But in this case, you’re the person who is the problem, and the problem isn’t “abuse of the legal system.” You created the problem, and you have the unquestioned ethical responsibility to address the problem. I can’t think of a single reason why the homeowner should pay one single cent of the penalty you caused.
it doesn’t matter what the law is in Denmark, you were in Germany.
and “it’s not my fault, you should have stopped me” isn’t a defense anywhere I can think of.
I think that you misunderstand. If I think every guest would pay in this situation, I would pay without hesitation. If I think that maybe 25% of guest would pay the full fine in this situation, then I would (1) think about it before paying as a guest (2) not pursue legal action if I were the host. And that’s probably around my estimate, 25%-50%. It’s hard to know.
Maybe also what’s confusing people in this thread is that you seem to think what I did is an unusual crime to do. But actually a really large proportion of young people here download torrents casually, and it’s not really thought of as something risky. Sort of like smoking weed.
So if I hang out at your house and download something illegal through your internet connection, you’re cool with paying the fine? Perhaps that’s just cultural thing or maybe it’s just a difference between you and me. Because if you did that to me, I wouldn’t pay it, you would.
And, as I mentioned earlier, your MAC address is likely logged in his router (most routers do this) unless you spoofed that if he really wanted to, he can probably prove it was you.
Absolutely none of that is relevant. You broke the law and left somebody else on the hook for the consequences. You say you’re going to pay it, and that’s good, because a different person who refused to do so would be an utter shitheel.
And can the German police connect this address to who I am? Even if I, say, throw out the computer. Seems crazy if true.
Hey guys, I rented an AirBnb, and then stole the guy’s TV. He wants it back, but I’m in another country and he can’t prove it’s me. Should I give it back? Other people would have stolen stuff too, so I don’t think it’s a big deal. Maybe I’ll send him cash for 10% of the value if you prudes think it matters.
I don’t know anything about Germany, in the US this would likely be a civil issue, but having said that, the MAC address was probably linked to your name when you bought the computer, in one way or another.
In other words, if someone really wanted to set out to prove that the movie was downloaded on to a device that you owned, I can’t imagine it would be that difficult. Cost prohibitive maybe, but doable.
However, I will say that I don’t know how much information you can get with nothing more than a random MAC address. If you could link it to a vendor and that vendor could give you the owners name…
If I rented a car, and the car got a parking ticket during the time I rented it, wouldn’t they expect me to pay for it? Why would they even need to prove that it was I who parked the car?
If the MAC address remains in the guy’s router along with the time the download was made, and you were the only person there at the time the download was made, then they could deduce that it was you. If you really wanted to make a legal case of it you could claim that there wasn’t someone who had hacked the Wi-Fi password and was crouching in the bushes outside downloading a torrent, and might even be able to get off with reasonable doubt.
Or you could, you know, choose not to be a dick.
How does what other people do reflect on your decision to stick a person who did nothing wrong with a significant fine due to your illegal actions? Does skipping out on the fine feel ethical to you?
Thankfully, they don’t need to, because you already admitted to doing all this on a message board.
An interesting rationalization, this. You’d make a great viking. “I think murder, rape, and plunder are wrong, but like, 75% of my fellow vikings are doing it so the villagers probably just expect me to do it was well. <zip>”
Bonus points for being in a situation where 75% of your peers are doing something wrong based on a statistic you made up.
#threadwin
IMHO the host/WiFi provider is not liable, if that is your real question. If anyone is, you are. So he is not going to be stuck paying a fine no matter what you do. Your concern should be smoothing over any remaining trouble so that he can forget the matter.
Where did I say I would want to file suit? 
And why would I want to “share” the bill for something I am not personally responsible for? I would hope that said person would have the decency to own up to his illegal behavior and voluntarily reimburse me for the fine.
It doesn’t matter what other guests would do, it’s what you should do. If 75% of people choose to be criminals, you don’t get to choose to be a criminal. And even if other people do it, it doesn’t mean you get to weasel your way out of your responsibility should you get caught.
I don’t know why people are so cavalier about stealing when it comes to piracy, but whatev. You are costing this guy real money and all he did was let you stay in his place. If you don’t pay the fine you are a shitty human being.
I’m about the most pro-torrent, pro-sharing person you’ll find anywhere - I used to be a moderator for Torrentspy.com’s forums before the MPAA got it shut down.
And even I think you should pay the fine, assuming the guy shows you the citation and it’s legitimately a fine from German authorities, not a scam. I don’t agree with them leveling the fine, but it certainly isn’t right for you to try to stick the guy with the bill just because he had you as a guest, and had the bad luck of them enforcing fines on a single user rather than going after the trackers and sites that index torrents which is the usual action. End-users usually just get scare letters.
I think OP’s basic error here is in his choice of message board. I’m sure he could find, say, a reddit or 4chan forum where the prevailing consensus might be much more to his liking.