Safest Countries for Downloading and Sharing Torrents – Best to Worst

Torrenting or sometimes referred to as File-Sharing, is very popular worldwide. It lets you easily download files such as movies, TV shows, games, books, software, etc., from anywhere around the globe, even though it is not available in your country.

Thanks to torrenting, large-sized files can be downloaded faster and without paying a single dollar for them. Take out torrenting out of the equation, and these same files would cost you a good fortune in the form of a licensed CD, DVD.

Due to its nature, every country’s legislation sees torrenting very differently. Since there is no unified law for regulating torrenting, these countries set up their versions of a degree of acceptance towards torrenting.

We would like to add here that even though you are in a not-so-much safe country for torrenting, you can still download torrents. Through anonymous torrenting with a VPN, you can hide your real identity while enjoying all the perks of torrenting.

Safest Countries for Torrenting

Now, let’s take a look at the safest countries for torrenting – ranking them from best to worst.

Switzerland

Switzerland is the safest country for downloading torrents. According to their law, downloading any copyrighted material for your personal use is entirely legal. Meaning, downloading any material that will not be used for profiting or distribution among many people is ultimately allowed.

Spain

On the second spot, we have Spain, which is also as safe as Spain when it comes to downloading torrenting. In 2016, their Judiciary ruled that downloading torrents for personal use is legal.

Similar laws regarding user personal information, which comprises its Internet IP address, are also in place. Due to such protection laws, there is no surprise that 1/3rd of the Spain population is torrenting.

Poland

While there is no written law in Poland that legalizes downloading copyright material based on personal use, there are many legal opinions that legitimize the downloading of torrents. Whether it be for personal use or not, torrenting regulation is still in the grey area here.

Mexico

There isn’t any law or regulation that prohibits the downloading of torrents. Therefore, it is safe to assume that torrenting is legal there – for the most part. According to a study, over 90% of Mexicans download different sorts of digital media by torrents. 

Although there aren’t any recorded cases of people being arrested for torrenting in Mexico, it does not mean that there were no. If you are there, then exercising a little caution wouldn’t hurt.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands used to be one of the most torrent-friendly countries, but it all changed after 2017 when their Internet Service Providers started blocking a few well-known torrent websites.

Don’t be confused; it is still one of the best countries to download art using torrents. One other exciting thing is that you can not upload in the Netherlands, only download using torrents. Countries like Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic ignore torrenting.

Not-so-friendly Countries for Torrenting

Many countries fall under this category, but not all of them are the same when penalizing those who wish to download torrents.

Australia

Internet Service Providers in Australia keeps connection logs for their user’s usage. The government there doesn’t directly impose any torrent regulation violations, but instead, torrent trolls help the ISP identify the user involved in torrenting.

Once a user is found to violate the torrent laws, they can face a penalty of anywhere between $100’s to $1000’s.

Canada

Canada builds its copyright laws in accordance with the Copyright Modernization Act, which started a regime called “Notice and Notice. In this regime, Canadian Internet Service Providers began to forward copyright infringement notices to their users.

If you live in Canada, then using a VPN to conceal your identity before downloading the torrents would be a good idea. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a premium VPN service, some free VPNs also offer torrenting features.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has been stringent in imposing bans on the use of torrenting for quite some time now. The Internet Service providers and even the Mobile Network carriers implement different techniques to stop the users from accessing torrenting websites and downloading them.

The restrictions are so strict that many popular VPN providers who have a server in the United Kingdom do not support torrenting.

United States

Downloading torrents in the United States has become dangerous simply because of increased security threats and lawsuits from copyright trolls. Different penalties, including paying a fine and Internet connection being cut by the Internet Service Provider, are being faced by the people who are caught downloading copyrighted material.

Similarly, like the United Kingdom case, many VPN providers do not support torrenting on their US-based servers. Users in the United States have to rely on other countries’ servers for their torrenting needs.

Conclusion

Digital file-sharing or torrenting has become a global phenomenon. The growth of torrent technologies has overcome traditional media distribution strategies.

While it is true that every country is reacting to it in its way, the future of this technology will be far beyond that of just global reach.

So wherever you are, It is wise to exercise caution by using a VPN when dealing with torrents just to be safe. Protecting your real identity during torrent downloading is one of the main advantages of it. To learn more, check out the pros and cons of VPNs.