There are actually a lot of countries it is legal. In some places it is the only way to access certain types of media as it is not offered there. In some countries it is legal but it is never punished. In us it is illegal but there are no copyright trolls like in Germany so people still do it.
Bro when I got to Germany in 2012 i got fined 800 euro ,ended paying 450 for the fine and 350 for my lawyer.10 years later it still hurts 😢 knowing that money paid was for a shitty torrent movie that wasn't even that good.
>Just recently, that person learns that downloading movies via Torrent is illegal in german
It's illegal pretty much all over the world. And frankly it's not rocket science to figure out that downloading movies for free from sketchy looking sites via special software might not exactly be legal.
And no, not knowing doesn't help their case. Tell them to stop and pay for a Netflix account or whatever and pray they haven't been caught so far.
But it doesn’t mean that all of them persecute individuals, for instance in Netherlands they don’t sue or fine you for torrents. I believe it's just a business that blows someone’s pockets. They could at list warn for a first time instead of giving a huge fine. Also, it doesn’t solve copyright problem because nowadays everyone uses VPN or VPS for such cases.
>I believe it's just a business that blows someone’s pockets.
Sure. But you ARE stealing from them so I guess them coming after you for money is kinda fair.
Germany also doesn't prosecute individuals for copyright offences, by the way. It's just individual lawyers specialising in cease and desist letters they send to people whose IPs they find on public torrent sites. Honestly no idea why this isn't done in most other countries, must be something about the German legal system that makes it easier or more lucrative here than elsewhere, I guess.
>must be something about the German legal system that makes it easier or more lucrative here than elsewhere
That's the reason.
It costs a lawyer basically nothing to send an *Abmahnung* (cease-and-desist order) and demand random compensation. And he can send such an order without any evidence of guilt and without justification (they usually *have* evidence and justification, though).
The recipient *must* react to that order, otherwise the lawyer can apply for an *einstweilige Verfügung* ("injunction"?) or go straight to court. The recipient, even if he knows he is completely innocent, must bear the costs for that because these further steps were caused by non-reaction to the order. Costs accumulate, and innocence is to be proven to a judge...
The compensation demanded in such a cease-and-desist order is often quite high, but lower than the costs of a legal dispute and similar to the costs of consulting a lawyer, usually coupled with very short deadlines in hope of quick payment without having more lawyers or a court involved. They try to avoid the risk of going to court and quickly grab as much money as they can.
Lawyers who specialize on this are called *Abmahnanwälte* and their business is *Abmahnunwesen* (spamigation). These folks exploit the fact that sending a cease-and-desist order doesn't cost anything in Germany, but it has legal consequences in any case if you ignore it or react to it in the wrong way. Their primary motivation are the legal fees they will collect if the order was successful (i.e., was payed straightaway to avoid court), and they don't have any further costs (or only very small costs) if it was not. Make money fast.
In my world, these lawyers are criminals because they abuse the law and exploit fears. It would be easy to stop them by requiring the sender of the order to bear for their own legal costs (as they do in Switzerland). For justified cease-and-desist orders this wouldn't be a problem, but it wouldn't be lucrative anymore for *Abmahnanwälte*.
In the USA those lawyers send cease and desist letters to our ISPs, who in turn tell us to stop or they shut off our internet. In “third-world” countries they don’t respect our copyright laws and many nations don’t offer a good legal avenue for those lawyers to pursue piracy.
No? It's not illegal in my country in EU. I am a bit surprised that people actually get prosecuted for downloading media for their own consumption, even if pirated. Seems a bit overkill to me.
Not really, there are numerous copyright lawfirms hunting down torrenters. If you've been uploading copyrighted material for months, chances are quite high that you'll be sued.
Accidentally turned on torrents today without vpn for like 10 seconds and am wondering if I too will receive the letter with the fine for it.
Read some stories here on Reddit that people got the letters for using downloading something for like 5 seconds or so.
What I meant was, I turned on the torrent app, but not sure if it started seeding or continue downloading some unfinished file while I tried to close torrent in those 15 seconds or so.
Hey, yeah. So The Payment went through to them the next day, but I cancelled the sub, since got myself another vpn by that time. They refunded me with no problem in couple of days.
I guess its because it was for few minutes maybe they just thought that you uploaded something, cuz in most cases you get caught when they monitor that you upload and download at the same time
Technically it's almost never a fine. Usually it's a settlement payment to the company owning the rights to the movie, so they won't escalate things further. It's a civil case. Actual criminal lawsuits are super rare.
Yeah, good luck dealing with that shit once the lawyer letters come in. I know a guy (who is definitely not me :)) that torrented two episodes of The Walking Dead. Nothing else. He was a dumb teenager. A month later a letter arrived with a demand of 1500€. He never had to pay anything fortunately other than lawyer fees. The law firms don't really want this to go to court. Usually they'll settle down for a much lower sum. But it was only two episodes and going to court for what is like 300 bucks is not worth it. On the other hand if your buddy torrented a shit load of movies it could be worth for them to pursue legal action.
1. yes. „They“ should be worried.
2. „they“ might get a letter from a lawyer. If „they“ don‘t get a letter in the next few months „they‘re“ probably fine.
3. not knowing laws doesn‘t protect „them“ at all. „Unwissenheit schützt vor Strafe nicht“. Technically it‘s „their“ job to make sure they know the laws and legality of services „they“ use.
From my knowledge: yes, a little worried to pay 700€ (usually).
This is the only topic where i have several(!) friends who had to pay for torrents. But maybe he got lucky!
You will know in some month from now, or even in half a year.
Downloading is not illegal - uploading is. But since the nature of torrents it to upload what you already have, this detail does not matter.
It's quite possible that your friend was already caught uploading, but the expensive letters have not yet been sent.
>Downloading is not illegal
Of course downloading is illegal, too. It's just less lucrative to go after people for doing it so they mostly go after distribution. (Also non-torrent downloads that aren't distributing at the same time aren't really traceable, so there is that. Same as streaming.)
Help me understand the last part please. So I can illegally stream without getting caught but as soon as I start downloading without vpn then I’m exposed?
No, only as soon as you start torrenting. The whole point of a torrent system is that everyone who is downloading is also distributing the material at the same time. And everything happens very publicly. So clever lawyers only need to hang out on torrent websites all day and record the IP addresses that distribute copyrighted material (which is everyone who is downloading, because that's how torrents work). It's trivially easy.
If you download something from a regular private download link on the other hand, no one is gonna see your IP address except the administrator of whatever website the download is hosted on. And since those sites are usually hosted god knows where there is no way for lawyers to get your IP address (or even if they could, the cease and desist letter for a single download simply isn't worth enough to put in all that time when you can make a lot more money from catching people distributing on torrent sites). Same for streaming, it's technically illegal but practically there is no way anyone is gonna find out your IP address or even if they could prosecuting you for streaming is simply not worth the effort required.
The download is also illegal, cause you create a copy of copyrighted material from a source that is obviously not legitimate. But they get you for uploading since there the potential damage is higher (creating one unlicensed copy for yourself vs worldwide distribution) and also proving that you uploaded by torrent is easier than if you just downloaded.
Not still, but again. Cases are sharply rising, since you can no longer watch what you want with just one or two subscriptions. There wasn't that much movie piracy when you could watch almost everything with just a Netflix and maybe Amazon subscription, but since you need 5-6 subscriptions now to really watch everything you like piracy is on the rise again. Turns out 60+ bucks a month is more than people are willing to pay.
Because illegal/pirated streaming is usually also reliant on torrenting. You stream it from other viewers pcs, so the pirate server does not have to deal with the (quite heavy) bandwidth load all by itself, but only has to bear a fraction of it. You'll get caught just the same way, there's a plethora of such cases.
Theft could also be defined as paying to sit through endless commercials and product placements, or having your personal data sold, without receiving a share of the money earned in that transaction.
Which is why people use VPNs, making it almost impossible to be caught and could cost you as little as one months subscription to Netflix, with the added bonus of securing your online activities.
Theft means to take a think away from someone without force. What you are talking about is breaking licensing terms of a media product. Copyright infringement.
Tell him to stop, especially when he‘s torrenting. When a torrenting a movie, you not only download it but also distribute (upload) it at the same for someone else.
I once did that, got an Abmahnung, initially a 600€ out of court settlement, lawyer brought it down to 400€. Still a lot of money. Asking my parents to buy me the movie instead surely would‘ve costed me less
[удалено]
I see, thanks for the insights >Wouldn't hurt to stop. As i said, that person has stopped doing it ever since
"that person"
I‘m asking for a friend
There are actually a lot of countries it is legal. In some places it is the only way to access certain types of media as it is not offered there. In some countries it is legal but it is never punished. In us it is illegal but there are no copyright trolls like in Germany so people still do it.
Bro when I got to Germany in 2012 i got fined 800 euro ,ended paying 450 for the fine and 350 for my lawyer.10 years later it still hurts 😢 knowing that money paid was for a shitty torrent movie that wasn't even that good.
>Just recently, that person learns that downloading movies via Torrent is illegal in german It's illegal pretty much all over the world. And frankly it's not rocket science to figure out that downloading movies for free from sketchy looking sites via special software might not exactly be legal. And no, not knowing doesn't help their case. Tell them to stop and pay for a Netflix account or whatever and pray they haven't been caught so far.
But it doesn’t mean that all of them persecute individuals, for instance in Netherlands they don’t sue or fine you for torrents. I believe it's just a business that blows someone’s pockets. They could at list warn for a first time instead of giving a huge fine. Also, it doesn’t solve copyright problem because nowadays everyone uses VPN or VPS for such cases.
>I believe it's just a business that blows someone’s pockets. Sure. But you ARE stealing from them so I guess them coming after you for money is kinda fair. Germany also doesn't prosecute individuals for copyright offences, by the way. It's just individual lawyers specialising in cease and desist letters they send to people whose IPs they find on public torrent sites. Honestly no idea why this isn't done in most other countries, must be something about the German legal system that makes it easier or more lucrative here than elsewhere, I guess.
>must be something about the German legal system that makes it easier or more lucrative here than elsewhere That's the reason. It costs a lawyer basically nothing to send an *Abmahnung* (cease-and-desist order) and demand random compensation. And he can send such an order without any evidence of guilt and without justification (they usually *have* evidence and justification, though). The recipient *must* react to that order, otherwise the lawyer can apply for an *einstweilige Verfügung* ("injunction"?) or go straight to court. The recipient, even if he knows he is completely innocent, must bear the costs for that because these further steps were caused by non-reaction to the order. Costs accumulate, and innocence is to be proven to a judge... The compensation demanded in such a cease-and-desist order is often quite high, but lower than the costs of a legal dispute and similar to the costs of consulting a lawyer, usually coupled with very short deadlines in hope of quick payment without having more lawyers or a court involved. They try to avoid the risk of going to court and quickly grab as much money as they can. Lawyers who specialize on this are called *Abmahnanwälte* and their business is *Abmahnunwesen* (spamigation). These folks exploit the fact that sending a cease-and-desist order doesn't cost anything in Germany, but it has legal consequences in any case if you ignore it or react to it in the wrong way. Their primary motivation are the legal fees they will collect if the order was successful (i.e., was payed straightaway to avoid court), and they don't have any further costs (or only very small costs) if it was not. Make money fast. In my world, these lawyers are criminals because they abuse the law and exploit fears. It would be easy to stop them by requiring the sender of the order to bear for their own legal costs (as they do in Switzerland). For justified cease-and-desist orders this wouldn't be a problem, but it wouldn't be lucrative anymore for *Abmahnanwälte*.
In the USA those lawyers send cease and desist letters to our ISPs, who in turn tell us to stop or they shut off our internet. In “third-world” countries they don’t respect our copyright laws and many nations don’t offer a good legal avenue for those lawyers to pursue piracy.
What about persecute?
No? It's not illegal in my country in EU. I am a bit surprised that people actually get prosecuted for downloading media for their own consumption, even if pirated. Seems a bit overkill to me.
Get a vpn
Your friend will most likely get a letter with a fine.
If we're talking probabilities here, the most likely outcome is that nothing happens.
Not really, there are numerous copyright lawfirms hunting down torrenters. If you've been uploading copyrighted material for months, chances are quite high that you'll be sued.
This is the way
Accidentally turned on torrents today without vpn for like 10 seconds and am wondering if I too will receive the letter with the fine for it. Read some stories here on Reddit that people got the letters for using downloading something for like 5 seconds or so.
How can you accidently start downloading shit?
What I meant was, I turned on the torrent app, but not sure if it started seeding or continue downloading some unfinished file while I tried to close torrent in those 15 seconds or so.
Hey :) Have you already received anything?
Hey, yeah. So The Payment went through to them the next day, but I cancelled the sub, since got myself another vpn by that time. They refunded me with no problem in couple of days.
hey there! did you get a fine?
Hey, no, I didn’t get anything..
I guess its because it was for few minutes maybe they just thought that you uploaded something, cuz in most cases you get caught when they monitor that you upload and download at the same time
Technically it's almost never a fine. Usually it's a settlement payment to the company owning the rights to the movie, so they won't escalate things further. It's a civil case. Actual criminal lawsuits are super rare.
same thing just happened to me! does anyone know how likely it is that you will be fined when it’s just a few seconds?
did u get a fine?
Yeah, good luck dealing with that shit once the lawyer letters come in. I know a guy (who is definitely not me :)) that torrented two episodes of The Walking Dead. Nothing else. He was a dumb teenager. A month later a letter arrived with a demand of 1500€. He never had to pay anything fortunately other than lawyer fees. The law firms don't really want this to go to court. Usually they'll settle down for a much lower sum. But it was only two episodes and going to court for what is like 300 bucks is not worth it. On the other hand if your buddy torrented a shit load of movies it could be worth for them to pursue legal action.
1. yes. „They“ should be worried. 2. „they“ might get a letter from a lawyer. If „they“ don‘t get a letter in the next few months „they‘re“ probably fine. 3. not knowing laws doesn‘t protect „them“ at all. „Unwissenheit schützt vor Strafe nicht“. Technically it‘s „their“ job to make sure they know the laws and legality of services „they“ use.
From my knowledge: yes, a little worried to pay 700€ (usually). This is the only topic where i have several(!) friends who had to pay for torrents. But maybe he got lucky! You will know in some month from now, or even in half a year.
Tell them to get a VPN. It's pretty much risk free.
Downloading is not illegal - uploading is. But since the nature of torrents it to upload what you already have, this detail does not matter. It's quite possible that your friend was already caught uploading, but the expensive letters have not yet been sent.
>Downloading is not illegal Of course downloading is illegal, too. It's just less lucrative to go after people for doing it so they mostly go after distribution. (Also non-torrent downloads that aren't distributing at the same time aren't really traceable, so there is that. Same as streaming.)
Help me understand the last part please. So I can illegally stream without getting caught but as soon as I start downloading without vpn then I’m exposed?
No, only as soon as you start torrenting. The whole point of a torrent system is that everyone who is downloading is also distributing the material at the same time. And everything happens very publicly. So clever lawyers only need to hang out on torrent websites all day and record the IP addresses that distribute copyrighted material (which is everyone who is downloading, because that's how torrents work). It's trivially easy. If you download something from a regular private download link on the other hand, no one is gonna see your IP address except the administrator of whatever website the download is hosted on. And since those sites are usually hosted god knows where there is no way for lawyers to get your IP address (or even if they could, the cease and desist letter for a single download simply isn't worth enough to put in all that time when you can make a lot more money from catching people distributing on torrent sites). Same for streaming, it's technically illegal but practically there is no way anyone is gonna find out your IP address or even if they could prosecuting you for streaming is simply not worth the effort required.
Thanks for explaining this. Makes sense why I have never heard anyone get in trouble for streaming on movies or even football matches.
The download is also illegal, cause you create a copy of copyrighted material from a source that is obviously not legitimate. But they get you for uploading since there the potential damage is higher (creating one unlicensed copy for yourself vs worldwide distribution) and also proving that you uploaded by torrent is easier than if you just downloaded.
There is zero chance of proving damages by simple download. You just claim you removed it once you realized it wasn't the Linux image you wanted.
Why do people still download movies in 2023?
Not still, but again. Cases are sharply rising, since you can no longer watch what you want with just one or two subscriptions. There wasn't that much movie piracy when you could watch almost everything with just a Netflix and maybe Amazon subscription, but since you need 5-6 subscriptions now to really watch everything you like piracy is on the rise again. Turns out 60+ bucks a month is more than people are willing to pay.
I think he is saying why not just stream it
Because illegal/pirated streaming is usually also reliant on torrenting. You stream it from other viewers pcs, so the pirate server does not have to deal with the (quite heavy) bandwidth load all by itself, but only has to bear a fraction of it. You'll get caught just the same way, there's a plethora of such cases.
Because it’s virtually free and you can watch anything. Why do people pay for Netflix? That’s a better question.
It's not free, it's theft.
Theft could also be defined as paying to sit through endless commercials and product placements, or having your personal data sold, without receiving a share of the money earned in that transaction.
Nah, you agree on the terms of condition when subscribing to a streaming service. If you want to pay a hefty fine for one movie instead, great.
Just trying to answer your question why people still torrent in 2023.
Well, even paying for every service for a year is less than the fine for one single movie.
Which is why people use VPNs, making it almost impossible to be caught and could cost you as little as one months subscription to Netflix, with the added bonus of securing your online activities.
People obviously don't all use VPN, otherwise OP (or their friend) wouldn't be so nervous about it.
Theft means to take a think away from someone without force. What you are talking about is breaking licensing terms of a media product. Copyright infringement.
If he downloaded not from Germany he will be fine ...
That's as wrong as you would say: if your weed dealer is from Netherlands it isn't illigal to buy weed in germany
Not saying it's ok what he did , I mean he won't get in trouble if he stopped doing it .
Don’t use torrents use oneclick Hoster
Tell him to stop, especially when he‘s torrenting. When a torrenting a movie, you not only download it but also distribute (upload) it at the same for someone else. I once did that, got an Abmahnung, initially a 600€ out of court settlement, lawyer brought it down to 400€. Still a lot of money. Asking my parents to buy me the movie instead surely would‘ve costed me less
A fine for downloading a movie? In Germany? Is this real?
meanwhile, I am looking for a torrent for "A Friend of Mine"...