They're even better for downloading, just that the majority of users have it mainly for seeding, and after a month or 2 of having one you'll find that's what you end up doing too. I've had warnings from my ISP too, for excessive bandwith usage (torrenting) and there's a lot of talk about the three strikes **** that's been mentioned already in this thread. I do all my torrenting on my seedbox, and then download via FTP to my computer. Your ISP would generally look for BT like traffic and inspect traffic/ send warning letters etc etc, and licence holders would find the torrents, and look for the IP addresses of peers and seeders ( this is where a VPN would help you). In the case of a seedbox, it is the server that is doing any up/downloading, you are not connected at all to the swarm and so your IP won't be exposed to anyone who has joined to collect IP addresses. When you want to DL the files to your own computer, you connect directly to the private server(usually via HTTP or FTP at the max speed your home connection allows), not via BT or any other protocal where other people can join. Technically it isnt absolutely impossible to trace, but there would be so many obstacles they would likely give up after finding that it's some server from a large data centre. People acting on behalf of copyright holders usually only operate in a single country, so those acting for them in the USA where you live, would find some French/Dutch (or wherever your sever is physically) server and there's little they can do about that. Oh did I mention that it's nearly always uploaders that they go for and you wouldn't have uploaded a damn thing
