When I say used to I mean the days of limewire, napster, and sublimedirectory to name a few. Or IRC or even ICQ.
Dude, nobody owes you anything for free. Back in the days before internet piracy cost postage and floppies and video cassettes and dual tape decks and sneakers, not to mention making and maintaining contacts. Quit fucking whining for having everything effortlessly at your fingertips.
Thanks for the input Lars.
deleted by creator
No problem, main character.
The dream is still alive in small countries the corporations don’t care about! I sail in vast oceans without VPN.
Tor is untraceable and 100% free
Thanks to node operators like me 🏴
Thanks for the node
I2P is significantly better for torrents and file sharing. Check it out, there are implementations in C++ and either rust or go as well as java: https://i2p.net/
Very true. Different solutions with different strengths.
I haven’t tried Nym but IIUC design-wise it seems like the best anonymity network for torrenting
Yeah I also think Nym has the best design overall. I’ve used NymVPN on android and it’s pretty good. There’s no package for it on my linux distro of choice sohaven’t tried it for torrenting linux distros.
Don’t governments run their own Tor exit nodes as honeypots?
Yeah you’re right and the only secure method I know of is Tor hidden services which never exit the network itself. Both you and the server will never know where the other is. It’s kind of like an anonymous dead drop in a park between a spy and their handler.
I2p is another good system to use for torrenting as well it’s just slow as balls (might be better now?) but you don’t need a VPN for that either since it uses garlic routing inspired by Tor’s onion routing.
it is a US military program, so yes, they run nodes as honeypots.
this is way to valuable to be used against pirates though.
Yep. They wouldn’t want to show their hand too much.
The good thing is that it’s in the US military’s interest to actually keep it private and secure though.
Can you dumb it down for me how to get started with tor? or link me in the right direction?
- Download Tor browser
- Browse with Tor browser
2a. Go to Tor “hidden services” listed at places like https://dark.fail/
I thought Tor says NOT to use it for piracy cause it’ll be slow as balls
That does not dissuade the keepers of the old ways who know the agony and triumph of whole series downloads spanning months, watching that extra green pixel light up as another random chunk came through day after day until finally the progress bar became whole.
… and then it’s in fucking Spanish
… or porn with a cover story… ¡Ola! 🙏🥰🙌
I still pirate without a VPN
Lars Ulrich, the only Dane I never liked. Most Danes are agreeable but Lars had someone piss in his baby bottle and he never got over it.
(this is coming from a kid who thought they were awesome until i started playing drums myself)
that and he’s a fuckin glorified metronome. terrible drummer.
to be that talentless and still bitching about napster…
yeah 12 year old me got the fuck over some lame ass metallica
Fuck Metallica. I went to a handful of their shows back in time, but have refused to even listen to a song on the radio since the Napster bullshit.
Their music sucks now, but I pirate and share it anyway. I don’t listen to it.
Let me know when they sue Meta or Google for training models on their music.
One of my proudest moments was climbing the fence to get into a Metallica concert for free.
I pirated their live music.
I got a 1900€ bill that I had to hire a lawyer to fight, so now all my devices wear a condom to hit the internet no matter
I read it but can you dumb it down?
I downloaded a song for my kid 15ish years ago and Telekom tracked it to me so I got a fine.
I was going to say: I live in Germany and they’ll absolutely go after people who pirate.
They cuck so hard for American IP holders it’s honestly incredible. Even the yanks own companies don’t ride people that hard for it.
15 years ago? That can’t be true
Why can’t that be true?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hurt_Locker
Check the lawsuits section
First time? That seems excessive.
Yes, it was the first time
I hope you joking but if not holy shit. Don’t they hand out warnings a bunch of times before hitting your bank? I am in the states BTW
Holy shit is right. I got no warnings I downloaded a popular song one day after dinner and got the letter three or so months later, my wife was super pissed.
capitalism and tech oligarchs happened.
yt-dlp replaced those and its largely the same usage. I dont even use a VPN cause its not illegal iirc
The Piracy Eras:
- Pre-DMCA: The golden age of piracy, no one worried about anything.
- Post-DMCA: Possible prosecution from big copyright, but also hard to track individuals down, so not a lot of worry.
- iTunes Music Store: Did more to end music piracy than any legal action. Cheap enough and easy enough that a lot of people stopped bothering. Pirate Bay for the rest.
- Torrent tracking/poisoning and ISP consolidation: More prosecutions against small pirates put more of a damper on it.
- Cheap Streaming: Did to everything what iTMS did to music piracy
- Expensive Streaming: Now. Bringing back pirates, but people are more cautious due to 4.
One thing I think is worth mentioning (US specific), there was a period in the 2000s with a lot of prosecutions, but then industry groups switched tactics to pushing ISPs to do enforcement with mass copyright letters, and ceased actually bringing lawsuits against small pirates for the most part. People are normally more worried than they need to be.
Oh definitely. And it really depends on your ISP. Before the ISP consolidation it took enough work that sending out those letters to every small local ISP that they wouldn’t bother for Jane Rando who downloaded a few episodes here and there. Now that (in the US at least) most people use one of two or three ISPs who all have a cozy corporate relationship, it’s harder to fly under the radar. But if you have a good privacy-forward ISP it’s not a worry.
It basically means you need a VPN to torrent because if you rack up enough letters they might shut off your internet, but there’s a big distinction between those letters and a lawsuit, they are way closer to just a scare tactic. Their text suggests a lawsuit might be a followup possibility, but that isn’t really true.
Here in Sweden the launch of Spotify was the step that basically killed music piracy overnight. They even had the creator of uTorrent working on building the service, interestingly enough. I believe I downloaded my last song the day before I got a closed beta account.
Nice summary! Thanks for explaining!
Thanks! I figure all this grey in my beard should be good for something.
Canada is still a piracy safe haven, I don’t use VPN. I get funni letters sometimes and laugh at them. Prosumer reseller ISP don’t give a dang. Penalty caps are so low that it’s basically malicious compliance at the Federal level, so nobody gets sued because there’s no money in it for the copyright trolls. Just have to avoid dealing directly with the telecom mafia: Rogers, Shaw, Telus.
Tbh I use direct download as a source more than torrents these days. There’s a lot of free hosts now that aren’t painful to use like in the past when you needed to pay a subscription to some company like Rapidshare to get anything done on sites like Warez-bb.
Private trackers?
Yeah, only normies use “VPN” to pirate.
Why is “VPN” in quotes? Do you think it’s a euphemism for something?
Here in the third world we keep on sailing
Mind if I ask you what country so I know which one we have solidarity with?
It’s because you didn’t pirate a VPN.
You wouldn’t download a VPN
Doesn’t cost me anything. I’ve never paid for a VPN. You don’t really need it unless you’re in a country that firewalls you.
or someone who flexes their “downloading skills” on everyone they meet.
many years ago a colleague of mine tried to flex on me without really knowing my position on ethics of piracy.
(i have no problem with as long as it’s about enabling access to media and art that would be inaccessible rather than making money. on the other hand, if an artist decides to do Spotify instead of Bandcamp i generally tend to respect their wish and avoid them like the plague.)
incidentally the same guy complained some months later that he got some notice from police.
