I find it really frustrating that TIME can publish such incorrect information that could directly lead to the detriment of its readers. I've also seen a couple people in HN saying a VPN is the "safe" way to torrent. Unless you're sure a VPN service won't comply with subpoenas or you've paid in bitcoin, it's not safer than not using one.
I got loads of DMCA takedown notices and I had a form-based reply for every one of them: This is a VPN service, Bittorrent traffic is transient (therefore there's nothing to "take down"), and I couldn't identify the infringer even if I wanted to.
After operating like that for two years I never once had anything come of it. I never got so much as a reply from the lawyers that sent out these notices. I even put my phone number in the form letter if they wanted to discuss it!
The closest thing I ever got to, "you must identify who did this" was the CTO (or was it CSO?) of Level 3 demanding that I tell them who was busting out of their intranet and how to block my service (it worked over all ports--take your pick, UDP and TCP and also through proxies!). I basically told that I would not betray the privacy of my customers and that even if I did have the technical capability to do such a thing (which I didn't). I also told him that when any of my customers got blocked I would simply get some new IP addresses on completely different networks/providers (I had it all automated).
An American company subpeona's a Dutch company to get information about traffic happening at a datacenter in Germany.
They'd need the co-operation of many people from many different countries.
I'd imagine that it's easier to just go after the trackers.
If they're keeping IP logs and handing them over to the authorities, that wouldn't help you in the slightest.
Likewise, if they have your payment information but no logs tying past activity to specific accounts, that's not much of a problem. VPNs aren't illegal. Really, it all comes down to whether you trust your VPN provider to not keep logs.