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.

  • ANIMATEK@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Azzy@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      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)

  • glad_cat@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • Clone_IX@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

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

  • bier@kbin.social
    02·
    1 year ago

    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.