this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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2 friends got sued for around 3000 each here in germany, but they "only" had to pay 1600.
You mean they got a shock letter that says "pay us, or we'll take you to court"? Just throw that junk mail away.
If you do that in Germany, they'll take you to court and win. You have to pay their legal fees too.
Do they actually do that in the majority of cases, or just a few to scare people? Germany is really weird on IP law...
They do it with German efficiency.
It's really easy for a law firm in Germany to find out who the IP belonged to, if they have proof that the IP infringed on their copyrighted media.
The law firm looks at torrents and downloads a bit. With the IP, time and media name they can send a cease and desist letter with a fine of hundreds to thousands of euro. Ignoring the letters is not possible.
This is possible because the law firm has contracts with many big copyright holders (Disney, ...).
But most of the time the fine is too high, so it's possible to pay half by getting a lawyer. Basically the copyright holder overestimate how much damages they can get for the distribution of copyrighted material. If I understand it correctly. IANAL.
It's simple to avoid by binding the torrent client to the network interface of a VPN, but not everyone knows that.
Not if you use a VPN though. Also, modifying the letter, so it doesn't include you admitting to the crime has proven effective for me (I was young once and didn't use a VPN)
The letter is also pretty toothless since in a household with more than one person the actual infringer cannot be identified solely by IP, still better to just use a VPN though, avoids that entire can of worms
Yeah you would still get these letters, so having a VPN saves you the hassle
I've heard a few times that people managed to dodge the letter, but I've also heard of multiple people who had to pay.
It's also very easy to avoid this little problem by not being the only adult in the household. Unless one of the at least two adults snitches they can't sue because there is reasonable doubt about the actual infringer (not legal advice, better option is to just get a VPN)