1 yr. ago • 72%

How do Germans pirate?

https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/pirating-streaming-movies-in-germany

I didn't know how Germans pirated and how they got caught, so I tried to do some research and found the article above, which is quite nice.

To summarize, your IP is visible to your ISP (internet service provider) and a law company can basically send a legal letter asking your ISP to identify you and you will be identified and your address and details will be given to the Lawyers. Now, you can either pay up or hire a lawyer and pay a lesser amount.

Now, the solution the article provided was, just use a VPN bro. But yes, VPNs can fail and not all VPNs allow you to torrent. So, how do these Germans pirate and not get caught?

PS: I obviously don't condone pirate, asking for a friend who is an author.

27 comments

The biggest risk is when you upload content, which makes torrenting dangerous. But using a VPN is really enough.

For things like pirate streaming sites or DDL sites, a VPN is definitly recommended, but I used those for years without one and nothing ever happened.

I obviously don’t condone pirate

It's fine if you do, this is a piracy community.

11
Using i2p for torrenting

11
- This is probably the best answer in terms of avoiding lawyers. It’s also the worst answer in terms of practicality.
  
  While i occasionally use i2p for torrenting, the vast majority of content is only available on the public internet, because the vast majority of people aren’t running i2p nodes.
  
  If you can find what you’re looking for on i2p though, it’s probably worth it to get it from there.
  
  (also please correct me if i’m wrong, this is just based on my personal experience)
  
  9
I use a seedbox from abroad and sync to home

Hey lawyer, please don't sue me :)

9
a law company can basically send a legal letter asking your ISP

It's the same in France, and I guess also all over Europe. Those companies mostly look at who is seeding torrents, and that's why you can safely use direct-downloads like Uptobox (DD) or Usenet.

VPNs can fail and not all VPNs allow you to torrent

You're pretty safe if you use the application given by the VPN, and most don't care about torrents. Also e.g. Mullvad has a page to make sure that you are not leaking info (https://mullvad.net/en/check) and other VPNs should have this too.

You can stream movies

The article is wrong here: you either download or you torrent. "Streaming" is not a technical concept. You mostly get caught when you seed.

7
- all Europe
  
  Nope, here in italy there is no need for vpn or whatsoever
  
  Also Sweden should be fine iirc
  
  2
  
  Belgium is often very friendly to pirates, but it is inconsistent. Like others, they get you for distributing, but I haven't heard od anyone getting busted after 2012 or so.
  
  2
- do you think Europe cracking down on piracy is why Usenet is becoming more popular or has it been a long time coming?
  
  2
  
  I only used usenet in the past to talk about programming and I'm not knowledgable about it. I guess it never really died but it was hidden because it's difficult to use: you need to pay for both an indexer AND binaries, it's weird. I'm still not sure it's popular. Its usage may increase in some circles due to having some tutorials and applications like Sonarr, but I could be wrong.
  
  1
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy

Thank me later

6
- Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
  
  4
- thanks dude! but isn't this community better? idk, I felt like there were not enough people there.
  
  2
  
  It has 2nd highest subs across lemmy instances.
  
  https://lemmyverse.net/communities?order=subscribers&nsfw=null
  
  5
  
  dbzer0 is literally by the old r/piracy mod.
  Hello from there.
  
  4
  
  How so? that’s the much bigger instance.
  
  4
To summarize, your IP is visible to your ISP (internet service provider) and a law company can basically send a legal letter asking your ISP to identify you and you will be identified and your address and details will be given to the Lawyers.

That's pretty much how it works in the US, FWIW. From my understanding there are torrenting clients that have a killswitch that stops the download immediately if your VPN fails.

6
OCHs were way more common in Germany than in other countries. Biggest boards like boerse and gulli used only OCHs. My guess is its because of those laws that torrenting was risky. But the truth is that for one pirate who used vpns, torrents and OCHs, there probably are a hundred people using streaming sites.

If you are interested in the German piracy history, there is a book anout the gulli board: http://gulliwars.com/

4
I don’t live in Germany but it seems like a seed box or a Debrid service would fix that up nice and easy.

3
Good VPN (I use PIA) > Docker > qBittorrent.

If you configure your VPN to be the only network available to your Docker Container, then leaks are technically impossible.

But if you just put qBt with a VPN and a proper configuration, it is almost as good.

3
- very helpful! thank you!
  
  1
I'm from Germany. In theory a VPN with a Killswitch is enough. In reality, I am so paranoid about Waldorf frommer that I only pirate using one click hosters.

3
A vpn?

Like mullvad

3
My biggest problem is finding actual German language versions of popular movies and series. Where would one look for these?

1
They dont use torrents. Never. Any fellow german i know that got busted used a torrent. There are lawfirms specialized sending letters to torrent users. In theory you could still get in trouble with streaming and one click hosters but in practice the chances are really slim. Lets just say i never got a letter from a lawfirm since i never used a torrent.

-3
- BS. I am a german torrenter
  
  7
- You don’t know how it works then. I’ve been torrenting in Germany since I cared to do it and nothing ever happened.
  
  2

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