5 ms·

"distribution is the act protected by copyright" was the rule all along in many (non-US) jurisdictions, not an American so not sure about how the US does things

"distribution is the act protected by copyright" was the rule all along in many (non-US) jurisdictions, not an American so not sure about how the US does things. This is why you often see people getting fines for torrenting (Germany is extremely notorious for this for example), but fines for using Usenet, IPTV, streaming or book download services are a lot more rare (which doesn't mean they're nonexistent)! Operating / selling / promoting those services is a different matter, and most sensationalist articles about "people fined for IPTV piracy" are actually about people involved with that businesss, not the users. I even remember reading about some (European) torrenting case that was successfully defended on the grounds of something like setting a 1 byte per second cap on uploads, but I can't find the source right now.

codetrotter 2y ago
> This is why you often see people getting fines for torrenting (Germany is extremely notorious for this for example), but fines for using Usenet, IPTV, streaming or book download services are a lot more rare (which doesn't mean they're nonexistent)! It’s a lot easier to find out who is torrenting than to find out who is using Usenet for example though. With torrents you can see the IP addresses of peers. And then I suppose they ask a court to tell the ISP to say which customer had that IP addresses at that time. With Usenet you’d have to get a court to get each Usenet provider to give you a list of all customers that downloaded a file. That seems a little bit different to me. And who knows, in the case of the torrents maybe they don’t always even need to get a court involved. With all of the data brokers out there, maybe there are lists you can buy of real people tied to different IP addresses and when you have a match you send a threatening letter telling them to pay up or they will take you to court?
- trilbyglens 2y ago
  Germany is wild. You will get a knock on your door within hours of firing up a torrent client
  - Alex_L_Wood 2y ago
    What? No, you will not. You could get fined for seeding some popular stuff, but even then no one is knocking on your door, it'll probably come in the form of a letter, and even then it's not a guarantee.
    - relistan 2y ago
      I lived in Germany. At least back then it was definitely a letter. They were not very good at it, though, and I received one for torrenting large open source software.
      - hiccuphippo 2y ago
        I wonder if people could form a nonprofit that starts torrenting public domain media or open source software as a honeypot to find these firms and bury them in legal procedures. I'd gladly donate to such a nonprofit.
    - garaetjjte 2y ago
      Do these letters have teeth or just trying to scare you into a settlement for lawsuit that would never come?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - moooo99 2y ago
    Huh, what in the world are you talking about. If you’re torrenting and you happen to get caught, you will receive a letter from some copyright lawyer with a fine of X amount as well as a cease and desist. The only knock on your door is the mail delivery man
  - mft_ 2y ago
    Not sure if this is just misinformed, or anti-Germany/EU propaganda? Either way, not true. In Germany, if you torrent something without protection of a VPN, you may receive a letter from a blood-sucking legal firm within a week or two, with a fine that can be argued down somewhat.
- RajT88 2y ago
  This process of checking seeding peers to reporting an IP to an ISP to them send a user a nastygram is pretty automated. Torrent a Nintendo game (not even that new of one) and you will get an ISP nastygram within minutes. I've heard.
BrandoElFollito 2y ago
Are there cases in Germany who went through until the end? In France despite a hefty budget, the org in charge (HADOPI) was so bad they merged it with another one and I think it os over now.
consp 2y ago
Downloading used to be legal here. Now it is explicitly not anymore. Because why not if you can squeeze some extra money from end users who would have never bought your item for the insane prices asked.
- j1elo 2y ago
  With "here", you mean Germany? Are you sure? Last time I looked into these things (granted, in 2022 or so), seemed to me that for example using Stremio with a torrent add-on would risk a fine in Germany, but using a Debrid service (that torrents in your name and you just do a direct download like e.g. is done in Youtube) would be free of risks or legal threats. I'm not in Germany though, so I didn't research it much further. Just out of curiosity.
- tempfile 2y ago
  When and where? This does not sound true for any jurisdiction I know about.
dspillett 2y ago
> something like setting a 1 byte per second cap on uploads You generally can't set a client to 0B/s (as zero usually means “no limit”) but I'm not sure a good¹ lawyer on the other side would let you get away with claiming glacial distribution is not still distribution. At 1Kbyte/sec (I don't know a client off the top of my head that has control down to the single byte) a 50MByte file (not unusual for a book with illustrations/photos) can be transferred in less than 15 hours, a couple of Mbyte (a plain text book, compressed or just short) in less than one hour. There are clients that can be set to not seed at all, or you could patch a common client that way. Some that don't even offer the capability at all (some command-line wget-style tools), that would be a legally safest option IMO². ---- [1] good as in good at their job, no moral judgement implied! [2] caveat: not a lawyer, never played one on TV, nor even in local am-dram.
- foobarian 2y ago
  transmission-cli -u 0 <url>
  - silverliver 2y ago
    This. It can be easily done in the GUIs as well (Don't ask how I know). I don't know where GP got the idea that you can't set a client to 0B/s. All the clients I am aware of support setting the seeding rate.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
  > I'm not sure a good¹ lawyer on the other side would let you get away with claiming Fortunately that’s not how courts work. I’m not familiar with the case, but it’s possible setting a 1 byte per second limit showed intent to not distribute.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
    In the context of a book, that could still be seeding a book every few hours..
tempfile 2y ago
> "distribution is the act protected by copyright" was the rule all along in many (non-US) jurisdictions, not an American so not sure about how the US does things. I am pretty sure this is false. It is just that distribution carries heavier sentences and is easier to discover, not unlike with drug dealing. It is not legal, anywhere, to (for example) borrow a DVD from someone, copy it, and give the original back. In some jurisdictions you have a right to backups, and a right to resale, but you emphatically do not have a right to privately copy.
- buzer 2y ago
  > It is not legal, anywhere, to (for example) borrow a DVD from someone, copy it, and give the original back. In some jurisdictions you have a right to backups, and a right to resale, but you emphatically do not have a right to privately copy. If the DVD doesn't have strong DRM (which is pretty rare, CSS counts as strong DRM) you are allowed to make a private copy in Finland. There is a levy on various storage mediums to compensate private copying. I believe there are similar laws in other countries based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy I'm not 100% sure if strictly downloading from illegal source makes downloader liable for damages, as far as I know in all court cases there was seeding involved (in Finland). Of course the levy is somewhat questionable these days since pretty much everything has strong DRM (as bar is very low) and thus you are not allowed to make copies. The authors who protect their work with strong DRM still get part of the levies though.
  - tempfile 2y ago
    Huh, you are absolutely right. I think I knew about the private copying levy but didn't consider it when writing my original comment.
  - RajT88 2y ago
    Canada has (had?) something similar. Once the movie and music industry got a significant tax levied on recordable media (flash cards, optical media, etc.) pirating became defacto legal. At least this is what some Canadians explained to me once.
registeredcorn 2y ago
Sorry, I may be missing something. Can you please clarify: >you often see people getting fines for torrenting >fines for using [...] are a lot more rare Are you saying something kind of like, "When you torrent, you are also distributing that copyrighted information, which is often prosecuted, but simply procuring that information (without redistribution) is not." Or is it something different? For example: in America, it is completely legal to buy, sell, and own a radar detector. Radar detectors are used to "detect" when the police use radar to catch speeding motorists. In spite of it being legal to own a radar detector, it is illegal to actively use a radar detector for its intended purpose. There are various reasons I have heard for this, but the most common was that the components of the device itself is not illegal, and picking up those signals are not illegal (because they are targeted at the public) but the reason and intent to use one is to commit a crime, and the use of a device in the assistance of committing an offense (speeding) is illegal. It's this kind of weird grey area, where you can possess the thing, but can't use it for the reason you (likely) bought it for. Is it kind of like that? Like, you can possess copyrighted material that you have not paid for (for whatever justification), but actively sharing that copyrighted material without authorization, is criminal? If so, does that mean that lots of Germans simply don't seed illegal torrents?

codetrotter 2y ago

> This is why you often see people getting fines for torrenting (Germany is extremely notorious for this for example), but fines for using Usenet, IPTV, streaming or book download services are a lot more rare (which doesn't mean they're nonexistent)! It’s a lot easier to find out who is torrenting than to find out who is using Usenet for example though. With torrents you can see the IP addresses of peers. And then I suppose they ask a court to tell the ISP to say which customer had that IP addresses at that time. With Usenet you’d have to get a court to get each Usenet provider to give you a list of all customers that downloaded a file. That seems a little bit different to me. And who knows, in the case of the torrents maybe they don’t always even need to get a court involved. With all of the data brokers out there, maybe there are lists you can buy of real people tied to different IP addresses and when you have a match you send a threatening letter telling them to pay up or they will take you to court?

trilbyglens 2y ago
Germany is wild. You will get a knock on your door within hours of firing up a torrent client
- Alex_L_Wood 2y ago
  What? No, you will not. You could get fined for seeding some popular stuff, but even then no one is knocking on your door, it'll probably come in the form of a letter, and even then it's not a guarantee.
  - relistan 2y ago
    I lived in Germany. At least back then it was definitely a letter. They were not very good at it, though, and I received one for torrenting large open source software.
    - hiccuphippo 2y ago
      I wonder if people could form a nonprofit that starts torrenting public domain media or open source software as a honeypot to find these firms and bury them in legal procedures. I'd gladly donate to such a nonprofit.
  - garaetjjte 2y ago
    Do these letters have teeth or just trying to scare you into a settlement for lawsuit that would never come?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- moooo99 2y ago
  Huh, what in the world are you talking about. If you’re torrenting and you happen to get caught, you will receive a letter from some copyright lawyer with a fine of X amount as well as a cease and desist. The only knock on your door is the mail delivery man
- mft_ 2y ago
  Not sure if this is just misinformed, or anti-Germany/EU propaganda? Either way, not true. In Germany, if you torrent something without protection of a VPN, you may receive a letter from a blood-sucking legal firm within a week or two, with a fine that can be argued down somewhat.
RajT88 2y ago
This process of checking seeding peers to reporting an IP to an ISP to them send a user a nastygram is pretty automated. Torrent a Nintendo game (not even that new of one) and you will get an ISP nastygram within minutes. I've heard.

BrandoElFollito 2y ago

Are there cases in Germany who went through until the end? In France despite a hefty budget, the org in charge (HADOPI) was so bad they merged it with another one and I think it os over now.

consp 2y ago

Downloading used to be legal here. Now it is explicitly not anymore. Because why not if you can squeeze some extra money from end users who would have never bought your item for the insane prices asked.

j1elo 2y ago
With "here", you mean Germany? Are you sure? Last time I looked into these things (granted, in 2022 or so), seemed to me that for example using Stremio with a torrent add-on would risk a fine in Germany, but using a Debrid service (that torrents in your name and you just do a direct download like e.g. is done in Youtube) would be free of risks or legal threats. I'm not in Germany though, so I didn't research it much further. Just out of curiosity.
tempfile 2y ago
When and where? This does not sound true for any jurisdiction I know about.

dspillett 2y ago

> something like setting a 1 byte per second cap on uploads You generally can't set a client to 0B/s (as zero usually means “no limit”) but I'm not sure a good¹ lawyer on the other side would let you get away with claiming glacial distribution is not still distribution. At 1Kbyte/sec (I don't know a client off the top of my head that has control down to the single byte) a 50MByte file (not unusual for a book with illustrations/photos) can be transferred in less than 15 hours, a couple of Mbyte (a plain text book, compressed or just short) in less than one hour. There are clients that can be set to not seed at all, or you could patch a common client that way. Some that don't even offer the capability at all (some command-line wget-style tools), that would be a legally safest option IMO². ---- [1] good as in good at their job, no moral judgement implied! [2] caveat: not a lawyer, never played one on TV, nor even in local am-dram.

foobarian 2y ago
transmission-cli -u 0 <url>
- silverliver 2y ago
  This. It can be easily done in the GUIs as well (Don't ask how I know). I don't know where GP got the idea that you can't set a client to 0B/s. All the clients I am aware of support setting the seeding rate.
TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
> I'm not sure a good¹ lawyer on the other side would let you get away with claiming Fortunately that’s not how courts work. I’m not familiar with the case, but it’s possible setting a 1 byte per second limit showed intent to not distribute.
- hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
  In the context of a book, that could still be seeding a book every few hours..

tempfile 2y ago

> "distribution is the act protected by copyright" was the rule all along in many (non-US) jurisdictions, not an American so not sure about how the US does things. I am pretty sure this is false. It is just that distribution carries heavier sentences and is easier to discover, not unlike with drug dealing. It is not legal, anywhere, to (for example) borrow a DVD from someone, copy it, and give the original back. In some jurisdictions you have a right to backups, and a right to resale, but you emphatically do not have a right to privately copy.

buzer 2y ago
> It is not legal, anywhere, to (for example) borrow a DVD from someone, copy it, and give the original back. In some jurisdictions you have a right to backups, and a right to resale, but you emphatically do not have a right to privately copy. If the DVD doesn't have strong DRM (which is pretty rare, CSS counts as strong DRM) you are allowed to make a private copy in Finland. There is a levy on various storage mediums to compensate private copying. I believe there are similar laws in other countries based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy I'm not 100% sure if strictly downloading from illegal source makes downloader liable for damages, as far as I know in all court cases there was seeding involved (in Finland). Of course the levy is somewhat questionable these days since pretty much everything has strong DRM (as bar is very low) and thus you are not allowed to make copies. The authors who protect their work with strong DRM still get part of the levies though.
- tempfile 2y ago
  Huh, you are absolutely right. I think I knew about the private copying levy but didn't consider it when writing my original comment.
- RajT88 2y ago
  Canada has (had?) something similar. Once the movie and music industry got a significant tax levied on recordable media (flash cards, optical media, etc.) pirating became defacto legal. At least this is what some Canadians explained to me once.

registeredcorn 2y ago

Sorry, I may be missing something. Can you please clarify: >you often see people getting fines for torrenting >fines for using [...] are a lot more rare Are you saying something kind of like, "When you torrent, you are also distributing that copyrighted information, which is often prosecuted, but simply procuring that information (without redistribution) is not." Or is it something different? For example: in America, it is completely legal to buy, sell, and own a radar detector. Radar detectors are used to "detect" when the police use radar to catch speeding motorists. In spite of it being legal to own a radar detector, it is illegal to actively use a radar detector for its intended purpose. There are various reasons I have heard for this, but the most common was that the components of the device itself is not illegal, and picking up those signals are not illegal (because they are targeted at the public) but the reason and intent to use one is to commit a crime, and the use of a device in the assistance of committing an offense (speeding) is illegal. It's this kind of weird grey area, where you can possess the thing, but can't use it for the reason you (likely) bought it for. Is it kind of like that? Like, you can possess copyrighted material that you have not paid for (for whatever justification), but actively sharing that copyrighted material without authorization, is criminal? If so, does that mean that lots of Germans simply don't seed illegal torrents?