this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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The data will be safe to play on a linux box.
Whether you'll be safe depends on where you live and whether you have a VPN in a different country.
I had to fight off a law suit for over 2 years over a single movie ~~I torrented~~ someone on my network allegedly torrented from Piratebay (Germany).
Fortunately I live in a country where they don't care about piracy, but maybe I misspelled the question, I meant "sure" it can't contain some kind of virus.
And I guess you won the lawsuit? On Reddit I remember that people would commonly say they got those law suits but people would always suggest "don't do anything about it because they were just warnings".
Yeah, "don't do anything" is horribly advice, at least in Germany.
I managed to avoid the lawsuit by showing the lawyers who wanted to fleece me that I had legal representation and collected enough evidence in my favor to make it difficult.
All they had was a file and an IP address.
It was a back-and-forth of letters between me, them and the court, which eventually refused to formally open a trial.
Any more advice for a fellow torrenter in Germany regarding linux isos (hey lawyer ;))
Using a seedbox from abroad to avoid local downloads.
The way they catch you is by downloading a complete "Linux ISO" you seeded. Their log from that download shows your IP and that's the evidence.
So either don't seed a complete "ISO", or use a VPN from a provider that will laugh at info requests from German lawyers.
Safest way is to make sure you only torrent Linux ISOs that can be legally shared according to their copyright license, of course ;)
It doesn't necessarily have to be a complete iso, but a part of the "Linux ISO" is enough. Since your still helping others complete their "ISO" illegally.
Well already using a seedbox located abroad.
I will just hope it won't be linked back to me lol :p
How serious was it and did you hire a lawyer for that?
Yes, I hired a lawyer for consultation.
Since I was very poor at the time, I could get the cost for it reimbursed from the state, after laying bare my finances in front of a judge.
As for the seriousness, the legal firm moving against me had opened a case before a court in Munich (500km from where I lived) and I had to plead my case in writing to the court.
Next step after a lot of legalese back and forth would have been a summons before the court in person, which didn't happen. The letters just stopped.
In the end, I paid 60€ for fees and postage. They had wanted me to pay 2000€ to settle and my lawyer told me if it goes before a judge, worst probable outcome would have been 600€ in court and lawyer fees.
Yes it's inexcusable in my opinion that they want over 1000€ for a single movie. 600€ is still a lot of money but asking so much more than the "damage" is obviously worth is just...
I heard of some people who actually paid the fine they were asked for, since they didn't know better (it wasn't them but an exchange student from a country where torrenting media isn't an issue, or so they said).