You don't have to convict someone to do irreparable damage to their life. See Nigel Lang, the man referred to in the article.

Yes, but getting arrested requires "dringenden Tatverdacht" (strong suspicion) here. An IP address isn't sufficient without any additional evidence.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, exceptions apply)

For future reference, there is no legal requirement that says you need to formally announce you're not a lawyer on internet forums.

It can still be useful to do so thought, as a shorthand for there potentially being nuances or exceptions to the claim you are making of which you are unaware.

> for there potentially being nuances or exceptions to the claim you are making of which you are unaware.

Making a statement just to avoid an edge case is what we hackers like to call "boilerplate". We don't find it useful, and generally prefer to avoid it, both for the writer and the reader.

I think it pretty important. The logic goes like this.

"This person seems really knowledgeable on law" which leads to

"Must be some sort of a lawyer"

They then go on to assume they have gained valid legal knowledge.

Interesting, I have always thought that Germany is very strict about all cyber stuff.

I have heard that even starting torrent program will get you fine to your inbox.

How do they trace it?

Thats totally absurd; are they going to fine you for driving too, because cars are often used for robbery getaways? How about a fine for ftp? You can torrent over browsers too, so a fine for that? A fine for booting up a computer that might torrent illegally?

Obviously, you can open a torrent client just fine in Germany.

However, there's bunch of companies monitoring popular torrent trackers and since it's all peer-to-peer, they can easily figure out your IP address as soon as you start downloading a torrent they're monitoring (they usually work for a particular distribution company and have a list of files they're interested in). Popcorn Time and similar apps are a common and obvious target.

Once they know your IP address, ISPs are required to disclose your personal data (§ 101 UrhG) and they'll send you a nice letter requesting a payment (Abmahnung). If you do not pay, they might sue you (but probably won't).

If they do sue you, it's on them to prove that it was indeed you who used the IP address at the time, which is - in most cases - an impossible feat.

So, yes, you're highly likely to get in trouble if you torrent in Germany, but you'd probably win of you fight it.

In fairness, what percentage of torrent uses are not for copyright infringement?

It doesn't matter: torrents hardly enables it to exists, any more than ftp does; its just the current tool of choice for piracy.

You ban it, and they'll switch to something else, and you'll have done nothing but make things slightly less convenient but with relatively large cost to enforce. Why not just do the job properly and ban general purpose computers, limited to government approved and locked down hardware, os and apps?

Most Linux distributions provide torrents for disk images.