EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number and they say piracy is going to receive a huge blow. Obviously I have no intention of stopping but now I'll have to start using a VPN, if I want to continue my way. However, I do not trust VPNs a lot and I do not like the idea of paying for them (I could just pay for the movie in the first place)

I looked into using Tor network to torrent but it seems like it'd be a hindrance to the network itself, which is going to be a huge inconvenience for other users. Additionally I know that even if I found a way to throttle my bandwidth to remove this problem, Tor isn't exactly made for this sort of thing anyways.

Now, obviously it doesn't have to be torrenting, but I would gladly hear any suggestions on how to avoid paying and getting movies and shows without being caught doing it. Truthfully I was only streaming from websites for many years, so I do not know a lot about torrenting vs direct downloading either. Thanks in advance for any responses.

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[–] lime@feddit.nu 104 points 1 month ago (2 children)

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number

no they're not.

the EU ruled that IP addresses are personally identifiable information (PII) for the purposes of GDPR compliance EIGHT YEARS AGO. this means that internet services cannot store your IP address without your consent and explicitly telling you why they need it, they have to delete it when they're done with it, and if they are to be stored in any way for aggregate data then it needs to be anonymised so that it can no longer be associated with you.

any change to associate IPs with you would break the GDPR.

[–] gnygnygny@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

They are actually working on a simplified GDPR version. Nothing good into the pipe.

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com -5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Greece did it anyway and EU made us, actually. https://bernitsaslaw.com/2025/03/27/law-51792025-on-digital-piracy the "dynamic blocking measures targeting end-users" are connection of the IP with the equivalent of a social security number of the people inside the house where the infringement occurs.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

your link has nothing about the EU forcing the issue, in fact this seems to blatantly fly in the face of eu law.

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yes, I have failed to find an english article that covers this issue properly, not much I can do if there isn't coverage. Maybe EU didn't force it and I was misinformed but the government passed it anyway as you can see.

[–] pmk@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Something similar happened in Sweden, the politicians said that the EU is forcing Sweden to store data about users. Like, "we don't want this... but we have no choice!" And then it turned out that what they did was actually against EU laws and Sweden was fined for doing what they did and ordered to stop.

[–] Petter1@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago

Hope people don’t re-elect such dumb bricks…

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com 3 points 1 month ago

That's crazy, maybe its the same thing over here.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

i can indeed see, and if the things the greek ad-article are saying but are not in the text of the law are true then it is very troubling and will probably result in sanctions from the EU, because the union have been on the asses of the greek government for years now to get them to curb corruption. it is also even more reason to get a vpn.

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com 6 points 1 month ago

To be honest our country is run by a Mafia that has been committing literal crimes for a while now, this would be a drop in the bucket. Ironically, one previous offense involved the use of software to spy on the personal electronic devices of politicians and influential people, both in the ruling party and outside of it. Another was a criminal neglect of the train system that ended up in a train crash with 57 people dead. Not to mention the subsequent cover-up which involved editing audio records of the incident before their release to shift the blame and many other false records, the politicians literally disguising themselves as random civilians that one time and appearing on TV saying how safe they feel travelling after the incident and other things that don't really come to mind right now.

If I may say, no, I don't think EU is coming to save us. They barely gave them a slap on the wrist for all these offenses combined.

[–] paf@jlai.lu 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

We have something similar in France for more than a decade. As you are torrenting, you are obviously sharing your ip with other torrent clients and this is where they get you. The agency (used to be called Hadopi but they change their name and can't recall the new one) is following some torrents, gets your ip from torrent clients and then ask internet provider to give name/address. You then received a warning letter, upon 3 letters received, you can get a fine or go to court.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

sweden also had this but they stopped sending out fines because they were a company masquerading as a government agency which is basically fraud. there is an explicit carve-out in the law for making private copies of things, and we already pay a "copying fee" when buying media that can be copied to so they had no way of proving whether you were pirating or doing backups.

[–] paf@jlai.lu 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

We also have the right to copy media we bought here. Nonetheless, you need to prove that you have bought media you have downloaded.

Edit: Sharing copyright media is strictly forbidden here, so even if you prove that you buy media, you are not allowed to torrent it.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do you have some source for this IP thing in the EU? I wasn't aware of any new privacy laws.

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com -3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

only sources I can find are in Greek since this is my home country where this was implemented, but basically EU forced us to do it so I thought other countries would also have this problem. https://techmaniacs.gr/episimo-syndesi-afm-me-ip-kai-prostima-se-osoys-katevazoyn-katanalonoyn-kai-diakinoyn-peratiko-periechomeno/ see if you can translate this to english, will come back with an uptade if I find something better. update: found this article in english only, but the “dynamic blocking measures targeting end-users” are connection of the IP with the equivalent of a social security number of the people inside the house where the infringement occurs.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

this is an ad for a vpn.

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com 0 points 1 month ago

Unfortunately there's little coverage in English of this issue.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Uh, thanks. That really doesn't look good. Usually copyright infringement is a civil matter. And I believe we had sufficient laws to handle that in European countries. I haven't read the cited new law, but I guess that "shortcut" just does away with everyone's privacy. Plus it's going to swamp the courts with cases. I'm not sure if they're bored or anything.... But either they just hand out fines without checking properly... Or, if done properly, this is just a lot of additional work for the justice system. To the benefit of the copyright industry. And either way, it's just bad for the people.

Edit: I believe this is the mentioned government gazette. The copyright changes are in Chapter 2: https://www.e-nomothesia.gr/kat-arxaiotites/n-5179-2025.html

[–] AlexisFR@jlai.lu 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Where have you heard about this nonsense law?

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com 1 points 1 month ago

I corrected it in my replies, maybe I should have corrected the post itself too, the law is in effect in my country, Greece. There are multiple articles about it and everyone is discussing it here in the country. Apologies for any confusion.

[–] marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 month ago

Seedboxes go from €2 to €100+ a month depending on how much you will torrent and how much space you need on the box alongside other factors. My personal choices are Gigarapid and Ultra but there are others

[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's a lifestyle, not a way to save money. I pay for piracy related tech more than a netflix subscription costs.

[–] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This. I don't do much but I have spent $1,200 on HDDs alone. Then there's the true saviors of the internet with hundreds of TB, even PB of backed up, virus-free content

[–] jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

I don’t do much but I have spent $1,200 on HDDs alone.

this might interest you when its ready in a couple months. this is exactly the issue its working toward resolving.

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago

I use Tor to get magnet links and feed them to my clearnet torrenting client, no issues so far and the ISP would have to breach my privacy to provide my IP.

[–] BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yo, 2 things:

I too heard that about Greece, but I couldnt find any article about it, only stuff I heard from others which they probably read them on FB. Do you have any (reputable) article coverthing this? I just considered those roumors it as fearmongering and moved on.
Yo, since I haven't seen you around, just to know, we have a sonewhat active greek community at https://fedia.io/m/Greece

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hey, thanks for the heads up on the Greek community, I'll be giving that a visit for sure. Also yes, I can find articles that are trustworthy but they are all in Greek, sadly xD. I might look again sometime though, will let you know!

[–] BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

but they are all in Greek

Haha sure, send me the greek ones, μπορω να τα διαβασω:)

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

https://www.athinorama.gr/cinema/3042948/ti-isxuei-me-to-neo-nomo-kata-tis-peirateias-kai-pos-mas-epireazei/

[–] BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

[Btw, I'm not a lawer, just because my comment is long don't consider it correct:)]

Tl;dr: From what I understand, they're gonna ask the internet providers (though it might also include vpn providers, streaming services etc.) any info about you that they consider necessary (so you could assume anything they have about you). So my opinion is, if you have a proper vpn that follows the zero-trust model, it should probably protect you. The main new thing here is that it has become illegal to consume pirated media (instead of only sharing them).

In the article you posted, there's the governmental announcement too:

https://search.et.gr/el/fek/?fekId=777704

From the article you posted:

Όπως διαβάζουμε στο σχετικό νόμο: "Αρμόδιες για τον έλεγχο της εφαρμογής των διατάξεων του παρόντος νόμου και την επιβολή των προβλεπόμενων κυρώσεων είναι η Ανεξάρτητη Αρχή Δημοσίων Εσόδων, η Γενική Διεύθυνση του Σώματος Δίωξης Οικονομικού Εγκλήματος, η Διυπηρεσιακή Μονάδα Ελέγχου Αγοράς, οι Αστυνομικές, Λιμενικές και Τελωνειακές Αρχές, οι οποίες μετά τη διαπίστωση της παράβασης, ενημερώνουν τους δικαιούχους μέσω του Οργανισμού Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας. Για τη διαπίστωση των διοικητικών παραβάσεων της παρ. 2Β και την επιβολή των διοικητικών προστίμων επιτρέπεται από τις αρμόδιες δικαστικές αρχές η διαβίβαση προς τις αρχές του πρώτου εδαφίου, των αναγκαίων στοιχείων για την ταυτοποίηση των παραβατών, τα οποία συνελέγησαν και περιέχονται σε ποινική δικογραφία που σχηματίσθηκε κατόπιν άσκησης ποινικής δίωξης για τα εγκλήματα του άρθρου 66. Αντίστοιχα, οι αρχές του πρώτου εδαφίου δύνανται, με σκοπό τη διαπίστωση των διοικητικών παραβάσεων της παρ. 2Β και την επιβολή των αντίστοιχων κυρώσεων, να ζητούν από τους παρόχους της παρ. 10Α του άρθρου 66Ε, οποιοδήποτε απαραίτητο στοιχείο για την ταυτοποίηση των προσώπων που παραβιάζουν τα δικαιώματα της παρ. 2Β".

I couldnt find what is defined as providers in Paragraph 10A from article 66E (this should be stated in pages 583-585)

From what I understand, they're gonna ask the internet providers (though it might also include vpn providers, streaming services etc.) any info about you that they consider necessary (so you could assume anything they have about you). So my opinion is, if you have a proper vpn that follows the zero-trust model, it should probably protect you. The main new thing here is that it has become illegal to consume pirated media (instead of only sharing them).

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hey, I understand this already but your input on the proper VPN is very much appreciated! This law seems sketchy to me, especially after another user on this thread pointed out that it violated gdpr. Honestly I know I really need to take my whole privacy into consideration and not just this tidbit but I have little time at the moment to properly set something decent up. That might also mean getting a VPN, lol. It is comforting to at least know that a proper VPN should cover me.

[–] BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, there are vpns that say that they dont keep logs and allow portforwarding. Check out a recent post in this community about vpns: https://lemmy.zip/post/34924276

[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

You can try I2P. The selection is smaller and it's slower, but it's free and privacy-first.

[–] Banana_man@reddthat.com -2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Update: Hilariously, while looking into finding english articles for said law in Greece, I stumbled upon one possible answer for my problem. The SSN that connects to the IP address has no way of pinpointing a perpetrator in a place with free WiFi like an internet Cafe. This method is not really safe, for the law has only passed recently but in extremely classic Greek government fashion, the law has many gray areas and potential loopholes! Tell me what you think about this idea.

[–] heavydust@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago

Torrenting in a café? Get Mullvad and stop complaining.

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 6 points 1 month ago

How about you don't go saturating some poor sods public WiFi that he is kind enough to provide to his customers? Cheapskate