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Comment by wkat4242 | Hacker News Reader

They still don't quite care though. For example in western Europe it's quite common to get threatening letters as soon as you start torrenting without VPN. In eastern europe this is not happening.

Perhaps because copyright infringement is not really a criminal issue but more of a civil law one. Without a private party starting lawsuits on behalf of the copyright owners there is nothing happening. It could be they don't have one.

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> in western Europe it's quite common to get threatening letters as soon as you start torrenting without VPN

What about the right of the privacy of communication? Oh, right, it's the state-owned postal services that have to respect that right, and only with regards to the paper letters, not the privately operated ISPs that can (and obliged to) wiretap at the slightest suspicion of crime.

AFAIK they don't actually inspect your comms, instead they leech from you to get your IP address and start the legal procedure. The way I understand it, they don't send you a letter for downloading but for sharing. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Depending on your jurisdiction, even just downloading might be illegal. But you're right, when you torrent, you publish your IP address, where parties unrelated to your ISP might get it and pursue legal action.

Is it they do illegal thing and then try to extort money from you for doing the same thing? Or have they received a royal blessing nowadays and can do so legally?

I imagine it's not illegal for them since they do have copyright, after all (unless when they don't).

You're correct on the methodology except that (in France at least) they also seed, to get the IP of users that download. And you do get letters for downloading.

Initially the plan was to ban those people from internet for a period of that but it got removed since it was anticonstitutional.

It is not that clear cut for Western Europe.

- Germany sends letters and fines

- Czech Republic doesn’t send letters or fines

- The Netherlands doesn’t send letters or fines (unless you share an absolutely ludicrous amount)

- Belgium doesn’t send letters or fines

- UK sends letters and fines

- France sends letters (tiny chance of a fine)

- Switzerland doesn’t send letters or fines

It should be noted that (as far as I know) none of those are actually fines. It's private companies that track down pirates, and they cannot give out fines. They send you a settlement proposal, saying either pay this or risk being sued.

Note that in the Netherlands right holders can request ISPs to proxy their letters but those ISPs are not allowed to share the home addresses or any other personal information so it’s neigh impossible for a right holder to get hold of a torrent user.

Makes sense. If ISPs were allowed to share home addresses then a lot of creeps and scammers could abuse that system.

Welcome to America!

ISPs do that, but it's a lot worse if you consider your mobile provider to be an ISP.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/07/10/data-brok...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/nepxbz/i-gave-a-bounty-hunte...

I'm pretty sure that sort of thing would be a gross GDPR violation in the EU.

Imagine being doxxed by your own ISP.

Of course they have to obey court orders.

The Dutch ISPs fought this in court but they lost in some cases.

There's a difference between getting a court order and someone saying - "I saw that X IP address shared a copyrighted file - can I get their name and address?"

The situation is the same for Canadians: we get proxied letters, but rightsholders have no access to our personal identification.

almost like copyright enforcement goes hand in hand with your country's relation to the US

The Netherlands is very cozy with the US and yet enforcement is pretty lax, so I don’t think that’s the deciding factor.

in France you can be blacklisted from all ISPs

Does the UK send letters and fines? I haven't torrented without a VPN for years but the worst I ever heard anyone getting was a letter from the ISP saying "that was very naughty, please don't do it again".

Spain doesn't send letters or fines

Do you know what's the situation in Portugal?

This isn't the ISPs detecting you torrent. It's rightholders joining a torrent swarm, getting an IP-address, and asking the ISP for the person behind that address. It differs between jurisdictions whether the ISP has to comply or not. In the Netherlands they do not, (but Surfnet, a university focused ISP complies anyway). In Germany they have to comply.

Lobbying is always happening to require ISPs to cooperate though.

>In Germany they have to comply.

Seriously, screw Germany here. The way they oppressively Gestapo your internet traffic just to catch you downloading an mp3 to treat you like criminal menace, is unheard of in the rest of Europe.

Can't believe the so called "privacy conscious" German public are okay with this invasiveness of their internet privacy when they're the only EU country as hardcore on this "issue".

If only they would invest as much resources in digital innovation as they do in catching people download a DVD rip, Germany would rule the tech world.

Does it need that many resources though? I thought just getting the list of peers in a swarm for an illegal torrent is enough.

Resources not as in tech but as in lack of red tape in invading people's privacy for such trivial issues. In any other country this would get you laughed out of court.

Germany seems like they just do what involves the most policing. If it's going after companies for privacy invasions, they do it. If it's going after individuals for infringing on copyright, they do it.

They got rid of the laws that targeted people by race and background, but they never bothered to dispose of the jack boots.

Meh that's why I stay away from German services. People who go apeshit on you for sharing one 64kb chunk of movie have lost their marbles. Service provider is GmbH, headquarters in Germany? Maybe someone from the other side of the world believes in their "privacy" lunatism.

For US, it's natural that they are aggressive to arrest pirates because US have some biggest content holders in the world. I wonder is Germany content sold well?

No, German copyright predators are a proxy of American ones. Nobody cares about German content.

> If only they would invest as much resources in digital innovation as they do in catching people download a DVD rip, Germany would rule the tech world.

I don't think it's expensive, once you've the software: 1- regularly pull the torrent IDs from the latest releases on most popular torrenting website 2- download and stream the movies 3- wait for German IPs to connect 4- filter out IPs behind a VPN 5- identify the IP provider 6- send the request, probably by Email 7- profit

Not sure how advanced the software, but I don't see much manual input needed, it must be actually very lucrative

> Can't believe the so called "privacy conscious" German public are okay with this invasiveness

Nothing against Germans but there is a lot of hypocrisy in their society: - Energiewende vs. shutting down Nuclear Plants and turning on Coal - Green cars vs. 300km/h on the Autobahn - Go to a restaurant in a big German city, guys tell you they don't accept cards, then hand write the bill on a napkin (...) vs. Greece where restaurants are legally obliged to accept cards and if they don't, then you can just walk out without paying (!..) (all this since the EU driven by Germany bailed Greece out)

Never had any threatening letters in NL, so perhaps this varies by country.

Same in Sweden.

There have definitely been cases with letters in sweden

https://www.domstol.se/patent--och-marknadsdomstolen/om-pate...

Depends on the ISP. Telia will hand out your details to copyright holders, Bahnhof will require them to file the request through the police. Most rights holders just sont bother with Bahnhof or the smaller ISPs and just send batches to Telia and ComHem.

Huh, I've downloaded torrents for years with no VPN in western Europe and never got so much as an email about it.

Maybe it's changed in very recent times, I wouldn't know.

Threatening letters with a payment notice attached, that is.

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