Does anyone have experience with doing this in germany?
Thanks for any answers
An acquaintance from Germany received one or two of these letters. They didn’t react and there has never been more.
They told me the letters had big and official, scary looking paper work.
A non-reaction seemed to be enough to fend off these unrealistic accusations, they told me.
It’s been a few years since I heard this story.
Don’t even need to respond, just toss the letter. You will never hear from them again. But do use a VPN when torrenting from especially Germany.
was there any case where this didn’t happen
Not that I’m aware of.
They’re fishing with a very large net. I once got a letter saying I illegally downloaded a movie I never downloaded, so their accuracy is also pretty horrible.
The funny thing is that I personally use vps in Germany. Have nothing in my name
Where could one learn to rent a VPS in this manner?
Hetzner for hosting
Use either
https://github.com/XTLS/Xray-core if you want to go through government censorship (Russia, China)
https://getoutline.org/ if you want just to mess with your IP for basic anonymity
Hetzner will ban you if they get one of these letters, even if you aren’t in Germany
Hasn’t banned me for 4 years straight
Aren’t those Nazi businesses?
what is a Nazi business? If you mean every business in Germany is required to support Israel or their business license will get revoked, then yes.
I was in this situation once, when I was the legal contact for the internet used by me and my roommates. One of them apparently downloaded porn and I got the letter. I contacted a lawyer, paid a flat fee (meaning even if it had gone to court I wouldn’t’ve had to pay more), he wrote one letter, saying I don’t even know what a torrent is, and I never heard from them again. I felt much better having the lawyer handle it.
I’ve also received a letter about seeding a torrent when I was in Germany in early 2010s. I went to see a legal aid lawyer, who was almost free, and he already had a prewritten letter saying that basically I was sorry and that I should come back if I received another letter.
The first letter said that if I didn’t pay within a few days, they would start a very expensive legal procedure. About a month later, I received a reminder, so I went back to the lawyer. This time, his letter said that I wasn’t able to pay the amount and that I should come back if I received another letter.
I never received anything after that. So, based on my experience, I agree: it’s all bark and no bite.
I received a notification for downloading something I didn’t download - I’m not even interested in it. Went to court, court said it was my IP and I had to pay. 1500€ for something I didn’t download. In Germany you have to prove innocence, which is impossible if all you can say is “It wasn’t me.”
“Don’t talk to someone who is a trained professional to handle these kinds of problems, instead talk directly to the party trying to get you into legal trouble” is the dumbest advice I can imagine.
Meanwhile the AI bros are pirating every media they can get a hold on in total impunity…
But individuals get targeted by lawyers.
In Belgium, just next to it, I know someone who was doing tons of torrenting and sharing with friends and family back in 2005-2010 time and got prosecuted for his piracy (like 5 years after he was doing it) and had to pay huge fines as a young adult from what he did as a teenager. He definitely wasn’t using a VPN and probably port forwarding and openly sharing back in those days. It definitely happens. (Not Germany but neighbors)
Just get and use a VPN with a client kill switch. Paying 50-100€ per year is much cheaper than 10k in fines down the line, and don’t share it with anyone outside of your household.
In Germany, they don’t have to prove guilt, you have to prove innocence or else you get fined. If you don’t voluntarily pay the fine and they have to go to court, the fine doubles. The system is rigged for the corporations. That’s why they’ve done this in Germany for a long time. The expansions to other countries are experimental.
I wouldnt admit not having a wifi password in germany. Theres the “Störerhaftung”. If its your device you are responsible. Thats why germany has so few open public wifis.
But i never got a letter and looked up what to do? Probably tossing the letter into the trash is enough. Just be sure to seperate your waste properly so your neighbour doesnt sue you.
Is the joke that German neighbors get angry over improperly separated waste / recycle?
Not sure what you mean by “joke”. This is no laughing matter.
Thank God my country doesn’t pursue piracy at all (unless it’s related to live football matches)
Thank God idgaf about football matches
In Spain sites depending on something hosted by Cloudflare go down when there’s a football (soccer) match. I have no interest in that sport either, but it’s impossible to check even a doctor’s appointment during a football match without a VPN. Thousands of sites are affected.
You mean the “default” DNS entry is gone for these sites but you can use simply another DNS.
No, they block all of Cloudflare’s IP addresses. This is punishment for Cloudflare not being able to take down any website globally within 15 minutes that the Spanish government says to take down.
I used to work the abuse department for an isp back at the turn of the century.
While we covered our arses by emailing customers “we have received a copyright notice blah blah don’t be naughty”, the companies that filed the “complaint”? Got a big fat “fuck off and come back with an Australian court order”
We never released a single customer detail. Because privacy laws in Australia meant $50,000 per breach.
From my totally uninformed non-lawyer knowledge: It’s more or less safe to ignore random letters from German lawyers until they are forwarded to you by a German court (usually in a yellow(?) envelope).
You should just use a VPN in the first place and then none of this is a problem.
Routing traffic through another computer will certainly fix things for you.
As long as this does not log nor allow tracing packets etc. yes.
This is terrible advice, please just get a VPN like IVPN or Mullvad and just keep the letter somewhere*. Anyone telling you to forego a legal professional when it comes to legal issues is leading you astray.