Is piracy really so dangerous in Germany?

Hello. I've recently spent some time in Germany for work and before I went I was warned five times by my employer that piracy is very strictly punished there. A few years ago one of the employees got a 4000 EUR fine for downloading a few movies while in the country.

So, I was wondering, are there any saver ways of pirating in Germany? Like using an VPN or something. Surely, people in Germany also pirate like anywhere else in the world. And what about streaming. I know the site bs. to is very popular among those learning German due to the wast collection of dubbed series and cartoons, but can you actually access it in Germany?