The new law is btw. not helping at all. It's lobbying by said lawfirms that bother you and me and in practice things likely will turn out worse. See http://freifunkstattangst.de/2015/09/16/die-bundesregierung-... for details.
If it's Waldorf and Frommer tell them you are cooperating the freifunkstattangst.de and mail them. They dropped at least my case out of fear (or rather tactics on their behalf).
It's a scare game these lawyers are playing. It's ridiciolous that this is still a thing. However most lawyers are profiting of it and the majority of Bundestag members are lawyers. For a (kind of unfair) comparison see here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsberatungsgesetz#Geschich...
Source: http://www.arag.de/auf-ins-leben/udo-vetter/filesharing-oft-...
"Störerhaftung" does not make you liable. It only allows for injunctive relief, not damages [1].
What's creating problems is that the courts make a (rebuttable) presumption that the owner of an internet endpoint is also responsible for copyright violations (and torts in general) arising from its use.
[1] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/englisch_bgb....
[2] http://www.offenenetze.de/tag/sekundare-darlegungslast/ (German only, sorry)
If they are going to just hold you responsible by default, 5,000 Euros is way to high. I could see like 100 Euros, like a steep parking ticket.
Damn that sucks.
And they are free to do so, as most copyright law is written based on the assumption of for profit copying. Meaning that said law assumes the person responsible is doing it industrially, and therefore has deep pockets.
These are assumptions that belong back in the Gutenberg era. Yet any time the call to modernize copyright law, the legislators stay well away from actually considering the assumptions that copyright is based on.
In Poland company bought out rights to one porn movie, then claimed to the police that that file was downloaded by random ip addresses (out of major providers pools) on torrent. Police ordered the companies to release home addresses of those ip users. Then the company slent email demanding settlment money. Some people paid. Now they are suing the company to get their money back. So many people police about this that they issue public statement that there was nothing criminal and they dropped the case.
So, yes, if you shared the access with others (even your own family), that fact may be a get-out-of-jail-free-card. Just don't make the mistake of trying to protect them (there's no need to anyway -- as long as they don't make that mistake either).
Sadly there are still a lot of these frivolous lawsuits and the standard practice is to ask for a ridiculous fee and to sign a cease and desist (don't ever do this without talking to a lawyer -- otherwise you can suffer even worse consequences if additional claims pop up, even if they concern things you did before signing the document).
I think that is what you need.
If you signed one of these in the past and get "caught" again, you're in even worse trouble than you would be otherwise. The last thing you want to do is give them more ammunition against you.
Two copyright claims, from two law firms, for albums I've never heard of, at times that I wasn't in the house.
Because of an arcane, but largely logical German law named "Störerhaftung" I am by default responsible, and have to pay both claims (in the order of €5,000 each). I have no recourse.
Tech-savvy as I am, powerless to defend against a case such as this, where do I stand, I could theoretically bring a case against AVM Deutschland (manufacturer of the Fritzrepeater) but then the burden is on me to prove their buggy software failed, and reset to factory settings.
An impossible situation, and I hope that laws such as these move in the direction of transparency, the Störerhaftung is designed to make sure that someone who loses out always has someone to claim against (common other uses, are for example if drunks throw stones from the top of a building, and then run away, the building owner is responsible, in lieu of finding and proving that the drunkards were responsible) - it's arcane, and whilst well intended, and the "terrorism" argument holds strong, this is about copyright, and always maintaining the Störerhaftung right.