Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

yes, it's mostly things like games or software

though, I have seen more & more reports of people finding malicious disguised LNK files in their downloads and torrents, which will run some arbitrary command if you open that: Windows does not ever show the LNK extension, so a file could be named ".mkv.lnk", and you would only know if you checked the "file type" column in Explorer (which would read "Shortcut" instead of something like "Matryoshka file"), or when you see the cmd.exe window flicker open and close.

bonus edit: LNK is the native file extension that Windows uses to link app shortcuts, such as the shortcuts on your desktop.

TPB is fine if you're cautious and just download video/audio. I'm in a bunch of private trackers but still use it occasionally since it can have old and obscure stuff occasionally since the site is so old.

Ideally, a .mp4, or any other non-executable file format, would not be able to execute rogue code on your computer, but the programs you use to open the files with might have security flaws which allow rogue code execution if done right.

You might have a hypothetical file, which might not be dangerous if opened with VLC, but which exploits a flaw in, say, Windows Media Player version x.y.z to execute a payload.

Sorry, for not including any examples, I'm currently not at the PC.

mkv is just a container containing whatever files. Not sure but some could contain code

Have a look at Dangerzone to strip code from tons of files. Videos not included afaik

Only problems I've ever had on TPB were not finding things that I could find on other sites. Then again, I don't use Windows for either downloading or media consumption, I check torrent file lists as I'm downloading to make sure I'm not downloading anything suspect, and I've so far managed to catch wind of things like certain trusted uploaders getting hacked, spoofed, or just plain trying to cash-in, in-time to avoid getting worked over.

Those same users post to most of the other public sites as well, so I'm not getting where TPB is somehow particularly un-trustworthy. IME, other public sites seem to have MANY more torrents for a given search, often by orders of magnitude, so which one is really less moderated?

The REAL encouraged/discouraged is Private vs Public sites and trackers, and I'm not pretending that for all my caveats I haven't been just plain lucky. If you download regularly at all, Private is the way to go.

I remember the case of watchdogs day 1 in pirate bay...