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Comment by FirmwareBurner | Hacker News Reader

>piracy is de facto legal in many EU countries, at least as far as individuals downloading

It's not legal, just the police in most countries have bigger fish to fry than people downloading mp3s and blu-ray rips.

But, try pirating content in Germany and you're guarantee to receive an angry letter with a fine from some crooked law office, threatening to sue you on behalf of the IP holder if you don't pay the fine. It's basically a legal mob shakedown.

Granted, this is more of German thing, as German laws makes it the European stronghold of copyright/IP trolls, while most of Europe doesn't bring out the jackboots for small-time internet piracy the way Germany does.

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In Switzerland it's pretty legal :) Okay, they're not in the EU, but I guess it's still an example.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/intellectual-property_...

Yep this is why I use Switzerland for my VPN exit.

Sharing is not legal there though. But downloading for personal use is.

It’s the same in Germany. You don’t get in trouble for simply downloading material. It’s the automatic upload happening when torrenting they usually base their case on.

Germany has quite the difference between file sharing and streaming. Copyright lawyers got their initial foot into the door through people also uploading during torrenting.

> It's not legal

I said de facto legal. Emphasis on the de facto.

It differs in EU countries though, and I recall reading at least some explicitly won't take action against consumers downloading on a home internet connection.

De jure is opposed to de facto, so saying de facto de jure doesn't make sense regardless of emphasis, hence the confusion

I never said de jure. What a weird comment to make.

Of course you did, that's what "legal" means

Wow. No. You clearly misunderstand 'de facto' and 'de jure'. That's fine, not going to argue the point with you. Take care.

Yeah, I'm not the confused party here

"De facto, (Latin: "from the fact") a legal concept used to refer to what happens in reality or in practice, as opposed to de jure ("from the law"), which refers to what is actually notated in legal code. "

Eh, I guess I will argue it a little further. You absolutely are the confused party. Perhaps English is not your first language? You've provided the definitions for de facto and de jure but they don't support your point, at all - you still show a fundamental misunderstanding.

If something is de facto legal, it means it is practically legal. That's exactly how I used it. I didn't say de jure as to say something was de jure legal would be redundant, and simply saying the word legal does not mean I said, or even implied de jure, as you rather ridiculously asserted.

You're entirely and completely wrong here, and seem to have no concept of how these terms are actually used in practice.

But since you seem to be the type who likes to argue for the sake of it, have at it. I'm curious how long you'll keep this going to avoid admitting fault.

In Portugal there is an exception for copying copyrighted material for personal and noncommercial purposes.

The lobby does try to twist the letter of the law to serve their interest, but it is legal

The Portuguese exemption only applies to copyrighted media where the person doing the copying is doing it from a copy that they already owned and obtained legally, it in no way permits you to stream or torrent content from the internet.

It's not that clear cut. Such restriction to self owned content is not in the law at all, but is frequently raised by pro-copyright proponents as an interpretation.

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