edit:
just wanted to share a great observation that was made by UlrikHD in our admin channel:
"So if a company wanted to demand the ip of every member on a piracy community, they would have to contact every instance federated with that community then
good to know"
As long you don't do the "known illegal" stuff you don't need a VPN.
However if you upload copyrighted material a vpn is one of very many steps to ensure that the police won't get you. A VPN alone does not provide any security. It delays at best the police
surely it costs more to fight this dogshit legal battle, both in money and PR, than to simply let enthusiasts watch your films. they're already handsomely profiting, why do these fucking pigheaded hogs think it is their right, it is their duty to wring out every cent they can? fuck off.
Man even in the 90's nobody was scared of having their IP address known because there's not a helluva lot you can do with one anyway, and the average regular person is using a dynamic one that resolves to a local CO and not usually their actual home address.
It was quite normal to scare the normies by having a forum signature that displayed the IP address of the machine loading the page because something that basic was enough to make them think you were a hacking wizard.
Those who were especially paranoid, used proxies (maybe VPNs but I never even heard that term until NordVPN started advertising all over the place).