To stream or not to stream?

Is streaming legal in Germany?

That’s what I hear / read almost every day now. Why in Germany? Well, because I live there of course, but also because new incomers might have heard about the strong policy Germany adopted against illegal downloads. That thing can frighten you, your family, your cat and even your grandmother. Especially if you come from France, where Hadopi nicely warns you twice before repressing. So I can understand the question.

Legal or not?

But as I am a little bit tired of fighting the same preconceived ideas again and again, of repeating 100 times the same thing, I will make it clear once for all.

Streaming and peer-to-peer are NOT ILLEGAL.

At least in countries which respect the human rights – I don’t know about North Corea.

First, you have to understand one thing: when you “stream” a movie, you download it. You cannot read data which is not on your computer! It would be like reading a book without opening it. Remember that when you see something on your screen, the corresponding data is already in your computer.

So, streaming, downloading, same thing. Same thing, same laws. The very same law which always applies, actually: ownership. You have the right to stream / download a movie (or whatever) if it belongs to you, if you acquired a copy legally or if it is free. For example, you cannot be sued for watching a movie online if you bought it before. Be honnest, generally it’s not the case ;-).

Everything is already in your hands.

Secundo, you have the right to a private copy. That means that if you have access legally to a content, you have the right to make a copy of it for private purposes – except softwares (at least in France), don’t ask me why. This rule is actually valid for a lot of things: books (yes you have the right to copy it), music (yes you have the right to record the radio), and even rent out DVDs (ja ja ja). Consequently, the use of a tool to download data from a service which only offers streaming is not illegal. As long as the concerned data is accessed legally.

But don’t you dare share it with your friends! This copy must stay private, and I even heard that in the UK you cannot share it with your family. If you decide to put such a content on the Internet or to broadcast / share it by any other means without proper authorization, you can be sued and it will cost you a lot. As long as your copy stay private, you will be fine.

However! There are some exceptions (of course). First, if the Terms of Service explicitely forbid you to attempt to download content, you might want to fall back. While theoretically this is a violation of the private copying exception, it would probably be better not to insist. Secondly, if there are explicit countermeasures installed to prevent download / copy, be aware that attempting to break them, whatever the means, is forbidden by the law. It might appear contradictory, but (french) court decided it’s not.

When it’s locked, it’s locked.

Last but not least, it is worth remembering that because of the difficulty to watch the whole internet traffic, most authorities target only the illegal use of peer-to-peer, much easier to monitor. Moreover, downloading is not illegal in general (even for copyrighted material: you could have bought it at home!), but sharing almost always is, so actually most people are sued for file sharing and not for file downloading. As P2P is essentially a sharing service… You see how it ends.