Whatever it is, you might have gotten away with it in your home country. However, illegally downloading copyrighted content in Germany is severely condemned by law and is frequently enforced by private law firms who send cease and desist letters.
If you are reading those lines, you are probably holding an Abmahnung letter from a German lawyer asking you to pay for compensation. I will ask you not to panic and will reply to the many questions you have right now. Here is everything you want to know on how to respond to a warning letter for illegally downloading copyrighted content in Germany. German laws concerning file-sharing are pretty strict and clearly condemn any kind of file sharing activity related to copyrighted content.
Using services like torrent clients makes you automatically share the file you are downloading. This is why torrent and other P2P clients users receive a lot of letters from German lawyers. Since April , users of illegal streaming services also broadcasting of live events can also get in trouble because of a decision from the European Court of Justice.
It established here that users of such services are indeed acting unlawfully. Only premium users can easily identified. German courts have stated that the owner of the internet access is in theory responsible for any wrong-doings happening on that network. Those German law firms sending warning letters usually hire specialized third-party services that are scanning P2P nodes and clients, recording IP adresses that are currently downloading illegally in Germany.
They are then authorized by law to ask your internet provider to disclose any information linked to that IP adress. This is how they obtained your private details. Again, this is why law enforcement is really much more difficult to apply for illegal streaming services users.
Beware however premium users; if you are paying a fee on one of those platforms, your IP will definitely be stored on the server, thereby increasing the risks of getting caught.
If you want to protect your traffic and use all services privately, you can get a VPN that will hide everything from anyone else. You can use NordVPN for example, which often considered one of the bests out there, especially since streaming works well with it and you connect up to 6 devices with one account switch to English in the footer if needed.
There is no clear set of rules that puts a figure for infringements. The figure is entirely up to them within a certain range. We will see later how it is possible to bargain it down a little. It mostly an argument to scare you into paying fast and without asking any questions.
However, make sure to see the difference between the different fees mentioned in this document. There are fees for sending you this Abmahnung, the fine mentioned as repair for their clients more details on that later in the post.
Now this is a little tricky because it is true that some scam letters e. However, most often than not, the warning letter for illegally downloading copyrighted content is a real one coming from a real law firm who represents company like Viacom, Sony, 20th Century Fox, etc.
Here are some law firms sending cease and desist letters in Germany hat-tip to Raychenon. Beware of the following signs, they can be pointers. In doubt, always consult with a professional. This is the German equivalent to a cease and desist letter that the law firm wants you to sign to prove that you recognize yourself to be guilty of the accusations.
Do not sign this document and do not send it back! By doing so, you would give more legal ground against you and would have to pay. Law firms in Germany are entitled by law to claim compensation on behalf of their clients for the infringement. The total number you might see on your letter is based on 3 different legal concepts:. Working under the assumption that a signed cease and desist letter will prevent further infringements by the culprit, the law firm will generally only press compensation and reimbursement charges.
Together, these generally amount to around about 1. Here is a example based on real-life practices from a well known law firm. In most cases:. There are different courses of action you can take at this point and i guess it depends on how bold you are and how good you are dealing with a possibly nerve-racking situation.
While curling yourself in a ball and hoping that it will go away might not seem like the mature and adult thing to do, this reaction might still have a few arguments for it. Reacting this way is basically counting on the weaknesses of the system ; those German law firms are very busy you see. They send hundred of thousands of warning letters a year to the average Joe for illegally downloading movies in Germany. If they do follow-up, additional legal fees might occur and it can be enforced.
This is a risk you take if you pick this option. What's next? Karaoke user get dragged to prison for singing one of their favorite songs, or someone being sued for reading a book out load without paying the author.
All jokes aside, Downloading ROMS should not get somebody arrested because they are simply as I said just playing a game.
Some people don't have the money to buy games from the producers and turn to this method to play the game anyway. Arresting people who download ROMS to me is just a stupid and pointless effort to fill up the jails.
Rapists, Murderers, Drug Dealers and Terrorists should be the people occupying jails. Not people who download ROMS. While it is true big companies such as Nintendo are losing a couple million on games that could be sold, how much more billions are they making on games that are legally sold?
They can handle this loss. After all, they are one of the biggest companies in gaming. Why arrest someone for a download when you can arrest a rapist or a murderer? The downloader would be taking valuable prison space for an innocent crime. Downloading unauthorized ROMs is a form of copyright infringement and is illegal, much like pirating movies and other forms of media.
Copyright protection usually lasts for 75 years, so it will be long before any of your favorite video games become public domain, even the ones that are no longer in the market. However, many enthusiasts argue that simply downloading ROMs for personal use can sometimes be allowed, like in instances where you are downloading a ROM of a game that you already have a physical copy of.
The Fair Use Argument. Such a scenario can be covered by the Fair Use Argument because you can use your copy of the game however you want, and that includes being able to save a backup copy or emulate it on your preferred device. It can be argued that there is no market harm for the developer because your emulation is not substituting for an actual purchase. What about ripping your own ROMs? Some devices like the Retrode adapter can extract your game via USB, so you can emulate and play on your chosen device.
As long as there is no distribution involved, this can also be covered by fair use. Both the games and the game systems they come from are copyrighted intellectual property, as two ROM websites found out the hard way when Nintendo sued them this week. While those sites were sharing Nintendo ROMs, the act of downloading them is also likely illegal, even if you already own those games on an old cartridge or disc.
To find out more about how the law views game emulators, I spoke with three different intellectual property lawyers. All the lawyers agreed that emulation sites are committing copyright infringement if the games they offer are protected by owners as copyrighted material which they usually are. But Kane could not immediately think of any examples of companies doing this over emulated video games. Determining exactly how long a video game copyright can last is complicated, though.
You can see how much situations vary here. Things like where and when the game was made and who owns it are all factors. Plus, every years copyright statutes are reevaluated. One reason people may seek an emulated ROM game is because the company that made it no longer exists, making the title hard to find. Thus, downloading it from a ROM hosting site would be a form of copyright infringement. It comes down to enforcement, at the end of the day. People might tolerate the emulation of certain games, … but if the actual owner decides to enforce against you, then you would be in the wrong.
For the most part, emulators in and of themselves do not fall under any copyright infringement, depending on their purpose.
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