I was looking through the megathread and saw this real-debrid thing. I have heard this name some times so I read what it does but wasn’t able to understand it. If someone could explain it to me I would appreciate it.
Also, it caught my attention that “it’s a good way to prevent your IP from ever hitting the torrent’s swarm, which is the main cause of receiving copyright infringement letters”. Does this mean it’s an alternative to a VPN when torrenting? Is it like a seedboxes or something? Are there any free alternatives?
Real-Debrid logs your all data. If they’re ever hacked or cracked down by police, you can be in danger. In many countries there’s a risk of heavy fines if you get caught pirating media.
Very much depends on the country, though. In Germany for example, it is illegal to actively share media (so upload via torrent), but it’s “legal” (ie, not fineable) to stream or download via one-click-hosters.
A relative of mine that lives in germany told me that it used to be like that but it got changed 5-6 years ago, is he maybe misinformed?
I just looked into it briefly and you’re right, there seems to have been some development:
Full text: https://www.juraforum.de/news/boersebz-direct-downloads-verletzen-urheberrechte_247270
Translation: Criminal liability of the downloader
However, users who download this data also infringe copyrights if it is obvious to a reasonable and fair-minded person that the public presentation (the offer on the servers of the one-click hoster) is made without the permission of the actual rights holder. This is certainly the case if, for example, a film is offered before its theatrical release. However, the obviousness should also be given after the theatrical release, since no one can expect a film production company to make its films available free of charge on servers of one-click hosts.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
It also states that downloaders are currently not being pursued, because it is too difficult to prove.
It is officially illegal since a few years ago. But they usually don’t go after some person who streamed something, since it’s really not worth the effort.