It’s time for a law that gives you the right to keep pirated copies if you own (as in press the buy button, even if it’s an indefinite rental) the original.
It would be better that the law would require to make the content available for a download, using DRM / encryption that can work offline without any connections to a DRM server. Maybe using a personal encryption key.
I believe the onus would be on the downloader to prove they have the original / a license.
Sweden has such a private copy law. You pay a tax fee on USB and other storage media such as hard disks but the fee includes the right to make private copies.
"Privatkopieringsersättning"
EU version https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... "(38) Member States should be allowed to provide for an exception or limitation to the reproduction right for certain types of reproduction of audio, visual and audio-visual material for private use, accompanied by fair compensation. This may include the introduction or continuation of remuneration schemes to compensate for the prejudice to rightholders."
I'm not sure what your view on this law is, but I might add that it's a terrible idea, badly implemented.
For those of us who use hard disks for data backups, our own music, or large image files (I backup scans of large-format film photographs which can be almost 1GB each), the law taxes us unjustly, and also the distribution of the proceeds is inequitable and doesn't benefit artists or creators, but rather the bureaucracies that administer it.
- you either transcribe them completely manually, or else
- the book has been out of print for at least two years.
This law probably stems from the widespread introduction of photocopiers, but now that e-books are a thing, too, it has the somewhat absurd consequence that whereas it's perfectly legal to copy music I have purchased across my various devices and their backups, technically I'm not allowed to do the same thing for e-books (i.e. for example keeping an e-book both on my computer and my phone and in their respective backups, too).
The blackmail done by a "private rogue lawyers", has a judge signature to authorize the ISP to give my personal information based on the IP that they supposedly got doing the infringement. This is always done in courts in Bavaria that are very copyright-owners friendly.
Furthermore, around 1 year after I "Lawyered up", I still got a official Court order to show up in court, that's when I decided to fold and pay the 1000€.
They use scare tactics. That was before the mess the EU created 2-3 years ago with the reforms. So idk what the status is like now. But ignorance is bliss. The big players do it all the same. They ignore you until they really have to deal with you.
Expect a followup by them this December, which prevents forfeit.
Some asshat lawyers do actually drag you in front of a judge, and you can't ignore that.
If there's a 100 day time limit for the lawyer, and they take 99 days to get back to you, the first 99% of the value should be forfeited (perhaps with like a week or two grace period). Clearly they are not that in need of the money, and professional bureaucracy dealers should not be able to simply drag things out against people who simply wish to live their lives.