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

submitted 1 month ago by haroldfinch@lemmy.ml to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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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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[–] bastionntb@lemmy.ml 41 points 1 month ago (1 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.

[–] haroldfinch@lemmy.ml 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.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 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

[–] bastionntb@lemmy.ml 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.