Legal & sharing FAQ

Yes. Every software listing on this site is a build of a free/open-source project — Linux distributions, GIMP, LibreOffice, and similar — released under a license (typically the GNU GPL, LGPL, MIT, or Apache 2.0) that explicitly grants anyone the right to copy and redistribute it, including over BitTorrent. Distributing the file isn't a loophole or gray area here; it's the license's intended use.

BitTorrent is just a transport protocol; it's neutral about what travels over it. Piracy refers to distributing copyrighted work without the rights holder's permission — a pirated movie is illegal because of the missing permission, not because of the protocol used to move it. Every torrent indexed here comes from a project's own official release channel or a rights holder that has already granted redistribution rights, so the same protocol that moves pirated films just as legally moves a Linux ISO.

The media entries are sourced from collections like the Internet Archive, which only hosts works that are in the public domain, released under a Creative Commons or similarly permissive license, or explicitly donated for free redistribution by the copyright holder. If a work's rights status is ever unclear, it doesn't get listed — when in doubt, we leave it out.

No open-source license requires seeding — GPL, MIT, and similar licenses only govern redistribution rights, not swarm behavior. That said, seeding for a while after your download completes is good etiquette: it's what keeps these torrents healthy and fast for the next person, since (unlike commercial downloads) there's no company footing a server bill to guarantee availability.

Generally yes, and it's actively encouraged for open-source software — that's the whole point of a copyleft or permissive license. A few things to keep in mind:

• Keep the license file and any copyright/attribution notices intact when you redistribute — most licenses require this.
• If a project uses GPL or LGPL and you're redistributing modified source (not just the official binary), you must make your modified source available too.
• For media sourced from Creative Commons works, check the specific CC variant (some require attribution or forbid commercial use) before reusing it elsewhere.

Some ISPs and networks throttle or flag BitTorrent traffic based on the protocol alone, without inspecting what's actually being shared. That's a network-policy question, separate from whether the content itself is legal — downloading a Linux ISO here carries the same copyright risk as downloading it from the distribution's own site (none), even if your connection treats the two differently. If you're unsure about local network restrictions, that's worth checking with your provider, not a legal question about the file.

Software listings are ingested directly from each project's official release infrastructure (e.g. a distribution's mirror index or a project's own release API), and the listing shows which source it came from. Community uploads are labeled as such and reviewed by moderators before appearing publicly. Nothing is scraped from unofficial or unverified mirrors.

No. This page explains the general reasoning behind why the content here is shareable, but license terms vary by project and jurisdiction, and this isn't a substitute for reading the license that actually ships with a given release. If you plan to redistribute, sublicense, or build a commercial product on top of something listed here, read that project's license file directly (linked from its listing where available) or consult a lawyer for anything non-obvious.

For the license texts themselves, the GNU Project (gnu.org/licenses) and Creative Commons (creativecommons.org/licenses) publish the full, authoritative text of every license referenced above.