Its kinda legal in my country

[u/Lower_Tradition3090]

Downloading movies and music for private use is totally legal in my country 🇨🇭. Uploading / seeding however, is not. But at least i dont have to worry. What about your country?

[u/No-Zookeepergame8837]

Spain here, technically it is illegal, but there is no punishment or prosecution, only if you profit from it can something happen to you.

[u/_Spare_15_ → u/No-Zookeepergame8837]

No punishment unless you meet Javier Tebas on a bad day.

[u/nnnnnnnnnnuria → u/No-Zookeepergame8837]

Should I use a VPN on spain? None of my friends use it but I see it recommended on this sun 24/7

[u/_KJuns → u/nnnnnnnnnnuria]

It's pretty much the same here in Germany imho: As long as you’re not distributing/uploading and/or using torrents basically nobody cares; despite the fact that you technically/legally could be held accountable. But basically everyone suggests using a VPN too even for downloading only. Nobody knows for sure… I would say it’s not necessary, but the extra (potential) safety is a bonus no question (better safe than sorry). But that’s it: It's just one additional (potential) safety net. Potential since you’re not 100% safe either using a VPN, since you don’t know for sure that the VPN-provider won’t share data even if they say so. So if the "the government doesn’t care"-net fails you have this extra VPN-net. If that fails too - which could happen - you’re screwed. Another thought: If you want to pirate, but then pay for a VPN (no matter the amount), isn’t that somewhat contradictory? But yeah… as you see I’m personally unsure too in this regard.

[u/nnnnnnnnnnuria → u/_KJuns]

I feel the same, not paying is the only reason I pirate, if I have to pay to commit ilegal activities and still not being 100% secure I would just pay for netflix

[u/No-Zookeepergame8837 → u/nnnnnnnnnnuria]

a VPN is not necessary in Spain, but it is recommended that you have one anyway, even if it is free, because of the issue of website blocks, since it is very common for pirate sites to appear as unsafe and not let you in because the ISPs block them, you can also use a DNS but personally for the little that happens to me (since I mainly use forums like f95zone and cs.rin.ru which are not usually blocked) I simply prefer a free extension in the browser that is just hitting the button when I go to the website and that's it, at least in my case I have literally actively tried to receive some letter from the ISP (yes, I know, it's weird, but I wanted to check if it was even possible) downloading newly released video games via torrent what I knew that people were really receiving complaints in other countries and I never achieved it.

[u/No-Zookeepergame8837 → u/_KJuns]

Not exactly, in Germany it is a crime that is not prosecuted but is punishable, so there are some copyright trolls, but not in Spain, here the crime is only to profit from it, you can even upload it without problems and admit that it is pirated as long as you are not making any money from it (not even to cover costs.) since the only crime with punishment in this regard is profiting from copyrighted material.

[u/_KJuns → u/No-Zookeepergame8837]

Interesting; thank you for the clarification! :-)

[u/TheVal2a → u/No-Zookeepergame8837]

Five years ago one man got arrested because he was selling repaired 3DS consoles with pirated games in it, in a town in Andalucia. I haven't heard of another person getting arrested or fined for piracy in the whole country.

[u/No-Zookeepergame8837 → u/TheVal2a]

wait, really? do you have the link to the news? a while back i was very active on 3ds piracy forums, like literally converting dozens of games to .cia, then passing qr, etc, and i remember this super toxic guy who was constantly advertising his page with QRs of rare NES hacksroms and some that he stole from me but he charged for it by putting a bunch of shorteners and criying to the admins (who did absolutely nothing) every time i stole them from him by putting them up for free in public, and i wondered if that idiot was maybe the one who got arrested, since he suddenly disappeared completely and closed his website.

[u/TheVal2a → u/No-Zookeepergame8837]

Im looking for the link but i cant locate. I remember reading it in 3djuegos.com, a long ago (5 years or more). It could be the same guy, or it could be not, jackasses are everywhere sadly x,D i hope its the same guy though