There are significant regional differences in legal risks. EU member states impose heavy penalties in accordance with the Copyright Directive (EU) 2019/790 (with a maximum fine of €5,000 for individual users). In 2023, German courts are filing a batch of lawsuits against Spotify MOD APK users. The median compensation for infringement reached €2,100 per person (involving 4,826 cases). The United States, on the other hand, applies Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), with a civil compensation limit of 30,000 for first-time offenders (up to 150,000 for intentional infringement). The 2024 RIAA report shows that the number of warning letters sent to MOD users has increased by 37% year-on-year.
The enforcement efforts in emerging markets are polarized. In India, under Section 63 of the Copyright Act (1957), sentences ranging from six months to three years in prison can be imposed (in 2023, a Mumbai court sentenced an average of eight months of probation to 12 users), while countries like Indonesia have not yet established targeted enforcement mechanisms (the success rate of civil litigation for copyright infringement is only 2.3%). According to data from Brazil’s ANATEL, in 2023, 410,000 ISP accounts were banned for illegal streaming (involving economic losses of R$120 million), but the accountability rate for individual users was less than 0.5%.
The copyright owner’s monitoring technology has been continuously upgraded. Spotify’s Content Recognition system (CIS) scans 1.2 million streaming events per second, combining device fingerprints (collecting 78 parameters) and behavioral modeling (with an accuracy rate of 92.7%). In the first quarter of 2024, over 2.7 million MOD accounts were banned globally (an increase of 63% compared to the same period in 2023). The report of PRS for Music in the UK indicates that the probability of users using cracking services receiving infringement notices is 18% per year (0.3% for ordinary users).
Criminal risks are prominent in specific jurisdictions. Article 119 of Japan’s Copyright Law stipulates that commercial use of pirated services can be punished with up to 10 years in prison (in 2023, the Osaka District Court sentenced Internet cafe owners to three years in prison for profiting 8 million yen from pre-installing MOD applications). Although individual users are exempt from criminal liability, they need to pay a settlement (median of 350,000 yen). In 2022, new regulations in Saudi Arabia require ISPs to automatically block pirated domain names (with a blocking response time of less than 400ms), and violators will be fined SAR 500,000.
Civil recourse poses a major threat. Universal Music Group (UMG) has initiated a class-action lawsuit in France, demanding that Spotify MOD APK users compensate for copyright losses. (Calculation model:) (€0.12 per play × average monthly play count of 873 times × traceability period of 36 months =€3,771.36 per person), the first batch of 50,000 users received lawyer’s letters. The Copyright Tribunal of Australia ruled that the compensation benchmark for illegal downloading of singles was A150 (album A1200), and the number of cases handled increased by 58% in 2023.
There are legal boundaries to technical circumvention. VPN masquerading (with a usage rate accounting for 72% of MOD users) was determined by the federal court in Germany as “intentionally circumventing technical measures” (violating §95a UrhG), and an additional administrative fine of €1,000 could be imposed. The Swedish Patent and Market Court’s 2024 precedent confirmed that even if users do not directly benefit, the copyright owner still needs to compensate for the loss of revenue caused by the use of MOD services (estimated at SEK 99 per month per user).