this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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I believe we're approaching the final 3-5 years of prevalent piracy for several reasons:

  • Software: The difficulty of cracking and modifying software has significantly increased.

  • Movies and TV Shows: Numerous streaming sites have been shut down or faced legal penalties.

  • Adult Content: New releases are often removed within 1-5 weeks, and many older titles are no longer available on piracy platforms.

Given these trends, what might a post-piracy world entail?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

No, I don't think it will go like that.

But if piracy would go away, then it would mean we live in a great world:

  • Software: FOSS/Freeware/Donationware software prevails. People want to use this kind of software, and this is the go-to for any appliance. People would be deeply affected if they could not use free (as both in freedom and/or money, as mentioned before) software - gone will be the days of everyone needing Adobe products or MS Office for their professional work, and the year of the Linux desktop would be in the history books.
  • Movies and TV shows: They would be available anywhere, on demand, in any format. Or there would be this website where you would go to and watch whatever you would, without ads. It would kinda be the same with music.
  • p0rn: I don't have enough knowledge in this field, I just go to certain websites when I need. Guess it would be like on the previous point? idk.

As long as those points are not achieved, there will always be a need for piracy, and people will always find new ways to get their content. So far, I do not see us being somewhere even close to that ideal world, so there are plenty of reasons for piracy to exist.

I personally try to pirate things more ethically, for example I try to buy music and games whenever I can, but I know several people that pirate stuff just because they can.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Post-piracy? There will only be darkweb piracy that untraceable and unkillable. Everything will be available anonymously through I2P and there will be a jump in its popularity. Every normie will know that in order to download the new blockbuster, all they have to do is install I2P, an eDonkey clone, QBittorent, or Popcorn Time (which will run on I2P's anonymous torrents).

I pray that they shut down every single clearweb streaming and download website for us to finally all move to the darkweb.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Did you ever actually use i2p?

It's very very slow that I don't think most people can do it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, and I used it when it was even slower. With a seed-box, it's fine. Just like in the 2000s when you had to download stuff overnight or wait a week. There are way fewer nodes in I2P than TOR nodes, but if it were to grow in popularity, speed wouldn't be an issue anymore.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Woah... I forgot about all that.

Waking up to the latest AAA that was started 36hrs ago at 75.8kb/s.

Of course it dropped to 0.9kb/s frequently, but it still downloaded.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

More brazen crackdown of piracy, DNS-level or maybe even IP-level blocking. Complete overhaul of the infrastructure of the internet to make it more "corporate friendly."

We got to remember that piracy, whose backbone is the bittorrent peer-to-peer network, exists because the current infrastructure of the internet allows users to open their ports and allow people from all over the world to request media from them. The internet infrastructure is controlled by the government, who is controlled by corporate overlords. As of right now, the government has (imperfectly) worked hard to retain the neutrality of the internet, but we might be losing this battle folks.

I've always advocated for i2p (https://geti2p.net/en/) because it allows us to be more resilient to the current infrastructure, with the added bonus of not needing a VPN to download stuff. It would be lovely to see you all at tracker2.postman.i2p :-) Yeah, speed might be an issue but it'll get better once there are faster nodes in the network. I2p allows people to participate in the network even when behind a CGNAT and unable to forward their ports, as is the case with a lot of restrictive ISPs.

More detailed tech information to be found : https://geti2p.net/en/docs/how/tech-intro

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

I2p is too slow to be useful.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

To me, the term "post-piracy" means that piracy has taken over and is the norm; not that it's been abolished. "After piracy has taken over..." I suspect wearing parrots on your shoulder would be much more in vogue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

exactly; there will always be piracy as long as piracy is needed, a post-piracy world is a utopia, even in the worst dystopia people find ways to "pirate"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Can't wait for the highly dystopic future where we transfer files via smoke signals

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It'll happen some day. There will eventually be "Illegal" wireless transmitting devices that do things such as transmit data over disallowed frequencies, break the token rate speed limit imposed by the fcc (fuck 56k) and illegally use encryption (using data encryption on amateur radio is illegal). When they do start becoming a thing, they'll be able to transmit data maybe a few miles at up to a megabyte per second (not 1 megabit), or for dozens of miles at a few kilobytes per second. Depending on whether the designers wanted to prioritize speed or distance.

The technology exists to make such wireless transceivers using off the shelf parts available to normal people, there's just no reason for them to exist. Yet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

That actually sounds kinda awesome. Can't wait to torrent the X-Files over websdr or some shit while pretending it's Russian number stations

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

*Software: Idk, never really messed with pirating software, that's how you become part of someone's botnet.

*Movies and TV shows: Torrents and Usenet.

*Adult Content: Torrents and Usenet.

*Music: Slsk and yt-dlp.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The problem is not their absence from the P2P networks; rather, it’s the lack of seeders that renders them useless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

He's right, usenet isn't p2p, but finding old movies there can be a challenge. Still, I manage just fine for old movies with ipt and tl for the most part, or the rare thing I can only find on soulseek of all places. Archive actually has a bunch too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Usenet isn't P2P

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Honestly my friends ask me tonnes of questions like this, including "what happens when AI takes over", or "when everything mines your data".

I don't think people realise how close me as an IT person is to going and living in an off grid cabin in the woods.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Your friends will find you wherever you are and will continue asking you such questions. There is no escape.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Doubt.

I could disappear and my friends wouldn't be able to find me again.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

As somebody who only got back into this recently (thanks Amazon, you sticking ads into Prime gave me the push I needed), it involves a lot of subscriptions and unavailable content.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think 1) and 2) have already been that way for at least 15 years. Software copy protection used to be very simplistic and is getting improved constantly. Also when I grew up games didn't yet talk to servers and they do it for quite some time already. Every new physical video format gets a new copy protection mechanism... DVD, BluRay,... now streaming services with DRM... Illegal sites get shut down all the time.

The piracy scene also adapts, changes their methology. I'm pretty sure it'll continue that way. I asked the same question 10 years ago and yet here we are.

The adult content is getting worse though. But i think mainly for the big and well known commercial streaming sites. Maybe there are still torrents of that around and pirating adult content will get similar to pirating a tv series.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

[??Uh, you're getting downvoted for asking a straight question? WTF lemmies??]

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

OP's question is "given the above arbitrary and largely unfounded claims, how would a post-piracy world look?" which is... not straight. It's not just based on anecdotal premises, it also demands answers that don't call those into question.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

OP's premises may be not wrong on the first point, is in need of some realignment on the second, and I have no idea about the third.

The idea of a post-piracy world can still be envisioned and discussed; will it be full of FOSS and CC-BY-SA? Will it leaves us with only secondhand pulp comics while our roku devices blast 23h out of 24 of ads? Who knows?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Sure. But I'd drop the premises for that discussion. A post-privacy world is probably where convenience trumps everything. Everything is commercialized even more. Access to the internet isn't free any more, options like selfhosting or uploading things are heavily restricted and each and every service requires you to show your ID card into the webcam and give them your phone number. All private is being sold and AI shows you ADs and propaganda like in the old scifi movies.

I mean we're already half-way there. And I think it's especially bad that all the people use closed services that require me to dox myself and give them my phone number if I want to participate. It's just that we still have alternatives. It now needs politics to cut down access to the internet so only the big companies can host platforms and then force them to stop piracy. And cut the free flow of information and connections to other countries with other legislation. Reasons could be to protect intellectual property, stop crime (also like in the old dystopian movies) or "would somebody please think of the children"... These attempts to take away freedom happen regularly in politics. I think a post-privacy world would simultaneously be one without freedom. Either a scifi dystopia, a Cory Doctorow novel or like in the countries where they currently filter the internet successfully, which aren't democratic countries.

I think I'm far more concerned with the loss of any privacy or freedom in such scenarios. Not being able to pirate things would be a minor inconvenience in such hypothetical worlds.

I strongly doubt that it'll happen out of the reasons OP gave. They're all technical in nature. And in the past we were always able to circumvent the technical ones. Countermeasures have also improved. I don't see a reason why it's different now. But I think society could change and affect this. And there are anti-democratic things happening currently...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

You wonderfully deviated this conversation towards the real threats we are facing in the near future, and right now. That was very well said, thank you.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago

I think your examples apply only to a specific use case. In particular, for movies and TV shows — illegal streaming sites only account for one part of pirated material. I would assume many more simply download film/TV.

Can't speak to the others but I'm fairly sure that pirates will find a way to pirate no matter the obstacles.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

"You'll own nothing and be happy"

[–] [email protected] 45 points 7 months ago (5 children)

There has never been a better time to use free open source software. Software piracy is actually less convenient today. Game piracy is really only dead for big multiplayer games, which makes sense since they rely on online services.

Pirate streaming sites were a stupid thing to begin with. I'm happy to see them and the malware they push die. Torrents and P2P will always be king.

Porn piracy is absolutely huge. I think you're just doing a bad job downloading it.

A post piracy world can only be one thing: crushing authoritarianism. That's the only way piracy dies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

One thing that I recently saw being mentioned is that xbox 360 backups and downloads are hard to find and that the scene is pretty quiet. I have no idea how true this is as I haven't personally checked, but I would be concerned about that.

I suppose the demand isn't there yet? Maybe it'll take a while before people start to get into it more. I just hope that in the future, we figure out ways to make newer consoles more accessible, especially as companies attempt to shift towards digital downloads, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I look forward to an opensource software and gaming industry. Godot and Bevvy games all over the place on opensource gaming stores that allow you to transfer money directly and in a privacy friendly manner using Taler (completely non-crypto) or openbanking.

Yes, I dream, but it is possible.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Game piracy is currently in a precarious position, given how difficult it's become to crack denuvo. Games without denuvo still release very often, but especially in the AAA space, piracy is definitely slowing down

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Porn piracy is absolutely huge. I think you're just doing a bad job downloading it.

Unless you have a very particular kink or fetish, porn is the one thing that you can find for free all over the internet. You don't even have to look that hard.

Piracy of movies, TV, music, & books is alive and well with no intention of slowing down. If anything, the advent of streaming helped get media in higher quality sooner than before. It's even easier if you're willing to pay a little for a private tracker membership, of a Newsgroups subscription.

Gaming is the most difficult part because cracking copy protections carry a very high risk of infecting your computer with a nasty virus. Even then, if you know where to look, there are trusted groups that value their reputation and pride themselves on releasing clean repacks.

Bottom line is, there's not going to be a "post-piracy world" OP asks about. The game simply changed to paying for a single all-in-one subscription instead of being nickel-and-dimed to death by corporations. And it's already here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

I really like your way of thinking. Have a good one.

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