this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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No Stupid Questions

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When I say used to I mean the days of limewire, napster, and sublimedirectory to name a few. Or IRC or even ICQ.

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[–] BartyDeCanter@piefed.social 82 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

The Piracy Eras:

  1. Pre-DMCA: The golden age of piracy, no one worried about anything. Music piracy was common, video files were way to large to bother with.
  2. Post-DMCA: Possible prosecution from big copyright, but also hard to track individuals down, so not a lot of worry, but a lot of angst about it.
  3. 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 video, expect multi-day or week downloads.
  4. Torrent tracking/poisoning and ISP consolidation: More prosecutions against small pirates put more of a damper on it.
  5. Cheap Streaming: Did to everything what iTMS did to music piracy
  6. Expensive Streaming: Now. Bringing back pirates, but people are more cautious due to 4.
[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] BartyDeCanter@piefed.social 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 days ago

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.

[–] VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 5 points 4 days ago

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.

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[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 73 points 4 days ago (6 children)

Tor is untraceable and 100% free

Thanks to node operators like me 🏴

[–] Battle_Masker@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I thought Tor says NOT to use it for piracy cause it'll be slow as balls

[–] HeHoXa@lemmy.zip 46 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

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

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

... or porn with a cover story... ¡Ola! 🙏🥰🙌

[–] roux2scour@jlai.lu 26 points 4 days ago (1 children)
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[–] redsand@infosec.pub 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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/

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[–] scutiger@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Don't governments run their own Tor exit nodes as honeypots?

[–] Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 4 days ago (2 children)

it is a US military program, so yes, they run nodes as honeypots.

this is way to valuable to be used against pirates though.

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[–] iocase@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 days ago

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.

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[–] parlor3949@anarchist.nexus 3 points 2 days ago

Where's the love for Usenet?

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 3 points 3 days ago

People started getting consequences from their ISPs so they have to take measures to avoid that and those are not free. You're welcome to still torrent without a VPN or seek out direct download sources but good luck with that.

[–] Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world 30 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] Patnou@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I read it but can you dumb it down?

[–] Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (8 children)

I downloaded a song for my kid 15ish years ago and Telekom tracked it to me so I got a fine.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I was going to say: I live in Germany and they'll absolutely go after people who pirate.

[–] iocase@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 days ago

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.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 12 points 4 days ago (2 children)

You wouldn't torrent a car?

[–] Patnou@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

I already got the specs if I need to 3d print one. And yes I would.

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 8 points 4 days ago

The hell I wouldn't 🤨

[–] BurgerBaron@quokk.au 19 points 4 days ago

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.

[–] nocturne@slrpnk.net 21 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 11 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] mech@feddit.org 7 points 4 days ago

One of my proudest moments was climbing the fence to get into a Metallica concert for free.
I pirated their live music.

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[–] Aetherial@nord.pub 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (3 children)

The high seas have always been a constant battle. Are you really asking why both sides keep trying harder?

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[–] mech@feddit.org 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I got a cease and desist letter that forced me to get a lawyer and start court proceedings which stretched over three years, to avoid paying a monthly income in "damages", for torrenting The Hurt Locker (allegedly).
So now I use a VPN.

[–] Magnum@infosec.pub 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] mech@feddit.org 10 points 4 days ago

The weird part is, it wouldn't even have mattered if I did it or not.
I was living with roommates and the contract with the ISP for the house's internet connection was in my name.
So according to German law at the time, I was legally on the hook for copyright violations by anyone on the shared WiFi.
By the time all the legalese letters back and forth were done and the opposing law firm would have had to officially charge me in court, the law had changed.
The old law would still have technically been applicable for my case, but I guess my push-back with a lawyer, and the risk of a judge being sick of the useless workload, made it too risky to be profitable for the copyright vultures.

[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

The dream is still alive in small countries the corporations don't care about! I sail in vast oceans without VPN.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I still pirate without a VPN

[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah I pirate straight to my TV no VPN, no debrid, nothing.

All I do is require encryption on all connections.

Uninstalled pretty much all the streaming apps because it works well enough my whole family prefer pirating to finding the right app for a given show.

Only problem is the cache builds up fast and it's a closed source app so I can't fix that

[–] HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 1 points 2 days ago
[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Try soulseek. But $ ruined nearly everything

[–] Arachnidbrilliant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Soooo this might be a bad time. But my pirate stream site is starting to suck (pop ups showed up/ things aren’t loading).

Anybody got a good one? AARGG

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[–] x00z@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

I don't pay for a VPN but I do pay for a debrid. TorBox has a $3/month plan and it allows you to download torrents at 1Gbps from HTTPS endpoints with a no-logs policy.

[–] dewritoninja@pawb.social 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Here in the third world we keep on sailing

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[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 9 points 4 days ago

in my country you can torrent all you want. if I forget to turn on my VPN I might get a message from my ISP saying they got a copyright call, but they didn't give my info.

[–] aramis87@fedia.io 7 points 4 days ago

Private trackers?

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

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