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A curated list of warez and piracy links

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Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#31
post #3

How are films supposed to get funded if people get them for free? The current status quo is that we have two methods of obtaining a film: - Via file sharing. You have to wait for the whole film to finish downloading before you can watch it. This is inconvenient. - Via streaming services. You can watch a film before it's finished downloading. The latter costs money, but is more convenient. While certainly some of that…

On the front page right now:

The Pentagon and CIA Have Shaped Thousands of Hollywood Movies into Super Effective Propaganda

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29835933

I say, if piracy destroys Hollywood- let it.

'Be a favour to everyone and above of all, cinema.

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#32
post #28
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't speak for others but I generally turn to piracy when legal options are unavailable or unviable. I do this too. But I asked whether copyright enforcement was necessary for films to get adequately funded. I'm assuming that the problems you've described with region locking aren't there. I resort to piracy when I have no other options.

> But I asked whether copyright enforcement was necessary for films to get adequately funded. I addressed that by referencing a study that concludes piracy has no measurable impact on revenue.

>> But I asked whether copyright enforcement was necessary for films to get adequately funded.

> I addressed that by referencing a study that concludes piracy has no measurable impact on revenue.

I'm weary of studies in general because they're capable of justifying absolute bullshit. Anyway, your study was conducted in a regime where getting films for free is illegal and therefore somewhat less convenient than it could be if it were legal. We don't have access to a world in which that isn't the case, so your study is kind of... not able to answer my question?

People who appeal to studies should look up "how to prove a counterfactual".

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#33
post #27

I can't decide between mullvad and private internet access. Any suggestions?

I can't recommend PIA anymore after the acquisition. It used to be my choice ever since using a VPN became a necessity, but these it's Mullvad for me. They're relatively transparent, allow me to pay anonymously in cash, and are based on a VPN protocol already included in my kernel.

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#34
post #27

I can't decide between mullvad and private internet access. Any suggestions?

Private Internet Access (PIA) is involved in the whole Freenode fiasco, and has Mark Karpelès (of Mt Gox fame) as their CTO of the parent company. They also run ads all over the internet. Everything pointing towards just caring about the profits.

Mullvad is a low-profile company based in Sweden (strong guarantees for privacy) where you can even sign up by sending cash in an envelope. It doesn't get more anonymous than that.

On the technical side, I've been using Mullvad since probably 2012 or something like that, and lately just their Wireguard implementation. Always have had good performance and never received any complaints, even though I have used it for torrenting and bunch of grey-area stuff.

Edit: I see now the author has even highlighted PIA as their "top pick", which for me compromises the integrity of this list. PIA most likely paid the author to add that for them.

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#35
post #3

How are films supposed to get funded if people get them for free? The current status quo is that we have two methods of obtaining a film: - Via file sharing. You have to wait for the whole film to finish downloading before you can watch it. This is inconvenient. - Via streaming services. You can watch a film before it's finished downloading. The latter costs money, but is more convenient. While certainly some of that…

You have to wait for the whole film to finish downloading before you can watch it. This is inconvenient.

I've heard from a friend of mine that torrent clients have streaming mode as well. I.e. packets arrive not randomly, but in order, and as long as your DL speed exceeds 1 second per second, you are fine.

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#36
post #23
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be start with how did copyright term get to such insane length and why isn't it being rolled back?

I agree with you, but you aren't answering my question about funding. The question is an existential one about whether copyright should exist at all, and be enforced too.

Point is, piracy is only a natural counter balance to those who pushed copyright term to the current insanity and want to keep the status quo. So far they don't seem to have a problem with making new films despite constant cries that skies are falling becasue of piracy.

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#37
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it can download files in order. Almost all clients have that option.

Isn't the random order option better in some way? Is there a way of using probability to quantify this in some way? I'm thinking that there's a higher probability that a random "chunk" of a file will be available if the chunks are downloaded randomly. But I haven't looked into this enough to know.

I'd assume you are correct (intuitively, if you don't constrain order at all, you'll have more opportunities for matching required parts than if you do constrain order) However I've found that it's very much possible to stream 1080p torrents without any problems, even when skipping back and forth or jumping to other parts of the movie without anymore noticeable delay than I'd expect from e.g. netflix.

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#38
post #27

I can't decide between mullvad and private internet access. Any suggestions?

What are your priorities/requirements/motivations, or at least use-case?

One has stellar organic reputation and accepts anonymous registrations and payments (cryptocurrency or cash-in-letter). The other spends serious bank on SEO and paid endorsements from "reviewers" and has been acquired by one of the sketchiest owners in the industry. They have a strong track-record of paying to get on top of VPN lists.

If privacy is a concern, I wouldn't touch anything under Kape Technologies with a pole and after the acquisition last year, I don't see why anyone would become a customer of PIA.

Unless you're purely interested in tunneling your warez and nothing else, in which case I guess NordVPN is a decent choice (I hold them sus and would recommend against them for general use but they do provide great bandwidth-per-buck). You could always do split-tunneling and route your torrents through one place and HTTP(S) through another, for example.

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#39
post #28
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't speak for others but I generally turn to piracy when legal options are unavailable or unviable. I do this too. But I asked whether copyright enforcement was necessary for films to get adequately funded. I'm assuming that the problems you've described with region locking aren't there. I resort to piracy when I have no other options.

> But I asked whether copyright enforcement was necessary for films to get adequately funded. I addressed that by referencing a study that concludes piracy has no measurable impact on revenue.

[deleted]

Re: A curated list of warez and piracy links

#40
post #35
post #3

How are films supposed to get funded if people get them for free? The current status quo is that we have two methods of obtaining a film: - Via file sharing. You have to wait for the whole film to finish downloading before you can watch it. This is inconvenient. - Via streaming services. You can watch a film before it's finished downloading. The latter costs money, but is more convenient. While certainly some of that…

You have to wait for the whole film to finish downloading before you can watch it. This is inconvenient. I've heard from a friend of mine that torrent clients have streaming mode as well. I.e. packets arrive not randomly, but in order, and as long as your DL speed exceeds 1 second per second, you are fine.

Also downloading a popular 1080p movie takes minutes. I think for my workflow pirating is actually easier than dealing with a decentralised streaming ecosystem without cross app searches.
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