[mathsmath]

It’s really not that bad unless you really don’t want to be found. Most DMCA/copyright firms just do a basic investigation which stops at the IP AFAIK.

Mullvad and I’m sure other modern VPN clients have “kill switches” built-in that shuts down traffic if the tunnel isn’t on. You can also do a leak check before starting anything up.

[IronBacon]

Unfortunately Mullvad and the majority of VPN providers don't offer port-forwarding anymore, last year when I checked only a couple, maybe three remained...

Having wrote that, another option, under Linux with network namespaces and Wireguard it's possible to have a pretty fail proof VPN...