The risks of downloading music at home with wifi (midwest.social)

submitted 3 months ago by clark@midwest.social to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Like the stupid newbie goober I am, I forgot the first step to downloading music: do it in a public setting with a public wifi. Ended up downloading it all at home off of our private wifi. Did use a VPN but forgot to switch it from my home country. Kind of wondering how easy it is to trace me and persecute me for this. I am not the one handling the ordeal with the wifi, that would be my lovely mother.

Cheers y'all!

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[-] clark@midwest.social 10 points 3 months ago

Sweden, Mullvad.

[-] Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 3 months ago

The only way to find out it was you, would be to ask the VPN provider. Mullvad has a perfect track record of not keeping logs tho, so it's very unlikely they're gonna get anything from them. All that work wouldn't even be worth it for someone just downloading some music like you do.

I have my torrent client running 24/7 connected to a different VPN to my home country, Germany, as well and nothing's ever happened, even though Germany is pretty strict when it comes to this stuff.

[-] clark@midwest.social 3 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the info!

Kind of irrelevant, but anyone should feel free to answer: according to Swedish law, downloading music is legal as long as the artists have authorised use of their work and it is only played privately (not distributed). However, my friend argues that artists don't consent to their music being pirated, thus making the downloading illegal.

Curious about what the people in this community think about his argument. Personally, I was taught that anything you post can be up for debate and freely used, so if artists consent to having their music posted on Spotify / YT / etc., then they subsequently consent to having their work downloaded. Am no legal expert though.

[-] Findmysec@infosec.pub 3 points 3 months ago

Do I give a shit? I'll pirate everything I can till the end of time and if I'm feeling generous I'll donate to the artists on band camp or something. Nobody but the smaller artists need my money anyway

[-] AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 3 points 3 months ago

If that is accurate to Sweden's laws (what you originally said), then your friend's opinion does not matter. Only Sweden can make it illegal, not your friend.

[-] averyminya@beehaw.org 0 points 3 months ago

No, the friend is saying

downloading music is legal as long as the artists have authorised use of their work and it is only played privately (not distributed).

Artists are opting in to allowing their music to be pirated, so it technically would be piracy under that law.

However if it's privately played it may not matter

[-] Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 months ago

If I was just downloading stuff, I wouldn't be using a VPN. Not sure if it's illegal but it's just not worth it for the police to go after people who just download. With torrents, due to the way they work, you're also uploading. That's the reason you should use a VPN when downloading with torrents.