this post was submitted on 23 May 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Have you encountered VHS or Cassette piracy in the 80s? (piefed.social)
submitted 12 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) by Shadow79@piefed.social to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Like that infamous "ET" torrent in 1982 where it involved a "pirate" sneaking a huge JVC camcorder (with a VHS reel) recording the entire movie in theaters, given this was before DVD's existed (don't even ask about pirate bay, those weren't available yet). The same applies to "torrented" music, one would have a spare tape cassette recording the song played via the radio, that's how they torrented content back then if they can't afford an official copy.

Only millennials or Gen X who were kids back then would've encountered or witnessed VHS or Cassette "torrents" from either friends or family and often or not, piracy in the pre internet days was rife even before torrent sites were a thing. There are VHS "torrents" of TV shows or series (placing a camcorder which faces the TV screen with a spare reel recording the entire show (ads included), then used to fast forward upon replay.

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[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

My experience is more late 80s, early 90s as a kid/teen. We recorded tons of stuff on VHS from cable TV and shared with friends and it was extremely common. It's similar to how people use DVRs only you end up with a more portable copy if you want to share it. DVRs took away that sharing capability on purpose to increase cable and streaming revenue. Sure VHS was lower quality, but at that time cable wasn't great either and HD TV's and content weren't common. Cams from movie theaters just wasn't realistic and theater was still about the experience way more than it is now with everything just extra loud and flashy if you go to one.

I also copied stuff on cassette to share or to make it more portable since I had a cassette walkman. Sometimes that was from radio, but that was harder since you didn't have a guide to what was coming up. Either you had to sit there and hope a song played that you wanted and then rewind if it wasn't one. Or you had to copy from one cassette to another and further lose quality with analog copying. More common was making mix tapes either from original purchase cassettes or CDs once I had a CD player. Then BMG and copycats came along and everyone cheated the free trials to get a ton of free music before torrenting came along later.