Does anyone have experience with doing this in germany?

Thanks for any answers

Don't even need to respond, just toss the letter. You will never hear from them again. But do use a VPN when torrenting from especially Germany.

was there any case where this didn't happen

Not that I'm aware of.

They're fishing with a very large net. I once got a letter saying I illegally downloaded a movie I never downloaded, so their accuracy is also pretty horrible.

k thanks for ur help, tho why use a vpn when I can do that yk...

Because they can and will try to compile a case on you if they can track significant amounts of upload from you. They will silently do that for years before knocking on your door.

An acquaintance from Germany received one or two of these letters. They didn’t react and there has never been more.

They told me the letters had big and official, scary looking paper work.

A non-reaction seemed to be enough to fend off these unrealistic accusations, they told me.

It’s been a few years since I heard this story.

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.

The funny thing is that I personally use vps in Germany. Have nothing in my name

Thats not correct. Abmahnungen need to be actively dealt with. Ignoring them is not enough. While you do not necessarily need an attorney it is highly adviced to let someone write the letter for you.

Some random source for some infos:
https://anwalts-atlas.de/was-passiert-wirklich-wenn-man-eine-abmahnung-ignorieren-sollte/

I had a roommate once that didn't pay her rent before moving out. Sued her and she got several letters, including the invitation to the court date. She ignored them. Default ruling in my favour, they seized €900 from her bank account.

So yeah, some threats are quite real without the cops having to show up.

Depends. Those are just letters. First and foremost meant to scare you and do something without thinking it through. You can decide to respond, or not respond, that's up to you. Though it's strongly recommended to contact a lawyer before signing any contract with them, admitting to wrongdoing or give them information about yourself. I'd probably try to avoid (5) without legal advise.

If you toss it in the bin, they'll have to decide whether they have enough evidence and whether it's worth the effort to actually sue you. Usually that letter was an invitation to settle out of court. At their terms and conditions, though.

And yes, they're most certainly backed by the media companies. Otherwise they wouldn't have any business messing with their intellectual property. And maybe the law firm only does letters, maybe they have some number of court cases to achieve each month, who knows? Maybe they already exhausted their more promising X court cases this month and you won't hear from them again if you decide to just ignore them. Maybe you're one of the "lucky" few who get sued.

oh ur right

tho does this happen in other countries aswell?

I'm from the czech republic and trying to help a friend.

from what ik in Czechia no 1 cares unless u make money off of it or ur a big fish

I wouldnt admit not having a wifi password in germany. Theres the "Störerhaftung". If its your device you are responsible. Thats why germany has so few open public wifis.

But i never got a letter and looked up what to do? Probably tossing the letter into the trash is enough. Just be sure to seperate your waste properly so your neighbour doesnt sue you.

Sure but have you ever experienced those for piracy?

AFAIK Störerhaftung was abolished, see TMG § 8 (3).

That is a very different case from piracy.

I was in this situation once, when I was the legal contact for the internet used by me and my roommates. One of them apparently downloaded porn and I got the letter. I contacted a lawyer, paid a flat fee (meaning even if it had gone to court I wouldn't've had to pay more), he wrote one letter, saying I don't even know what a torrent is, and I never heard from them again. I felt much better having the lawyer handle it.

The point is that civil cases usually don't involve the cops but can still have consequences.

Canadian here, I have received these letters in the past through my ISP, once for a dl I did (yeah I raw dogged it), and 1 or 2 from the kid that lives in my house. ISP says basically "We got this letter, we need to forward it to you, we have passed on no information to the sender. Please don't get caught doing this again. Thank you". Not sure what would happen if there were hundreds of files downloaded but my ISP is a pretty good one for doing the bare legal minimum to correct users.

Is your ISP TekSavvy by any chance?

Ding ding ding!!!

Personally? No. Since i am not dumb enough to torrent without at least some kind of protection.

But there are law firms that are specialized on this topic, like for example FROMMER-LEGAL.

When you search for then online, you will find many users who have received Abmahnungen.

I’ve also received a letter about seeding a torrent when I was in Germany in early 2010s. I went to see a legal aid lawyer, who was almost free, and he already had a prewritten letter saying that basically I was sorry and that I should come back if I received another letter.

The first letter said that if I didn’t pay within a few days, they would start a very expensive legal procedure. About a month later, I received a reminder, so I went back to the lawyer. This time, his letter said that I wasn’t able to pay the amount and that I should come back if I received another letter.

I never received anything after that. So, based on my experience, I agree: it’s all bark and no bite.

I'll add a clarification to my comment then, because I specifically meant the kinds of threats this post is about.

Is the joke that German neighbors get angry over improperly separated waste / recycle?

Yes, thats a Stackenblocken!

Not sure what you mean by "joke". This is no laughing matter.

In Canada the max they can get from an individual is around 5k which means they don't often pursue things.

They still send the emails though. At least here unless it's registered mail I would just toss it.

CGNAT maybe.

I love TekSavvy, they’re the only ISP I’ve used that I haven’t had completely horrible experiences with. In fact, I’ve been with them for the last ~3 years and haven’t had a single complaint yet. My parents have been with them for even longer, probably around 10 years, and same deal. No issues.

I have set people up on their systems and their tech support actually listens to your question and answers it instead of taking the meandering each and every insignificant step. I switched to them about ~8 yrs ago and my only issues with them were actually with bell doing something to my connection cause it was in the way or something.

Yeah their customer support has always been great in my experience. I got an offer from bell to switch a few months ago and it would’ve cut my price down a bit but it wasn’t worth dealing with them again. TekSavvy has been a great experience all around so I choose to stay loyal to them. The lower cost of bell or rogers isn’t worth the headache.

The family I stayed at got a letter after I visited and had my torrent client on (it always started on boot). A lawyer sent one letter, costing 300 euros and we never heard from it again. Though, I think there was an update on laws against these practices

One letter = what letter?

Second letter = Maybe consider a VPN & plead ignorance.

Given how often my mail goes missing this seems to be the better take.

Hell I can't remember the last time I got a bill in the mail where the first notice came before the second notice lol

Thank God my country doesn't pursue piracy at all (unless it's related to live football matches)

First letter I started using VPNs. I get so many spam lawyer letters that I can't remember the last one I opened that wasn't from my lawyer.

Thank God idgaf about football matches

Lawyers use registered mail if they actually want to serve you. I also don't accept registered mail unless I expect it.

"Don't talk to someone who is a trained professional to handle these kinds of problems, instead talk directly to the party trying to get you into legal trouble" is the dumbest advice I can imagine.

Similar happened to me when I was on Starlink. Strongly worded letter to say don't do it again or further action would be taken. I told my adult kid to smarten up and make sure to use a VPN when tormenting games (which he already knew). Haven't had a letter since.

From my totally uninformed non-lawyer knowledge: It's more or less safe to ignore random letters from German lawyers until they are forwarded to you by a German court (usually in a yellow(?) envelope).

This is terrible advice, please just get a VPN like IVPN or Mullvad and just keep the letter somewhere*. Anyone telling you to forego a legal professional when it comes to legal issues is leading you astray.

Where could one learn to rent a VPS in this manner?

Hetzner for hosting

Use either

https://github.com/XTLS/Xray-core if you want to go through government censorship (Russia, China)

https://getoutline.org/ if you want just to mess with your IP for basic anonymity

In Spain sites depending on something hosted by Cloudflare go down when there's a football (soccer) match. I have no interest in that sport either, but it's impossible to check even a doctor's appointment during a football match without a VPN. Thousands of sites are affected.

They may as well have said please use a VPN to save us the cost of a stamp next time

You should just use a VPN in the first place and then none of this is a problem.

Meanwhile the AI bros are pirating every media they can get a hold on in total impunity...

But individuals get targeted by lawyers.

I feel like at this point even the ISPs are like "bruh just use a VPN this shit is annoying"