Acta
 

Is it safe to download music from torrent sites with this bill being passed?

I read an article that said this:

The provision that proposed to criminally punish ordinary users (think college kid downloading music) with fines, jail time, seizure of computers, etc., was significantly scaled back as the negotiation process moved on and finally eliminated in the final text.

The provision that required all ACTA countries to hold third parties, such as ISPs and consumer electronics manufacturers, liable for their customers’ infringement was eliminated. This provision, as drafted, was inconsistent with U.S. law and would have required changes to this complex and evolving policy space.

But then It goes on to say this:

many problems still exist within the final ACTA product, including over-zealous statutory damages rules (such as fining someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for downloading a couple dozen songs) and asset seizure rules.

This seems to be a contradiction and it confuses me a little.

So my question is: is it safe or unsafe to download music torrents?

It's never really safe to download torrents. The main reason is because your IP address is prominently displayed when you're downloading a file, and if that file happens to be a honeypot, you're got.

A lot of people have been victims of this already, but to a lesser degree than what might happen with the bill. Know anyone who got a letter or email from their ISP saying they illegally downloaded a file and must get rid of it? Well that's exactly what happened. The ISP was contacted by whatever corporation owns the copyrights of the material, and the only way they could have known which IPs were downloading that file is if they were hosting the download and seeding it.

So no. It's not safe (particularly if the stakes are going to be raised).
I would recommend that people use direct-downloads from file hosting sites. The worst that could happen is the site is shut down.

I've downloaded quite a bit in the past and have never received any e-mails.

World population is almost 7 billion, of which I read 21% have internet access in their own home, therefore the chances of receiving an email are slim. You probably run a higher risk in the USA than you would do in other countries, its a numbers game.

What would be some good sites to download from other than TPB and bittorent etc.?

Just go to filestube.com and execute a search for whatever band/album.
The site is basically a search engine for file-hosting sites. You simply pick which host you'd like to download the file from. (it's tricky at first if you're not used to file hosting sites, as you may be tempted to believe you have to pay or sign up, but just look for the "slow download" or "free download" options and you'll be fine.)

You should be able to find most of what you're looking for that way, provided it's not so obscure that not even hipsters know about it.

Edit:
Skip any Filesonic hosts, and Megaupload, as both of those are down.

Ah:

FilesTube lets you search for shared files from various file hosting sites like:
FileServe, FileSonic, Megaupload, 4shared, Rapidshare, Hotfile, Mediafire, Netload and many others.

I don't get it...

Aren't we supposed to be avoiding using Megaupload?

It's down so maybe that doesn't matter.

So, is thepiratebay.com something I should avoid?