In the US it can be a pretty big deal, even if rights holders don't take you to court.

You can basically get banned by your ISP and it's not like there are a lot of ISP options.

ISPs in the US that are lax about it have been sued for millions[1] (and even in one case a billion, pending supreme court decision). [2]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/cox-settles-disp...

[2] https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/alerts/2026/february/4/s...