So if a copywriter company sends a letter to an ISP, they’re required to look up which user has the IP in their logs and forward on the document. And if the court issues information on the same request, the ISP had to provide it.
But VPN providers can just be like “sorry, we dont log that”?
How do they get away with it?
Simple , by law they aren’t required to.
So they don’t need to log.
There’s really not much else behind this.
VPN providers aren’t ISP. They don’t need to keep logged IP.
Like the other person had said… only a few countries have strict data retention laws while a number of countries don’t… so when a copyright holder wants to make a complaint and/or take it to court, the isp by law is required to give any and all it has when requested by government and law. Well, when a vpn doesn’t keep logs, the vpn in court won’t have a single thing to share. A perfect example of this is with PIA. PIA has had 2x court cases with the FBI and won.
I would hope that the copywriter would send a magnificent letter covering any issues surrounding copyright.
So why are there VPNs that do log? Why don’t they all parade that they don’t log?
ISP’s must do some type of logging of dynamic IP’s. Otherwise all people, with a dynamic IP, would have to do is reboot their modem daily. The requests from copyright holders aren’t real time are they?
How does Windscribe get away with offering static IPs to customers and not tell the copyright troll who is assigned the IP?
I guess my question then would be “why” ISPs would keep that log if they don’t have to? Seems like it’s more work for them by doing so
It takes way more effort and also legal expenses to run a safe and log free service.
So let’s say your one of these scam logging free vpns.
You don’t expect them to be safe , neither well-maintained or log free.
Whenever there’s someone asking about data they just hand them over basicly no legal costs for them.
A real vpn needs to check legal request if they are actual legit or they have data to hand over or even have to.
That’s why.
Also read on each vpn what "no logs " means
Some of those requests are batched, so yeah not real time.
I would, for now, file this under ‘It’s possible.’ Not all that likely, though. Many VPNs are not US-based, and many people opt for servers outside of the US where laws differ. It is between difficult and impossible for the US to unilaterally decide foreign VPN providers must log or to block access to such providers.
If US law changes, though, one may wish to avoid US-based providers and/or VPN servers if one is doing anything they fear being exposed via log requests from the government.
Because ISPs have different customers compared to VPNs. ISPs don’t want their IPs tagged as spammer haven and get complains because users encounter 9001 captcha. The last mile is also the most expensive part of internet connection so they want to know which user is hogging the bandwidth, unlike VPNs which only run on data centers where the bandwidth is relatively cheap.
I’ve only received one and it was for something weeks before.
Like, don’t you think that an ISP would notice DHCP address churn for one device?
It wouldn’t matter if your ISP notices or not. If they haven’t logged your previous IP then they couldn’t link it to your account.
I’m not sure what the legal definition of log is. Keeping track of past user activity does sound like logging though. 
Oh, I don’t doubt it, but look at how ineffective those laws have been. Pornhub is blocking as a political statement, not because the laws are doing anything. Most porn sites aren’t doing a thing. They’re just ignoring the law.
It’s certainly possible, but there are significant legal barriers to them ever forcing non-US VPNs to log and provide logs. As for blocking access to them, it would likely require a Great Firewall at the level of China’s.
In the ‘bigger fish to fry’ category, VPN logging is way down on the list.