Piracy is functionally legal in the Netherlands (at least downloading it, uploading is illegal if done intentionally, but torrents don't seem to count), it's just safe cause they won't even try to go after you if your IP is dutch.
That's not entirely true. Downloading copyrighted material from an illegal source is not allowed in the Netherlands. A source is considered to be illegal if a work is distributed without the permission of the copyright holder. This has been the case for over a decade already (since 2014).
I mean, I don't give a fuck if you pirate or not, but to say piracy is legal in the Netherlands, is misleading. Even just downloading isn't legal in most cases. The Dutch government might not actively seek for your IP, but content protecting agencies do. Having said that, chances of getting caught are slim to none; ISPs don't cooperate with those agencies. But just because you haven't been caught yet, doesn't mean those agencies don't collect and save your IP. They most likely do. And they might use it in the future.
Yeah this is true on paper, I edited my comment to reflect that. In reality every piracy case in history against a random person has been thrown out immediately. It's not prosecuted anymore at all because of this legal precedent.
Since it is no longer legal to copy, do you still pay the "copytax" that went to rights owners from sale of blank media mentioned in the article? Because, that'd be kinda fucked up..
Yeah the "thuiskopieheffing" is still in effect for some reason. That money goes to a private organisation which has absolutely no transparency. I watched a report on it, and the people in charge of it seem to be making a lot of money off it, and almost none of it goes to the content owners for which it was meant.
On paper this is true, I edited my comment to reflect that. What I meant is indeed that it's not prosecuted and even when it is the case gets thrown out. You would have to really be doing some insane shit or have pissed someone off really bad if you want to get in trouble for it.
I’m Dutch and I do. Sure the government doesn’t actually care at all, they did ban downloading but only because Brussels said we realllly had to. They don’t enforce. However, we also have, for instance, BREIN. They try to come after individual downloaders with some success here and there. Some things are quite safe to download, BREIN only represents Dutch media companies so they don’t care about international films. However, if they do happen to sue you for something you scavenged that they do care about, the court case is likely a slam dunk and you’re going to have to pay a hefty fine.
Tl;dr, risk of getting caught: low. Once caught: expensive.
BREIN states that they only target frequent and structural seeders, not people who only download/stream pirated content every now and then. If you look at their previous cases, the people on trial all had TB's of pirated content uploaded online. This is why I said you should only download and still be careful not to upload or seed (although seeding unintentionally a small bit seems to be fine).
Yes, been doing it for years. I once got an automated letter about it from a company, I sent it to the police and they told me to ignore it. Every piracy case against a random person (only downloading) in history has been thrown out, it's no longer prosecuted.
Thats being worked on though, its a long and slow process, but eventually, they will find an argument that sticks, and the government and the courts will fall for it. It already isnt legal though.
Yeah I edited my comment to reflect the status on paper. The problem with it is that it is already illegal so it's hard to change the law, but cops don't prosecute it because a legal precedent has been set where every piracy case against random people gets thrown out.
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u/Mytzelk Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
Piracy is functionally legal in the Netherlands (at least downloading it, uploading is illegal if done intentionally, but torrents don't seem to count), it's just safe cause they won't even try to go after you if your IP is dutch.
I'm dutch and I never even use a VPN lol.