German prosecutors this week declared that they would stop prosecuting smaller scale broadband and P2P copyright violators, and instead only focus on commercial grade offenders. As in the United States, the entertainment industry uses the threat of lawsuit to scare individuals into pre-trial settlements, but in Germany, where P2P trading is more clearly illegal, prosecutors are apparently overloaded by the volume of suits. Instead, they'll now only entertain cases if the damage is greater than $4,500 -- so by one attorney's math, German P2P users will be able to have 2,999 pirated music files on their PC without repercussion. There are some exceptions -- users found trading films that are still in theaters will still find themselves in German legal hot water. A slightly broader exploration of how German prosecutors are being buried by P2P suits can be found here.