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Comment by sudobash1 | Hacker News Reader

Ot of curiosity, how does this work? If a site is over https, then the only information I would think the ISP would have is the subscriber downloaded from randompiratesite.xyz what seems to be a single X GiB file. They could see that the size roughly corresponds to FooBar.mp4 on that site (plus some HTTP headers). But this seems pretty unreliable. (Like what if someone was using a download manager to get multiple large files at once, using multiple download streams per file?)

I'm sure that you can get in plenty of trouble for downloading a ton of data from randompiratesite.xyz or whatever, but how the ISP determine the number of movies they've seen you download?

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> If a site is over https, then the only information I would think the ISP would have is the subscriber downloaded from randompiratesite.xyz what seems to be a single X GiB file

That isn't how torrent sites work. You visit site.xyz and download a .torrent file in the realm of 10s-100s (typically) of kB and that contains some metadata that a dedicated torrent client consumes. The torrent client connects to (1) some tracker via http (or https, but usually http) which may or may not be associated with the site the .torrent came from, to register as part of the swarm, and (2) any number of peer torrent clients. The actual data (X GiB) transfer comes from those peers; not the original site.xyz nor the tracker.

ISPs can observe DNS lookups / connections to site.xyz; tracker "announces" (that's (1) above), especially if they are http. And even the peer-to-peer traffic has a distinct protocol which is recognizable with packet inspection. But the main avenue for finding offenders, I believe, is just downloading the same .torrents for some specific copyrighted content and using the torrents' associated tracker(s) to enumerate swarm peer IP addresses.

Thats not how piracy in germany works. Torrenting for german content is quite uncommon. Normally the pages either point to sites hosting a streamabale version of the video content or point to a external file hoster (e.g. Rapidgator).

> Torrenting for german content is quite uncommon.

Obviously, because, as the chain of comments above your shows, torrent users are easily caught and get fined to hundreds of euros per downloaded movie. Then they stop using torrent and tell all their friends about the experience. This has been going on for more than a decade, maybe two. So by now, German culture has adapted and people don't use torrents.

You don't get fined for downloading, you get cease-and-desist with a fine (?) from a lawyer representing the copyright owner for uploading.

Downloading copyrighted is not illegal, offering is.

You could try to argue technicalities in court, but that'll probably exceed the hundreds of Euro the copyright owner demands.

Downloading via torrents by default implies distribution (from technical point of view).

My understanding is that one can download without seeding/uploading; is this inaccurate?

Since the whole system relies on people seeding, even if this may be possible technically, clients don't tend to support it as a feature.

There are some services where you send a torrent file/magnet link and it’ll download the file for you, so you can download over HTTPS. I believe those particular services intentionally don’t reseed.

You are correct.

Years ago I did exactly this by modifying my client to never seed/share, and also to fake my reported sharing stats so the private trackers wouldn’t boot me for failing to share.

Those were the days.

Now, I no longer fear the ISP or copyright holder chasing me (seems ISPS and laws moved on where I am) and don’t bother with modifications any more.

> also to fake my reported sharing stats so the private trackers wouldn’t boot me for failing to share.

This would very quickly be identified by private trackers these days because the stats don't line up with your peers and earn you a permaban.

Correct. E.g., https://github.com/pmoor/bitthief .

The cease and desist fine (about 900 euros these days) is what the lawyer wants. Max return on investment for a single letter. You don’t have to react to this letter which will bring about the second letter with the generous offer to pay less, this repeats until around 340 Euro are reached.

Then you may get a court order that states what the lawyer accuses you of and this you have to react to. The court just states this and gives you 2 checkboxes. If you check the one saying “I reject the accusation completely” the lawyer needs to decide. He invested some 40 euros into the court order but going to court is a different ballgame and not his main business model so they have to weigh the chances.

The owner of the router that the file went through is responsible for access to the router. Since the owner has so far not said anything to his Defence there is a possibility that multiple people including family members had access to the router and the lawyer might, in court, be presented with a list of people and their addresses which satisfies the defendants task to erschütter the accusation for the court and leave the lawyer with the option to figure out whodunnit or rather who in the list is going to fold and pay.

This is really not his business model. That said they do go to court and people get sentenced to pay the fine.

That's a very technical nitpick — GP's general point ('Obviously, because, as the chain of comments above your shows, torrent users are easily caught and get fined to hundreds of euros per downloaded movie.') stands.

You are downvoted, but from my experience, you are pretty correct. Most people I know will use a streaming site, then sharehosters (good old boerse comes to mind - Megaupload, Rapidshare and Uploaded were the big hosters I remember)

I even know of more people using Usenet then torrents! The amount of work to use torrents safely just isn't worth it for most people.

They are downvoted because it was an obvious and low-quality statement, as another comment outlined. Torrents publicly expose IPs and thus can be seen by copyright Nazis, but streaming/direct downloading has so far been safe.

True but it is possible for them to capture one of these sites and go through the logs to check for IPs. So it would be best to use these with a VPN also.

I'm not aware of this having happened for movie downloading but it has happened to data breach forums, the police in Holland have contacted some downloaders there after they took down a platform (raidforums): https://tweakers.net/nieuws/208638/politie-mailt-duizenden-n... (in Dutch, sorry)

So it's not unprecedented and certainly within the legal realm of possibility even though this is a different country.

> The amount of work to use torrents safely just isn't worth it for most people.

Using a VPN isn't a lot of work really? And that's more than sufficient. It does cost a bit of money but so does a good Usenet server.

The problem with Usenet is the DMCA takedowns so you have to be really quick these days, after a day the content is gone.

This thread[1] is talking about torrents in particular.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41330098

It's not the sites, it's torrenting. Without a VPN, they get your IP, and you are on the hook for "commercial distribution" (as clients also upload) unless you pay X00 euros.

Private torrenting is certainly not commercial distribution.

Tell that to our courts ;)

Commercial distribution isn't the only way you can violate copyrights

Just violating copyright wouldn't really matter. Damages would be tiny, and so would be what the lawyers can blackmail you for. It's being on the hook for the damages of distribution that gets the high fees.

Please tell me what's wrong about my comment instead of blindly downvoting, thank you.

It's simply not true, from my personal experience. Who cares it's tiny when it's still more than I want or can pay.

You have personal experience with being sued for downloading without distribution in Germany?

I wasn't sued at the end of it, but nearly. Had to pay few hundred euro. Still sucked.

Huh, that is super interesting, are you 100% certain it wasn’t torrents and thus including distribution? Hundreds of euros is crazy, that’s what people pay for distribution.

Violating copyright means distribution - giving out copies without the right to do so.

Sure, but private distribution is something completely different than commercial distribution. And private distribution under friends up to 15 is even legal.

Yes, sharing privately using for example a flash drive, sending file via messaging app, or a private download link that's not shared publicly is not distribution. But I was replying to your comment that said "violation of copyright", which implies distribution - torrents in my case. Fortunately I didn't distribute much, I had the torrent client set to a low speed, so I was able to settle it out of court.

So it was distribution. As I originally said.

I replied to a comment about violation of copyright, which implies distribution.

There have been courts that decided downloading is copying, is infringement. But even if I used incorrect wording, I specifically mentioned distribution being the issue in my original comment.

No, there is a specific ruling says that says downloading for personal use is not infringement or violation of copyright. The person who uploaded it is the one infringing by giving out copies, not the person downloading. That's why downloading gets a pass. Any violation of copyright in Europe necessarily includes uploading.

You should move to Germany and argue this exact point in front of a bored 54-year old regional judge (who does not own a smartphone) on a Wednesday afternoon.

If they're also downloading or seeding the torrent, the learn the IPs of their peers, so they know you were downloading that particular file.

Yeah you can use peerblock/peerguardian, but in general there's no point. It's much less risky to simply use a VPN because there's always a risk that new IPs are not on the blocklist.

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