So either rent a server in some country that doesn’t recognize copyright law, or uproot your entire life and move there? Why would anyone choose the second option?
That's not true. ISPs are supposed to monitor their networks for illegal activity and notify consumers if they detect them doing illegal things. I got threatened with disconnection about 10 years ago, because my then-wife was downloading TV series fairly regularly via BitTorrent.
Also, people using stuff like IPTV and the likes are routinely cracked down on, with jail sentences and all.
I honestly have no idea how you could come up with a sentence like that. The UK is among the most piracy-restricting countries in Western Europe, because of the massive influence of a certain media-baron over the political landscape among other things.
because everyone I know pirates and no one I know has had an issue with it. I've never read an article about anyone being prosecuted for it. respectable people do it without fear
> As we said earlier, such campaigns don’t have a terribly strong history of success in the UK. The courts have also previously warned such firms to be very careful about the use of threatening language, given that those being targeted are not yet proven to be guilty of what they are accused.
> Voltage seems to require the letter recipients’ to convince the firm that they weren’t responsible, but in law, the burden of proof is normally on Voltage to prove that the recipient is the one responsible and not the other way around.
Digital Economy Act 2017 increased the already-existing penalties to max 10 years in prison for copyright infringement - which you technically commit every time you fire up BitTorrent without blocking upload. The same act (and its predecessor 2010 bill) compels ISPs with over 400k subscribers (i.e. all the big ones) to monitor subscribers for such activity.
The fact that prosecuting authorities tend to go after distributors rather than consumers is simply due to a value-for-money calculation. There is no formal or informal decriminalisation of consumer piracy, if they could find a cheap way to go after everyone they would - and they likely will, sooner or later.
if we've had laws such as that since 2017, and they were being enforced, you would have heard of people getting sentences, or even fines, right?
surely you can find stronger evidence than the police taking the unprecedented step of contacting - contacting, not arresting, or fining - a few tens of thousand in one region of the country?