I contacted an AirBnB host in Germany, and we arranged that I stayed at his place without involving AirBnB, for about a week. I downloaded a movie illegally through torrents while I was there. This is an unproblematic thing to do in my country, and I wasn’t specifically told not to do it. My host was caught, and was given a 500 euro fine.
Should I pay this fine, or?
If it is a legitimate fine that someone has to pay, of course you should pay. The fact that you weren’t “specifically told not to do it” is irrelevant. I would guess that you were also not specifically told that you couldn’t rob the liquor store down the street, but you would also be liable for the consequences if you did so.
When you say your host was caught, what specifically do you mean? How does someone else get “caught” other than the guilty party? Is this like when you receive a red light camera citation in the mail because you let your brother borrow the car and he ran a red light?
Yes, the person who committed the crime is usually the one who should be punished. Not innocent people who had nothing to do with it. But I don’t know much about law in general, and especially not German law.
Obviously you should pay. You’re the one who broke the law. Not that it matters but you knew that you were breaking the law. Why should they pay for your malfeasance?
I would ask for evidence of the fine, but if it’s genuine, I think it’s absolutely your responsibility to pay it. Who else do you think should pay it? Do you really think that it’s your host’s responsibility to interrogate you beforehand about your level of knowledge of local laws, rather than your responsibility to know them? Especially so since you knew you were doing something illegal. You just hadn’t bothered to check enforcement policy in that jurisdiction.
A bit. OP’s illegal download was tracked one way or another and the IP address was traced back to the homeowner. In the US, that usually results in a nastygram demand letter from a lawyer somewhere, but apparently in Germany, there’s some process that results in a formal fine.
I would say it’s like that, yes.
I think that if this happened while I was AirBnb hosting, they probably would not pay. Or maybe offer to pay half. Even more so in this situation, since we didn’t have an actual AirBnb contract, and I doubt he could legally pin me on it. I could of course still do the right thing, even if I think other people wouldn’t, and end up losing overall.
Well if you already know what the “right thing” to do is, then in what way are you framing this question? Legally it’s probably a civil matter, and the homeowner would have to pursue you in court for reimbursement. Practically, if you don’t pay you’re going to get a horrible AirBnB review. Morally, of course you should pay.
eta: nm, I see that you didn’t go through AirBnB so he can’t give you a bad review.
How are you losing by paying a fine for an infraction that you committed that is being blamed on another guy? You pay the fine for your action, and you stop an innocent party from being punished for your action. That’s WINNING in my book, not losing.
I won’t get a bad AirBnB review, since we went outside AirBnb.
At first I thought that you should make sure that the person isn’t trying to scam you, but I see that Germany seems to be pretty serious about piracy.
Then I’m not sure why you’re even asking. You engaged in illegal activity, and unless you step up, someone else is getting penalized for it.
Imagine driving somewhere with your friend in the passenger seat. A cop pulls you over, and your friend hides his weed in the center console. Cop finds it, your friend won’t 'fess up, so you get arrested for possession and your car gets impounded. How fucking mad at your friend would you be?
And would you, as the host in this hypothetical, be OK with that? Or would you regard your guest-pirate as a morally bankrupt degenerate who has shirked his moral responsibility to compensate you for financial damages you suffered as a result of his illegal activity?
No brainer, you performed the illegal act and got caught, you should pay the full cost of the fine. Not sure why you would even question it.
I wouldn’t be okay in the sense that I would invite them back, but I wouldn’t really expect anything else either. I would probably expect they offered to pay half, be happy about if they offered to pay all, and disappointed if they didn’t offer to pay anything. Next time I would try and block peer2peer on my router or something.
Are you asking about what is the right thing to do, or what you can get away with?
You should absolutely pay the fine. It is completely your responsibility, and if you don’t pay it, you are ripping off your hosts.
It’s probably not practically enforceable, since your hosts aren’t going to take you to court over $600. But the benchmark for what constitutes “losing” for you is not what some other hypothetical unethical asshole would try to get away with, just because the payment is not easily legally enforceable. If you pay the fine you have simply done what any ethical person would do, you have not “lost”.
You should pay. I think you know this already. You did something wrong and the host did nothing wrong and they’re suffering for it. Even if you didn’t know that this might happen, you should still own up to your action, which harmed another, and pay for it.
Be a good person. You’ll feel better about it in the long run.
I note you carefully say “unproblematic” rather than “legal.” Your profile says you’re from Denmark - illegal torrenting is still illegal there.
You knowingly broke the law. Even had you been in your home country, you would have been breaking the law.
Yes, you should obviously pay the fine if you consider yourself to be any sort of a moral human being.
Alright, alright. I will pay it. Not much meat on this discussion.
OP is clearly looking for someone to give him permission to hang his crime on someone else.
mr. jp, nobody here is going to tell you this is okay. You know it’s not right, you’ve admitted that you know it isn’t right, and your flimsy attempt to justify this behavior is pathetic, at best. Pay the god damn fined.
I have to say, if I were the host I wouldn’t pay it. He didn’t commit the crime, so he should make the state prove it in court, which they cannot, since he didn’t actually do it. But morally, of course this is your problem, and you should do whatever you can to make it right so that the host doesn’t need to worry about it at all.
Also, is it weird to anyone else that we’re talking about copyright infringement using the term “crime”? This is dystopian overreach, in my opinion. Let the copyright owner sue for damages in court like anyone else. This shouldn’t be a police matter. But I guess the Germans feel differently?