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.

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.