(Located in Germany) Finally got the dreaded lawfirm Letter demanding 900€ for a John Wick torrent I accidentally left running. best course of action? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 year ago by ScuidTheSquid@discuss.tchncs.de to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago

I'm not from Germany and not a lawyer so take this with a pinch of salt, but they wouldn't be offering a settlement at such an early stage if they were confident they could successfully sue you. If it were me, I'd ignore them, and if it gets to the point I can no longer ignore them, I'd deny deny deny.

[-] nivenkos@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

The situation in Germany is terrible - https://blog.raychenon.com/file-sharing-violations-in-germany/

In Germany private law firms can carry out the investigation, warning letters and prosecution, maybe in the latter case with the GVU. Germany loves its citizens reporting eachother ever since the DDR days.

My advice would be to move anywhere but Germany.

[-] quandoquando@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 year ago

This is old and false information. The incident in the link happened already a decade ago and laws have changed since then.

The current situation is that they need to prove it was you and not someone else in front of a court, so if you tell them it wasn’t you but someone you know they’d need to open up a court case which is way to expensive for them and that’s it.

Also what are you on about „citizens reporting on each other“, lol. This is some lawyers who found an easy way to make money. Those exist in every country. Also everywhere „private companies“ (aka lawyers) can make investigations and go prosecute someone. That’s what they’re for.

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How can they prove you downloaded something if all they can see is an IP address? For all you know you accidently left your wifi open and some ruffian driving by downloaded the file.

Edit: guess I could have read the link first.

The German Federal Supreme Court decided that every person who owns an internet connection is under an obligation to ensure that it is secured.

[-] ISOmorph@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

"secured" in this instance means password protected. This does not mean it can't be accessed by tech-savvy people with nefarious intentions. That's why you can still claim you never had anything to do with it and get away with it, because you did your duty and an IP isn't enough to identify a person.