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