Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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.

I'd rather VPN to some EU country east of Berlin if I were you.

Slovakia has some copyright laws but they're not that strictly enforced. Also no c&d letter equivalent has arrived to my physical inbox for what I've done on the Internet.

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."

From what I've heard from my German friends the network owner, so the one paying the isp bill, is responsible for whatever happens on the network. If someone broke in onto your network and downloaded illegal stuff, you are still liable for the fines as you should have protected your network sufficiently. Maybe you can get away with it if you are able to present hard evidence your sufficiently protected network was broken in to.

It's the same with speed cam tickets. If you prove in court someone else was driving your car, you won't have to pay the fine. If you are unable to, you are liable.

Imo it goes against the law. There's this thing called "innocent until proven guilty", so the burden of proof lies with the authorities, not with you. But sadly it's not always the case. This did cause a lot of legal fights though, and to my knowledge this caused the German police to flash cars from the front now, so the driver would be visible in the photo in most situations.

Or just ignore it. If you actually read it, it never says anything about you being in trouble at that moment, but it's intentionally worded to invoke that fear.

Toss it in the bin, and use a VPN or Usenet.

Nah unless they're at the door with the cops, all threats are empty.

Edit for clarification: I meant threats in cases of piracy like the one this post is about.