Is utorrent a good torrent program,recommendations? and can I get sued for?

[iclim4]

alpha_dk said:

(Almost) Any program that allows transferring of files between two computers involves the other computer knowing your IP address. Nothing -- not even sending a different IP to the tracker -- will change this. The MPAA/RIAA et al get IPs by connecting to the tracker and attempting to connect to the nodes involved. Those it can connect to are now no longer obscured. There is absolutely no protection against this; no matter what, this will be the case. It is a by-product of the protocols that run the internet.

There are some programs out there that can protect you from this method of IP discovery. They are called darknets, and tend to be a bit slower and sketchier in nature than the 'open'/non-anonymous P2P systems, like bittorrent.

That said, IF it is true that you only use it to download fansubbed anime, there is almost a 0% chance of you getting sued (assuming it does not have a distributor) - the Japanese companies tend to be liberal with derivative works like fansubs, as it is good market research as to what will fly in the West and be worth bringing across the ocean. If there is a distributor in the states, the file transfers will go less legit (fan sites will stop directly posting the torrents, etc), but I have never heard of legal action being taken.

Oh, and changing your IP address will do nothing. Your ISP has logs of who is in control of what IP at any given time, and will provide it upon subpoena to askers.

Limewire is as easy to track and even easier to prove infringement than BT, so thats no improvement.

 EDIT: Since it was brought up, encryption will also do nothing to protect you in this aspect.  It will protect you from snoops along the wires (like ISP packet shapers), but for what the MPAA/RIAA do to track infringers, it will do nothing; at some point the data needs to be decrypted, and by making themselves the place where it is decrypted the RIAA is able to track you just as easily as without.  So don't count on encryption (which Azureus, µtorrent, bit-tornado, and other programs all use the same protocol for interconnectivity) to protect you from lawsuits. 

thanks for the well thought out answer.

Ive heard of a good program called peerguardian, which block IP's that are known to be spies.
kind of like an antivirus program. though like an antivirus program it can only block known IP addresses
that are known to be seeds of MPAA and RIAA et al.

Ive also heard the internet provider will protect its users privacy. They have a stance saying "were like the post office we dont inspect the contents of the packets being sent" or something to that extent.  though they will provide it if the law demands, similar to a search warrant. but that would be too much work just to pin down one person when there are millions sharing.

also, If the IP adress has been change several times how can they track it? they should have the IP address, but if you changed your IP address like 3 times that day and some other people got that old IP address how can they prove its you?
Also wouldnt that be invasion of privacy from their part?(serious question)

also, arent millions of people use limewire or similar programs? how come nothing happened to them?