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Thousands of Germans Threatened With €250 Fines For Streaming Porn

Posted by samzenpus on from the paying-the-price dept.

PolygamousRanchKid writes "Thousands of German users that have used a porn website to stream shows have received threatening letters from a local law firm demanding €250 ($344) per certain watched clips, Chip.de reports. Apparently, a Swiss-based firm that owns the content hosted by porn site Redtube has tasked a law firm with collecting fines for each of its shows that was streamed online in the region. The law firm has apparently received a go ahead from a local court, and as many as ten thousand warnings may have been set to users, for porn shows watched in August."

4 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Oh Dear. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd better cross Germany off the list countries to live in.

    1. Re:Oh Dear. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I feel no pity for the people who stream porn though, just what exactly did you think would happen if you weren't buying the videos?"

      nothing?

      how many people have been prosecuted for watching tv content on youtube? nobody.

      I agree with you. The poster you are responding to falls into the trap: "I don't like it, so I'm OK with them being hit with a stick". As you mention, change the title from a porn show to Family Guy episode (which are all over YouTube) and a million Americans searching for "Brian dies" on YouTube. Every one of those millions of people owe Fox $300, right? How would the poster feel now? How does he know any video on YouTube isn't copyrighted by someone who can hire a lawyer? Music video, TV show clips, a little indy show from another website?

      The previous poster needs to work on their ability to abstract a concept from their own biases.

  2. Bahahahahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It should tell you something when a business decides that 10,000 of its consumers are criminals. Your business model is broken, you can sue all you like but it still wont fix what's really broken.

    1. Re:Bahahahahaha by Dr+Max · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It should tell you something when mearly going to a website and viewing something can make you a criminal. It's not like torrenting where you can argue that by downloading, you're also uploading to others; they just went to a site and pressed play. If a music station forgot to pay for a songs royalty, would the record label be able to sue anyone listening to that station at the time? What if a billboard had an unauthorised copyrighted image on it, is every motorist going past it going to get a letter and a fine?

      --
      Rocket Surgeon.