Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

VPNs are only really necessary if you use public trackers. Private trackers are generally viewed as small enough and not worth the bother by copyright holders to pursue. Like someone else said earlier, it’s a matter of risk. I tend to view private trackers, especially those seen as “elite” and difficult to enter as being very safe.

VPN that I use is about 50USD for a two year cycle, pretty cheap if you commit for a while. Even beyond torrents just not letting your ISP scoop up all your browsing data is worth the price.

worst that can happen is your ISP sends you a letter to stop, then get a VPN.

Why not get a seedbox? Most come with Plex and Jellyfin so you can stream the content of the seedbox. Also they generally provide VPNs.

For a private tracker no, for public trackers it depends on your country. Some countries the worst you might get is an email or letter in the mail, other countries you will be sued. I even use a VPN for private trackers, let alone public trackers.

I would recommend using a VPN.

I personally wouldn't take the chance. Mullvad is €5 a month, and is worth it to me. My ISP completely shut off my service before ever giving me a notification. I had to completely restart service after going full Karen and blaming it on "my kids." I would do a few searches and find posts or info relevant to your area or ISP.

American here, I've torrented movies and anime for a few years now and only got one warning (For downloading "The Big Short" of of Pirate bay). I have since stopped seeding on that site, though a seed on smaller ones. I have had no issues with lawyers since.

Not necessary but really really really really recommended.

There are a lot of self-hostable VPN services out there which are free. There is also Mullvad as previously mentioned and I myself use Nord (I don't necessarily recommend it for privacy, but it was convenient when I got it).

Personally I just have a Real-Debrid sub for like 3 euros a month and do any torrenting via them.

Also useful for streaming just about anything in Kodi, and for downloading from file hosts

It (possibly) adds a layer of security. Of course you're just passing your traffic through them. Should they get summoned to court or ordered they could turn over your information and show you were trafficking through them. I'd say to read into how your nation persecutes copyright. How strict are they, how often have people been legally attacked cause of it, etc. If you're in Japan for example, I'd say 100% use a VPN. Copyright is extremely serious there.

Just an FYI: for the cost of a VPN, you can buy a Usenet subscription. Depending on your content, you'll get far better speeds, far more privacy, far more content, and far more availability.

You are fine without a VPN until you aren't anymore. Torrenting was fine in basically every country until it wasn't anymore. And then some people got burned without a warning.
So you can roll the dice, it might take years until people start caring in your country and you are fine until then. Or they might start caring in a few months. If you aren't, there is a chance you will have time to react to the news when other people first get hit in your country or you will be one of the first. If you are already using a VPN you can rest assured that you won't be one of the first.

YMMV but I never got into trouble for torrenting.

Bell Aliant in NS, Canada.

Look into a seedbox. They can be had for very cheap in some places and then you're not torrenting anything at all to your local network, you're just transferring everything over an encrypted ftp connection. I use whatbox and absolutely love it. I'm sure there are cheaper options though.

It really depends on how likely you are going to be caught and what the consequences are. Your ISP may not care but copyright holders generally band together and have legal set ups in most countries both trying to take down servers and end users, lobby for legal changes including trying to criminalise copy right infingement.

Generally a trustworthy VPN is a very good idea not just for torrenting but for maintaining privacy and security when you are doing other things such as banking, or even just browsing. A VPN is about protecting all your data and internet traffic, not just protecting you when torrenting.

In terms of Torrenting, a Proxy may be enough and a lot of the best VPN providers do provide Proxy servers (that anonymise the detail of your Torrenting use but the rest of your computer use would be on the open internet) in addition to full VPN connections that secure your whole PC for P2P and non-P2P uses.

If a VPN seems too expensive, then there are companies that also only provide Proxy connecftions. BTGuard.com is an example; the Proxy only option is 30% cheaper than the full VPN option.

EDIT: Note though, a VPN is about anonymity. You need to trust your VPN provider as you're passing your data through them, and it is not a substitue for secure practices on the internet. You still need to be secure on the internet including only downloadling from trustworthy locations, using antivirus and malware protection, not installing software from insecure places, using HTTPS and securing your internet browser, turning on tracking protection & ad blocking, and even considering using virtualisation to protect yourself even more.