this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] 60d@lemmy.ca 62 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The craziest thing about online piracy is that Donald J. Trump is in the Epstein files.

[–] Agosagror@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.com 8 points 3 days ago

It made my hole weak.

[–] Fleur_@aussie.zone 2 points 2 days ago

I clapped when I read because I agree with thing

[–] randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 89 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Every one is else is doing piracy while I'm doing "digital content preservation". These companies would happily send you a letter telling you to destroy all copies of a book In your house if they had the right to. You must resist.

[–] nfreak@lemmy.ml 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I was thinking this while setting up RomM a few months back. Each media stack I'm running has a bit of a different reasoning behind it, but at the end of the day it's more about convenience and owning my own library than anything cost-related.

My Jellyfin server exists because streaming services are a nightmare. Overpriced as hell, extremely limited libraries, things constantly coming and going.

I use Navidrome because Spotify supports genocide and Tidal felt too limited, and neither pays artists well. While most of my library is pirated, I make it a point to buy directly from the artists whenever possible - whether that's digital downloads, vinyl, or merch, direct support goes much further than streaming services ever will.

RomM is about preservation and convenience for my emulation library. These aren't hard to find online, sure, but knowing I have my own copies feels like a safety net in case of more shutdowns and lawsuits.

[–] cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

While most of my library is pirated, I make it a point to buy directly from the artists whenever possible - whether that’s digital downloads, vinyl, or merch, direct support goes much further than streaming services ever will.

You might already do this, but I'd suggest to further prioritize buying from up and coming and independent artists. You don't need to support whatever random person/corporation owns the rights to the discography of a dead musician unless you have a compelling reason to so, and you don't have to deepen the pockets of already loaded superartists/bands. Is there a Bandcamp Friday coming up, then you can wait until then to make sure a larger chunk of your money goes directly to those who made the music.

[–] nfreak@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

Oh yeah, absolutely

I'm thinking the same - i for example have nearly every fitgirl release stored and backuped. there is no way i can ever play them all, but last time i checked i have quite a few games that are not available to buy anymore because they were pulled from steam/gog/epic. sometime in the future i will work on making all of these games available again.

[–] jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago
[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 153 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Turns out people will stop caring about your property rights if you take the things thry paid for away from them. They also like things to be convenient and easy! Who knew?

[–] etherphon@piefed.world 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They were on the right track and then greed took over yet again, injecting advertisements and making tiers. I want a video in reliable good quality, no worry about it being edited or that it will disappear, without ads. The options are buy the Bluray or pirate it, for older movies there is one option.

greed

Didn't take over. It took the mask off.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 32 points 4 days ago (7 children)

Corpo parasite think they can abuse contract law without peasants clapping back is naive.

Also, why would I fund my enemy

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[–] 10x10@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 3 days ago

In the professional world it's called "Distributed backups" and is recommended technique for archiving. I'm doing my bit daily at no charge to the media industry, just out of the goodness of my heart :)

[–] imsufferableninja@sh.itjust.works 137 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm not watching a whole ass video to tell me "because streaming fragmentation is worse than ever"

[–] Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org 72 points 4 days ago (10 children)

Also it's unlikely it actually almost died

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 42 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, I don't think piracy ever came close to dying. It definitely slowed down for a small time when Netflix was the only real player in the streaming space, as a lot of pirates didn't actually mind paying for a service as long as it worked and had content. For those people, piracy was a service issue, not a cost issue.

Now that Netflix doesn't have anything to watch and the content is spread across dozens of networks (again), piracy is back on the menu for that specific demographic. But there will always be a demo that will pirate no matter what, be it principles or be it cost.

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me pirating everything for the last ten years

"it almost died?! On my watch!?"

[–] truxnell@aussie.zone 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Definietly not, but it dropped from the 'mainstream' knowledge base and people who only knew screaming are 'discovering' it now.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That speaks more toward general tech illiteracy than anything else.

GenZ might be even worse than boomers when it comes to learning how to use tech. That is why so many solutions are basically automated these days so that you can treat everything like it is a streaming site.

[–] truxnell@aussie.zone 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Tech illiteracy today is insane. I had to help my parents connect up the TV as a kid, and now I have to help my kids connect up their TV/PC. Obviously a lot wrong with that statement (I. E. Not everyone leans techy) but it does make me feel like my age group is the only ones that have a vauge idea what is going on

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[–] 01011@monero.town 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

It almost died when?

Any pirated content that I've looked for over the past 20 years has been easily accessible.

The only reason I've slowed down is due to the quality of today's media, not because of availability of content.

[–] BlueRingedOctopus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

That is called engagement farming, pretty common on YouTube, there are probably 50 videos like this released in the past month, they just copy paste from each other, each getting hundreds and thousands of views.

The only noticeable decline in piracy came in the year when Netflix got famous, which got reverted in the next few years due to the launch of another 100 Streaming sites and netflix's enshittification.

[–] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Anime & Movie & TV streaming sites got hit pretty hard not that long ago.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It definitely had a dip. Sure you could find whatever you wanted but the amount of people doing it has declined, and ease of use. Streaming when it started was to easy and people didn't bother. Now price increases and ads and stuff going everywhere, piracy is easier.

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[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 84 points 4 days ago (7 children)

Piracy never got anywhere close to dying. TV and movie piracy dropped a bit when there were decent streaming services though.

Lots of people got used to watching what they want, when they want it. Now that the streaming services have all enshittified, loads of people are turning to piracy because it provides better service.

[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

In general I agree, but my understanding is that the pirate streams of live sporting events were cracked down on quite hard. There was definitely a dip at one point where the high quality SopCast and Ace Stream broadcasts that had become very popular for competitions like the Premier League (e.g. Bloodzeed) disappeared quite suddenly and weren't replaced with anything comparable.

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[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 4 days ago (21 children)

I do have the feel that gaming piracy is on a all time low. At the moment there isn't even a single active denuvo cracker while there used to be like 3-4. Probably because stores like steam and gog, which are consumer friendly with fair prices for most products and not linked with stupid subscriptions.

On the other hand movie and shows piracy is rising for the anti-consumer platforms, who can pay $200 a month for seeing all decent shows and movies without ads? Very few people, and even then you own nothing.

I have a feel that music piracy will rise soon too. As Spotify already have started the anti consumer route. I'm pretty sure in a few years it's subscription won't be as worth it as it used to be, and a lot of people will find out that they have been paying for years and still own nothing.

[–] DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 25 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Music piracy, while still a thing, is basically nil at this point, because the record industry didn't fuck up streaming (for the consumer). The artists don't get paid enough, but from a consumer perspective you don't have to sub to all the services to get all of the music.

We were so close to that with Netflix back in the beginning. Then the studios got greedy, and here we are.

[–] Brutticus@midwest.social 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I found the easiest way to pirate music was to just grab stuff from youtube. Maybe in the future Freetube will have an option to download whole playlists, but in my middle age I am way less likely to download the whole album for "context."

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[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Music piracy's still alive here and there. The torrents I usually find are massive FLAC files that have very little advantage over much smaller MP3s though. I might need to buy some really fancy gear to appreciate it maybe.

[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Music piracy basically amounts to not using sponsored AI playlists
Listening to the music you like instead of the music you are told to like
that's what music piracy has become today !

[–] DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 7 points 4 days ago

Yeah, music piracy is kinda niche these days: mostly just people who want a local library and who have a modded iPod or similar. I use Soulseek to get flacs of the music I play on my radio show, just so I can be sure I'm offering the best possible quality.

But to be honest, I straddle both camps. I have a modded iPod full of music, but I also have Apple Music mostly for convenience.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 27 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The second that valve goes public and gets horribly enshittified , it will grow exponentially.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I have codex steamdrm crack at good custody for saving my library when it happens.

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[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 12 points 4 days ago (8 children)

How exactly is Steam consumer friendly? Or is the bar so low that companies that don't shoot themselves in their feet by mistake because they were actually aiming for the customer are considered "consumer friendly"?

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 4 days ago

The bar is, indeed, very low. By comparison I don't feel as predated as in other shops.

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

gog is more consumer friendly but steam is pretty good too compared to the alternatives.

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[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago

The line graphs for corporate greed and online file sharing are the same line.

[–] zqwzzle@lemmy.ca 41 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Turns out making it easier to pay and access content (ie. Steam) actually encourages consumers to pay. Weird.

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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 35 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

You know what this means. They're gonna be tightening things up as soon as they smell slowing down profit growth. If you live in a copyright haven, make sure your anon VPN, blocklists and all that are setup correctly.

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bring back shareware tbh

[–] FlembleFabber@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

Nyarrrrr Mayteyhh

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