space is quite large, it can be safely assumed they have Alexa toolbar and their visits to torrent sites are getting counted the most, unlike people from other countries.

Well I would love to hear your comments about my findings.

Copyright © ianswer4u.com

The Safest Countries Where Torrenting is Legal

Here the ultimate truth that may have been in front of you all this time — torrenting is legal in many countries. Torrenting is just a file-sharing mean where you can share all that you like and as such cannot be deemed illegal. But things get more complicated when the word piracy comes in. We’ve curated a list of the safest countries for torrenting for your reference.

P2P Friendly Countries What Allow Torrenting

The sole term “piracy” has been in use for copyright infringements since the 18th century when a certain company labeled pirates all of those who broke their copyright laws. Nowadays, piracy is a widespread term and it is usually closely related to torrenting due to the nature of this platform.

What makes it challenging to label peer-to-peer file sharing as piracy is the fact that piracy is usually committed for financial gain. However, people who share something on the internet do not have a financial gain out of it. Therefore, modern piracy is just a frowned upon a sharing where no-one profits except that the copyright holder loses.

If you want to download torrents anonymously, torrenting VPN is the way how you can do p2p file sharing 100% privately

Long story short: with VPN you can choose the best VPN country for torrenting with your new anonymous VPN location to download torrents privately. With VPN switchable IP GEOs you can download torrents safely and anonymously in any country.

List of Torrent Legal Countries

However, many countries have a different perspective on what copyright should be – some are more protective of the copyrighted material while others say that it is really okay to share. Let’s take a look at the safest countries for torrenting

1. SPAIN – Acknowledges the PROFIT INTENT

Spain is one of the safest countries for torrenting that basically made torrenting legal by acknowledging that the intention of making money over breaking copyright laws counts. In other words, you will be able to share anything you want via torrent as long as you do not make any money out of it.

It is certainly true that some of the politicians and people objected this because this means that anything created and put on the internet will be available to anyone for free. Nevertheless, if you plan on moving to Spain, feel free to download anything via torrent as you will not be breaking any laws.

2. THE NETHERLANDS – ART vs. SOFTWARE

The Netherlands took a different approach and stated that anyone can download works of art for personal use and as long as they do not plan on making a profit out of it. However, if you plan on downloading other stuff such as software, you will be persecuted definitely. I am just curious about the way they treat games in the Netherlands – are they a work of art or a piece of software?

One more thing regarding torrenting in the Netherlands is that you are legally not allowed to upload anything on the internet and this is exactly the thing that makes the whole situation rather interesting. In other words, you can download works of art, but do not share them because that is illegal. Luckily, the Dutch can download torrents from users from other countries without the feeling of guilt.

3. MEXICO – NO ONE REALLY CARES

Mexico is a unique place because it is legal to do download anything via torrents because there are no laws to forbid it. They are, and they are very loosely formed, and no one respects them as no one cares about them. Some studies show that over 90% of internet users download music via torrents daily.

But this situation is kind of a double-edged sword because this also means that you can be persecuted for thinking that what you’ve been doing all this time was completely safe and legal. Luckily, I do not know of any documented cases of people being arrested for torrenting in Mexico, but it does not mean that there were not any.

4. SWITZERLAND – The Land of FREE Torrenting

Switzerland is, by far, the safest country for torrenting. Unlike Mexico, where laws about the Internet are loosely formed and do not really exist, in Switzerland they are strict and they are strictly in favor of the people who like to download torrents. In other words, the law in Switzerland states that it is okay to download anything as long as it is only for personal use. This means that as long as you do not intend on selling someone else’s work that you have downloaded, you are free to use it.

Switzerland also has several privacy laws that are in favor of the people who download via torrents, making it unavailable and illegal for the third party to spy on IP addresses of people who download. This means that no one really can be sued, except for certain extreme cases.

How to Hide your Torrenting and Download Torrents Safely in Any Country

Click to get a Torrenting VPN — the safest way for torrenting.

Well, if we take Switzerland as the perfect example of one of the safest countries for torrenting, it can be said that you are 95% safe, but in all the other listed countries the percentage of safety is significantly lower. Some countries, such as Mexico can be unsafe when it comes to your privacy while others, such as the Netherlands are unsafe when it comes to you sharing something.

In order to achieve maximum safety, protect your privacy and remain anonymous while downloading torrents, we suggest using a VPN provider.

A VPN will certainly debar all the possibilities of someone intruding your Internet presence and suing you for illegal actions. With a VPN you can easily pick the best VPN location for torrenting and stay safe.

Best Country for Torrenting

To sum up, there is a big debate going on worldwide on the topic of legalization of downloading torrents. One side says that it is just an ordinary file sharing, and as long as no one makes a profit out of it, it should be legal. The other side says that it should be illegal because it is still a way to break copyright laws and that no one will buy anything anymore as long as it can be downloaded. Some countries, such as Switzerland have made a step forward and claimed that it should be legal, some countries still express no interest in that matter (such as Mexico), while some are still very conservative on the topic of torrenting (the USA being the first in this notorious list). One thing is sure – you can never be too careful, and using a VPN is the safest way and fastest way.

Click on the image to get a free hack guide to download torrents safely and anonymously.

Do you agree with Rachel? Let us know what the best country for torrenting in the comments below is.

This article was updated on Feb 2019. All information is actual and up to date.