I’m not from Germany and not a lawyer so take this with a pinch of salt, but they wouldn’t be offering a settlement at such an early stage if they were confident they could successfully sue you. If it were me, I’d ignore them, and if it gets to the point I can no longer ignore them, I’d deny deny deny.
In Germany private law firms can carry out the investigation, warning letters and prosecution, maybe in the latter case with the GVU. Germany loves its citizens reporting eachother ever since the DDR days.
How can they prove you downloaded something if all they can see is an IP address? For all you know you accidently left your wifi open and some ruffian driving by downloaded the file.
Edit: guess I could have read the link first.
The German Federal Supreme Court decided that every person who owns an internet connection is under an obligation to ensure that it is secured.
“secured” in this instance means password protected. This does not mean it can’t be accessed by tech-savvy people with nefarious intentions. That’s why you can still claim you never had anything to do with it and get away with it, because you did your duty and an IP isn’t enough to identify a person.
I’m not from Germany and not a lawyer so take this with a pinch of salt, but they wouldn’t be offering a settlement at such an early stage if they were confident they could successfully sue you. If it were me, I’d ignore them, and if it gets to the point I can no longer ignore them, I’d deny deny deny.
The situation in Germany is terrible - https://blog.raychenon.com/file-sharing-violations-in-germany/
In Germany private law firms can carry out the investigation, warning letters and prosecution, maybe in the latter case with the GVU. Germany loves its citizens reporting eachother ever since the DDR days.
My advice would be to move anywhere but Germany.
How can they prove you downloaded something if all they can see is an IP address? For all you know you accidently left your wifi open and some ruffian driving by downloaded the file.
Edit: guess I could have read the link first.
“secured” in this instance means password protected. This does not mean it can’t be accessed by tech-savvy people with nefarious intentions. That’s why you can still claim you never had anything to do with it and get away with it, because you did your duty and an IP isn’t enough to identify a person.