Free advertising. Yay.

Yes, broad is fine. It’s interesting to see the different approaches. :) I’m sorry if I sounded too harsh.

My understanding was that Germany’s issue is with uploading as well, but I am not German and I am not a lawyer

Lawyer? Me neither.

Indeed. Uploading is problematic, which includes p2p. Downloading not so much. Still illegal though.

There was the story about witcher and CD project who targeted illegal users. Understandably. So downloading isn’t exactly 100% safe. Or using the downloads…

Distribution is the key here, which they can pinpoint to your IP. They can’t come after YOU specifically (usually) but they contact your ISP

Germany:
Which in turn hands out your contact data. And Waldorf + Frommer will send you a form for a Unterlassungserklärung, which you are kindly asked to sign. Plus they will kindly ask for a few hundred euros.

Who then sends you a strongly worded letter about stopping (usually). If this happens repeatedly they will often throttle your bandwidth or even cut you off. Again, usually. This is different everywhere.

Nope. Not the ISPs job here.