GERMAN COURT FINES WOMAN WITH NO COMPUTER FOR PIRACY

Lawyers seeking to sue those who download pirated copies of movies may find Germany a hospitable place to do so, according to the website TorrentFreak, which tracks BitTorrent usage in the U.S. and abroad. On Wednesday the site described a recent case in which a German woman found herself accused of piracy even though she no longer owned a computer (her lawyer says that she sold it six months before the alleged piracy took place), did not have a broadband hookup, and was asleep in bed at the time of the alleged infraction. She was nevertheless fined $850 by the Munich District Court. “The bottom line in Germany,” commented TorrentFreak, “is that account holders are responsible for everything that happens on their account and if they can’t prove their innocence, they are found guilty. … Little surprise then that Germany is without doubt the worst place in the world for pay-up-or-else-schemes.”