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Since moving to Germany you're always faced with stories of fees to pay upon internet usage (streaming movies, z-library, google adblocker add-on, VPN add-on etc.) what's the punishable acts online in Germany, that don't scream "illegal"? Somethings that're completely normal in other countries as long as you're not profiting

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I suspect you are getting garbled accounts of Störerhaftung and Unterlassungserklärung.

  • As the operator of a WLAN, you are held liable for illegal use of this device even if there is no personal, criminal responsibility. If someone is streaming pirated content through your WLAN, the lawyers of the copyright holder could sue you. There were reforms in 2017, which satisfied neither side.
  • If you have been violating copyrights, or trademarks, or competition law, the other side can have their lawyer send you a sort of cease-and-desist letter, and bill you for the work of their lawyer, and demand that you agree to a punitive fine if you repeat it.

For someone who is unfamiliar with German legal terms, there are many pitfalls in the reaction to these letters which can become expensive.

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Streaming movies (pirated movies) and similar actions are surely not only problematic in Germany. Adblocker and vpn are probably fairy tales.

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    What I mean is pirating movies is usually ok for the watcher but not for the Website owners or Who try to make Profit from it, they are punishable for that. Is it the same for Z-library?
    – Ari
    Commented Feb 6 at 15:32
  • There's a European court of Justice ruling that illegal streaming is copyright infringement, so no, I don't think that's ok. And not just in Germany.
    – DonQuiKong
    Commented Feb 6 at 15:52
  • @DonQuiKong What Ari's talking about is that in most countries, only the website where you watched it gets punished. Users aren't expected to research every website before watching. (You might think Netflix is legit, but what if Netflix makes a licensing mistake, then everyone who watched that movie gets fined?)
    – Stack Exchange Supports Israel
    Commented Feb 20 at 1:55
  • @user253751 that's just not true for pirated stuff. People get warning letters with hefty fees all the time (Google it if you don't believe me). And yes, thinking the page is legit does help, but stating that you thought new cinema movies were free to watch on a page ending with .to doesn't work. People have tried.
    – DonQuiKong
    Commented Feb 20 at 6:15

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