Thread is pretty flooded at this point but I might as well. Lived in Germany at the time so my experience might be interesting to non-Americans. Short version, don't pirate anything from Warned Brothers in Germany unless you're 100% confident your client won't seed, or you are behind a proxy. Got away due to being a diplomat's kid.
I've been happily torrenting away for about a year, thinking myself safe by always quickly deleting my torrents from the client after they finish in order to keep myself from seeding, the actually prosecuteable act in Germany. Downloading isn't strictly speaking illegal and falls into a gray area, distributing it in the form of seeding however is.
Then I received a letter from a private lawyer firm in Munich, essentially stating that I had seeded the recently released Lego Movie (of all things) for a total of 3 minutes. The document displayed that the IP address was assigned to the home of my family at the time, as despite dynamic IPs our ISP's tend to divulge the information in this context. Which I cough may or may not have in fact downloaded.
Essentially, the letter offered a deal: pay an 800 euro settlement and agree to desist from seeding in the future, or the case will be taken to court. A quick google search of the names supported that the firm was in fact what it was claiming to be and not some fishy scam, and was quite famous for taking people to court over pirated WB content. Along with this popped up several independent lawyers who seem to have made it their business to contest these for the mere payment of usually 200 euro, several reviews stating that they usually are able to negotiate the fine down to another 200 euro, essentially halving the cost for the affected.
My conclusion is that the WB affiliated firm makes a profit out of spooking people into accepting the quick settlement to get out of the situation, relying on the fact that most people will decide to pay the not-backbreaking amount rather than risk going to court of dealing with the fuss of hiring a lawyer. The lawyers contesting these cases make their money out of the fact that someone taking the case to court is still less profitable for the WB affiliates than someone simply paying the settlement, offering to not do so in exchange for dropping it to a reduced amount. For both the high volume of quickly handled cases makes the profit, although the WB affiliates do make a point of actually taking enough to court to present a tangible risk of it not working out even if you pay for the lawyer. Additionally, the listed due dates for replies to the initial letter are very tight, forcing people to act quickly, further encouraging the rash decision of just paying.
Fortunately I ended up getting out scoff free due to my parents possessing diplomatic immunity in Germany, a simple letter from our lawyer stating this fact was enough for them to no longer follow up on the issue. However, a good friend of mine and his sister (minors at the time) both caused their parents to recieve similar letter. They paid the settlement, the sister getting caught a second time after this and paying a much higher fine due to not complying with desisting from seeding. A third friend picked the lawyer option and it worked out for him as advertised, paying only about half the initially suggested settlement in total.
For anyone wanting to torrent in Germany, I suggest to use the Tribler client as it offers to route your torrent through tor. While this service by now wont protect serious criminals from law enforcement, I highly doubt that these profit oriented law firms would bother with or are capable of the investigation needed to get past it.