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How do VPN companies get away with DMCA? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

43 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've noticed many people promote VPNs for torrenting to evade legal troubles in some places. But I wonder how do VPN companies get away with legal complaints? Especially if their servers are located in Germany or Japan, where piracy is heavily penalized.

p.s. I have never used a VPN for piracy, and I have never received any DMCA emails.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Its simple really. If you have an IP address on a torrent network, contact its owner. The owner of the IP will then be forced to contact the user... But if the owner doesn't keep logs... Then they don't know who the user is... And the claim can't progress any further. But not all VPNs are created equal. Some keep logs. And that's not good for privacy.

For you not getting DMCA, you may use private trackers only. If not, maybe you got lucky, or you just ignored the emails from your provider or your provider doesn't follow up with complaints.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

~~But it's VPN providers who rent the servers that have downloaded the torrents. So they can basically say it's not done by us, but the users of our service, and thus they don't bear any consequences? It seems like such a good business model.~~

VPN providers do not bear any responsibilities for providing services for piracy.

The DMCA's principal innovation in the field of copyright is the exemption from direct and indirect liability of Internet service providers and other intermediaries.

So technically if VPN providers do not keep logs, you are fine. But since it's impossible to know how VPN providers servers are implemented, still there are risks.

I mostly use public trackers. Maybe it's just my ISP doesn't care.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Plot twist: RIAA and MPAA own all the major VPN providers, and/or the data centers they rent from.

/ConapiracyTheory

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Correct. That's also why it's important to find providers thatchave passed many independant audits. Like ProtonVPN or Mulvad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

How come private trackers are considered secure, wouldn’t the same approach to IP logging work once you obtained access to a tracker?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The barrier to entry into private trackers is high enough that it's not worth it. Soon after they started sending DMCA letters the admins would be alerted and it would take about 5 minutes to identify the preparator and ban them, and whoever invited them, and their whole invite tree. People complain about it being difficult to join private trackers, but it's really a security feature.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Private trackers are no more "secure" than public aside from the barriers to entry... However, it's not like someone working for the MPAA couldn't pass an interview or whatever it is they do these days...

I'd still use a VPN if I were still on private trackers.

That said, I use a VPN always, so... 🤷🏻