The European Commission paid €360,000 ($541,980) for a study on how piracy impacts the sales of copyrighted music, books, video games and movies. But the EU never shared the report -- possibly because it determined that there is no evidence that piracy is a major problem.

This week, Village Roadshow co-CEO Graham Burke announced the company will start suing Australians who infringe on its copyright. This means anyone who has streamed or downloaded a movie via an illegal pirate site is potentially in its cross hairs.

But when will litigation begin? Who will be targeted? And how much money will you need to pay? We spoke directly to Burke to get some answers.

The Federal Court has ordered Australian internet service providers to block access to Kickass Torrents websites. The order comes at the behest of several major music labels who have been pushing for the blocks in court since April last year.

ISPs now have 15 days to comply with the order. Of course, none of this really matters if you know how to get around a DNS block.

Dear Lifehacker, I work for myself but the landlord of my building provides my internet. Previously I have been able to download using torrents, but they have recently started blocking me. Is there a work around?

Bittorrent users are looking for ways to hide their identities from the outside world. Even the less concerned among them are now thinking about their privacy as the threat of online surveillance grows, and Australian ISPs are blocking torrent sites left right and centre. So once you do get your hands on those torrents, how do you download them without broadcasting your actions to the world?

Not all virtual private networks (VPNs) are created equal. Some keep logs, some cap your traffic, some don't work on mobile, some don't work at all. This is what you need to know about choosing a VPN provider, as well as a few recommendations to get you started.

Dear Lifehacker, Everyone in my house loves to stream movies however I want to ensure they're doing it safely. Should they be using a VPN or a DNS proxy when streaming? Also, are there any that you can recommend?

A day and a half -- or less. That's how long there is until Amazon's new show The Grand Tour comes out, streaming on Amazon Prime. When do we get it in Australia? Not for at least another couple of weeks.

Two months -- or more. That's how long there is until the BBC's visually stunning Planet Earth II airs in Australia, on standard definition free-to-air TV.

I want to watch both these shows, a lot. But I can't. Unless I pirate them, or use a VPN.

As another season of Game of Thrones approaches its finale, legit streaming services have failed to slake our thirst for piracy –-- with KickassTorrents becoming one of the world's most popular websites. While The Pirate Bay tends to make more headlines, efforts to knock it offline last year saw rival KickassTorrents steal its crown as the world's most popular BitTorrent search engine, according to Amazon's web traffic tracker Alexa.

Windows/Mac/Linux/Chrome: DuckieTV is a no-hassle, fool-proof calendar to track TV shows you're watching, and it also automatically searches for torrents of new episodes and downloads them to your hard drive.

I should have seen it coming. I mean, to a certain extent I did see it coming. I’m talking, of course, about the ‘entitlement’ argument. Because, in case you haven’t had it hammered into you via years of millennial ‘think’ pieces about everything from house prices to education, everyone born between 1980 and five minutes ago is "entitled".

Several major music labels are seeking to block Australians from accessing piracy website Kickass Torrents in the latest use of website-blocking legislation introduced last year. If the music bigwigs get their way, Telstra, Optus, TPG and other providers would be forced to block access to the piracy facilitating website. Here's what you need to know.

Windows: Transmission is one of our favourite BitTorrent clients that has unfortunately been limited to Mac and Linux users for a long time. Now, it's finally available for Windows.

Piracy is inevitable. But a torrent doesn't appear out of thin air. There's a person at the start of that process, an individual who decides to share a game or movie with the world for free. I've talked with a few of them, and here's what they had to say.

Sometimes when you're on the go, you want to start your home PC downloading a torrent to be ready for you when you get home. Thanks to cloud storage powerhouse Dropbox, the solution is simpler than you may think.

You can breathe a sigh of relief, unscrupulous Mcconaughey fans: the Dallas Buyers Club piracy case has just been thrown out of court. In a landmark ruling, the Dallas Buyers Club LLC case against iiNet was dismissed, with the company denied access to the private records of iiNet customers. There is, however, a chance of an appeal.

Put it down to the "Netflix effect". Or the Dallas Buyer's Club decision. Or maybe Australia's data retention laws (which has nothing to do with catching pirates -- yet.) Whatever the reason, online piracy has dropped significantly in Australia for the first time in years. That rousing "yo ho-ho!" you just heard came from rights holders around the country.

The recent Dallas Buyer's Club case and the threat of metadata retention mean there's more interest than ever in using VPNs and encryption to ensure your online activity can't be tracked. Here are Lifehacker's best and most popular guides on how to do that.