Current state of piracy and where it is all going

[Ross_Я]

This post made me want to provide some points on it, though what I've wanted to write is definitely bigger than 1000-something chars, and I didn't find a proper thread about piracy, so here we go...

I've been pirating all things possible since the very appearance of the internet, and I feel as if the golden days of piracy are actually already behind us. Sure, the mainstream stuff is all there and easy to find, but trying to find something obscure? It sucks. Besides, corps on ocassion have some very successful crackdowns which complicate things immensely. Since the original post talks about video games, I will provide an example that relates to those especially: Google entered a requirement to request manual access to pretty much every major account that was sharing games on cs.rin.ru thus effectively locking out most of the content and, as far as I've understood, not crossing any lines legally. Last time I've tried to download Syder Arcade, I couldn't find it anywhere, but, luckily, someone on cs.rin.ru answered to my re-upload request.

Spoiler: More examples of personal experience

GOG fares much better, though there was a dark moment when both GOG Games moved to Tor and Torrminatorr went down. Luckily, today Torrminatorr is back online and GOG Games are back in the clear again. Any kind of console and emulator ROMs are not that easy to find - console ROM sites suffered a lot back in the days because of Nintendo, who still goes after 90's games like it is their bread and butter, and arcade ROMs can be hit or miss when you download them. You can end up with a ROM that misses some files or an old non-functional dump. The best bet would be to find the big all-encompassing official MAME/FBNeo collection and download them all - they are somewhat hidden from the public eye though.

Games aside, comic books are in a bad position. As far as I understand, most of them are hosted on just several big websites. Which seem convinient, and you are pretty much bound to find them easily via any search engine given their size, but if one of them will go down - a lot of content would be likely lost. And, as an avid movie fan, I can say that finding movies in good quality has been quite a pain lately. A lot of public torrents are dead. Frankly, for whatever reason, it is probably the worst situation for the movies at the moment. You have to rely on closed trackers - and I have an access to a number of them - but public repositories are quite desolated.

Trying to find something TTRPG-related has also been quite a pain. My main sources for that today is a couple of DC++ and IRC rooms - and, as you understand, this is as removed from the average user, as possible. For an average user, TTRPG rules and supplements are scattered all over the web, if they are even there in the first place. I know there are some Mega repositories (one of the huge ones has recently been taken down by Games Workshop, by the way), but you gotta search for them and ask for the access - search engines do not pick them up, plus some of them are password protected.

Software seems in rather good position on torrents I use, but I cannot help the feeling that the amount of cracks went down. I guess that software never had as much talented crackers as video games had, plus the modern protection likely relies on online checks way harder, so it is somewhat understandable. Still, software is in kind of an odd position: I need the cracked stuff rather rarely, as it seems most of the actually useful software (for me, at least) is a free open-source stuff. It is... very encouraging. You can somewhat say that people won this one, as corps are pushed to develop rather niche stuff. Most important software in said niches is very likely hacked, but as you dig deeper, you might encounter the need to pay cash.

I cannot provide much info on music, since at this point I'm pretty much digging through the music that has never been digitalized in the first place. This means I have to buy my own discs and make them digital. I've been uploading them on the torrents and on the YouTube for what it takes, and at this point the stuff I've made digital is there. Though as for myself, my own source of obscure music has primarily been in various - you probably won't believe it - blogs from Blogger. A lot of links there are dead, and a number of bloggers are just trying to raise some cash, but there are still some big and very useful blogs. When, on ocassion, something mainstream catches my ear, it is usually very easy to download - either via one of the websites, torrents or through the bots that rip audio from Deezer, Spotify, Apple Music or whatever. Apple Music, actually, on ocassion holds digital versions of some rather obscure and local albums - for example, I've once found Pronadi Me U Zvijezdama there, a 1986 album by croatian Grupa 777.

Books... I'm not sure. It is pretty much the same situation as with music here with me: I dig for the very, very obscure things. Library Genesis and Sci-Hub are rather good sources for my literature, but, unfortunately, not everything is there. I upload to Library Genesis on ocassion, but I feel like quite a number of things is missing. However, when I'm trying to find something well-known, it is usually two clicks away - so, as it has been stated in the very start, mainstream stuff is all there and easy to find, but trying to find something obscure is hard.

Oh, and... various secondary materials? A lot of those never went digital in the first place. Trying to find some deleted scenes, video game manuals, interviews... This can be hard. Those are really all over the place. I know some people try to make a central for video game manuals, and it kinda works, I guess, since I can see tons of manuals listed there, but every time I try to get one I need, it turns into a little adventure. Last time I've had to settle for photos from 4chan's /vr/ anon.

Now, I have to say that situation was quite better back in late 2000's. In early-steam times video games had several huge centralised sites. Emulation was not as good as it is today, but various ROMs were much easier to find. Movies and TTRPGs were definitely much more well organised online as well. And then it all came down: most of the big sites were broken. Some of them moved to another domain, but a lot of them still lost a number of content in the process. In fact, I think only two sites from those times exist to this day, and only one is still as useful. I cannot help but feel that finding things is harder for me every time I go online, though it might be just because every second time I'm trying to find something more and more obscure. Still, having big, centralised sites back in 2000's helped a lot, since there were a lot of people there and when you were asking for help, someone would've very likely replied. Though, I gotta say, I'm not sure how hard it is nowadays, but I'm coming from the fact that I'm simply on the scene, proficient with searching for obscure things, and therefore have contacts or can locate contacts somewhat easily. I can imagine an average user would be lost in the web.

And, frankly, "average user" is a guy who concerns me a lot. I'm sure many people noticed this phenomena, that despite the fact that people grow up in the age of technology, they are not becoming more proficient with it. In fact, I feel like people are starting to develop some supernatural fear towards it. There have been multiple times I've been refused a file - like, a savegame, for example - and as a reason, people voiced concerns that I might somehow steal their account. Via a fucking savegame. Then, on one ocassion, I've been called a "tech wizard", so... it all comes together, kind of. If it is a witchery in the minds of people - then of course from that point of view I can do voodoo and control accounts via the savegame as if it is controlling a person with a tuft of hair and a doll.

I also cannot help but think that many americans, and, perhaps, europeans are simply afraid of engaging the piracy. I know that unlike my country, whose ISPs don't give the tiniest of fucks about me pirating things, ISPs in US are actually sending their users legal notices and whatnot. One of my acquaintances also surprised me by descibing that his iPhone doesn't let him open music files I've sent him in Discord - it transfers him to iTunes to listen to those instead. And some other stuff has been related to iPhone, which I do not quite remember, but I believe he had troubles with rar archives... and something else, very, very basic, which left me under impression that he browses web from a jail. A digital one, I mean. Or... maybe not. I don't know. Anyway, sharing files with him has been quite a frustrating experience. What kind of "awareness among people regarding piracy" can you talk about when a man can't even open a simple rar or an mp3 file? Talk about smartphones being evil and dumbing people down...

Anyway, to wrap it up... I can be my pessimistic self - and I have an urge to - by proceeding to say that corporations taking down major piracy centers have been a huge blow. Now everything is decentralized and corps are still pressing on, and it feels like finding things is harder every time, so it is all slowly crumbling down, save all you can while you can, et cetera. On the other hand though, I have a feeling that things probably have a chance to change and become better. You see, our strongest winds come, as usual, from United States. So it really depends on whether or not its capitalistic policies will continue to dominate the landscape. Or, rather, the webscape. US had a kickstart by being the country who invented the web, and therefore it has the most prominent websites, but as the time goes on, said websites might, after all, come down and make way for sites and servers from other domain zones. Since the internet has no borders, in the WWW it is truly possible to turn tides around.

I would love to hear about your experience with pirating various things in the year 2023 and onwards, as well as your predictions about if it will change for the better or for the worse. You might say a word or two about "average user" as well, I guess, though I feel like the overall stupidity of people nowadays is a bit off the topic, even though whether or not things will change for the better definitely depends on whether or not people will get some tech-wits and soon.

 

[GothMonk]

If it cannot be traded,
The point of the product aftermarket is faded,
That's when I find myself jaded,
If it cannot be obtained with a cheap key,
To piracy I flee.

- Dr Seuss

 

[Deleted member 7044]

You might say a word or two about "average user" as well, I guess, though I feel like the overall stupidity of people nowadays is a bit off the topic, even though whether or not things will change for the better definitely depends on whether or not people will get some tech-wits and soon.

I'd say the average user will never join a private tracker let alone even know what they are, because they aren't on the right parts of the Internet to get a chance of being offered an invite or knowing how to do the interview some offer. On the positive side of that it means less eyes on them by police.

 

[Z0diacK]

I also cannot help but think that many americans, and, perhaps, europeans are simply afraid of engaging the piracy. I know that unlike my country, whose ISPs don't give the tiniest of fucks about me pirating things, ISPs in US are actually sending their users legal notices and whatnot. One of my acquaintances also surprised by descibing that his iPhone doesn't let him open music files I've sent him in Discord - it transfers him to iTunes to listen to those instead. And some other stuff has been related to iPhone, which I do not quite remember, but I believe he had troubles with rar archives... and something else, very, very basic, which left me under impression that he browses web from a jail. A digital one, I mean. Or... maybe not. I don't know. Anyway, sharing files with him has been quite a frustrating experience. What kind of "awareness among people regarding piracy" can you talk about when a man can't even open a simple rar or an mp3 file? Talk about smartphones being evil and dumbing people down...

To be fair for them, Iphone just does that for them, there's not alot of customization. There's very easy ways around it though, with some apps you can literally get on the appstore. "Documents" one is called and it's literally a file explorer, which can open mp3, mp4, pdf, ETC. It even has a browser within to download stuff and what I always did, YT to MP3 all my songs. I had 6GB of music in that app lol. Many of these issues can easily be fixed. But you're right, smartphones are dumbing people down, the fact almost no one knows this is astounishing especially because you don't really need any knowledge (or so, I would think). I still have friends that are so retarded they can't download a zip file or know how to extract it. I still have to help them to this day, quite sad.
Jailbreaking your iphone is quite fun though and give you way more possibilities, but the word jailbreak and hacking scares the average normie. My girlfriend's little sister wanted to buy Spotify Premium, to which I answered I can give her a spotify premium hacked APK, then she was like NO NO NO. Whatever, lol

 

[containercore]

Probably in the minority in this but I'm fine with piracy declining, at least when it comes to media. Some aspects of piracy culture are beneficial for art, like how in video game emulation and comic scan/translation communities things that are out of print or don't have a published translation in a particular region are made available. But the negative side of piracy culture is that it fosters a sentiment that good art/media doesn't need to be paid for in any way.

 

[Z0diacK]

But the negative side of piracy culture is that it fosters a sentiment that good art/media doesn't need to be paid for in any way.

But the thing is, the people do anyway. The majority of the world is not pirating

 

[Ross_Я]

Probably in the minority in this but I'm fine with piracy declining, at least when it comes to media. Some aspects of piracy culture are beneficial for art, like how in video game emulation and comic scan/translation communities things that are out of print or don't have a published translation in a particular region are made available. But the negative side of piracy culture is that it fosters a sentiment that good art/media doesn't need to be paid for in any way.

Well... Let me just provide you my own experience with this.

So, I've started as a huge supporter for legal things. Even though I say I've pirated things since it became a thing, it was actually more of a necessity. For example, PSX has never ever been imported legally in my country, and neither were the games for it, and so every unit, to my knowldge, that was in the shops has already been jailbroken, since 99% of the games has been pirate discs and people needed consoles that could launch those. I've hunted for legal stuff, like, at every corner. Somehow - some fucking how - I've got a legit PAL Need For Speed Underground 2, while everyone else had the usual pirate version that came from an NTSC disc. Therefore my NFSU2 had Peugeot 106, and nobody, literally no one believed me when I've told them about that car.

So, anyway, fast forward to the appearance of Steam - that was my first huge disappointment with legal mediums. I've bought myself Saints Row 2, and what I've found inside? Something that told me to download Steam. Which I've did. And then it told me to download the game itself - 6GB of data. Which, back in the days, was massive. I've never managed to download it. I've ended up playing Saints Row 2 only way later, when I've got myself XBox 360. For me, that was a cheap shot, and I've started to gravitate towards pirate games, because back then those still had CDs inside the box. Last licensed game I've bought was Fallout 3 - after that pretty much every game came out with DRM, and so I've stopped buying those.

Except GOG, of course. That was... the last shop for the previous me. I will be frank: as a guy who creates something myself, I like supporting creators when I have a dollar to spare. And even though I've only bought games on sales and whatnot, I did it, truly and really. But guess what, when Russia invaded Ukraine, GOG told me that they won't take my money! As did the rest of the companies, by the way. As did all the places I could buy music from (as I've ocassionally bought on Bandcamp from small guys).

In my eyes, I've got carte blanche on piracy from the companies themselves. So did everyone else in the world. Companies literally telling people they won't take their money. So I'm not going to give any. Why are you still giving them? Tomorrow they might refuse to take money from you, for what it takes. So that's it, I'm done. If anything, I hope that this ban on Russia, Belarus and several other countries will finally teach people at least in those countries to pirate things again and stay away from legal mediums, which, as far as I am concerned, kept trying to fuck me over at least since 2010 or so. You won't believe how supportive the younger generations have become of legal mediums since they've found way in my country. To think of it, it is kind of scary how just in one generation people had turned from 100% piracy to 100% legality. Back in my day, I was the white crow - and then, suddenly... Ugh, I guess, this is because one thing parents didn't bother to teach their kids about is the whole piracy vs legality schtick - but then, to their defence, nobody knew much about legal media in the first place, plus hardly anyone could've foreseen the rise of Steam and the rest of'em.

Anyway, my stance on legal purchase of things had been turned 180. There are still idiots that actually do circumvent those blockades to pay money to corporations, and that blows my mind. I know from some acquaintances that they do so in order to play online - and, well, one more reason to hate online gaming. Not only it prevents an actual motherfucking physical interaction and LAN parties - it also make people look like complete slaves in my eyes. Not only they are giving their money - they are actually actively working to give their money away!

Also, I have to note that on ocassion I've been writing to small developers in order to give them money circumventing Steam or something like that, and in my experience, two out of every three among them do not try to make buck that hard. When I wrote to one of the devs of Hotline Miami, he told me to buy a beer and raise it in his name instead. When I've wrote to Confrontational, he made all downloads on his bandcamp free for a day.

In other words: I'm under impression that if tomorrow everything will suddenly become "name your own price", people who actually care about art rather than about money will still get enough money to live and work, because people who care about art will actually keep paying.

I'd say the average user will never join a private tracker let alone even know what they are, because they aren't on the right parts of the Internet to get a chance of being offered an invite or knowing how to do the interview some offer. On the positive side of that it means less eyes on them by police.

On point. That's why people gotta get some tech wits. You can say that if private trackers will become too big, they can get downed again like it happened with major piracy centers before, but this is the plus of private trackers: they can control their numbers and simply cease giving away invites if they'll feel they are becoming too big for their comfort. Another tracker should probably rise up then; possibly, we can have one big, but decentralized chain.

To be fair for them, Iphone just does that for them, there's not alot of customization. There's very easy ways around it though, with some apps you can literally get on the appstore. "Documents" one is called and it's literally a file explorer, which can open mp3, mp4, pdf, ETC. It even has a browser within to download stuff and what I always did, YT to MP3 all my songs. I had 6GB of music in that app lol. Many of these issues can easily be fixed. But you're right, smartphones are dumbing people down, the fact almost no one knows this is astounishing especially because you don't really need any knowledge (or so, I would think). I still have friends that are so retarded they can't download a zip file or know how to extract it. I still have to help them to this day, quite sad.
Jailbreaking your iphone is quite fun though and give you way more possibilities, but the word jailbreak and hacking scares the average normie. My girlfriend's little sister wanted to buy Spotify Premium, to which I answered I can give her a spotify premium hacked APK, then she was like NO NO NO. Whatever, lol

Man. I'll be fair: I've never had any Apple tech in my hands, so I simply have no idea what's what there, though I've always imagined jailbreaks for those systems should exist, since they are, well, popular? But from what you are saying, some partial circumventions of all those protections are not even that hard. Which makes the whole situation kind of sad.
And yea, that's what I'm talking about: some people all over the globe are just afraid of the very notions of piracy and hacks. I wonder how that even managed to creep into people's brains. No one in my circle has ever been bothered by "FBI warnig, 500 million triliion fin if you play this disc" messages.

 

[handoferis]

Piracy is easier now than ever and the quality of pirated content is through the roof thanks to stuff sourced direct from streaming services. Games are always a problem, but I've always been a mac user so never been able to play any anyway >:D

But seriously, all my pirating is automated and I've got a media server that basically subs in for all of these services. This was pretty impossible without a lot of manual labor back in the day.

 

[Ross_Я]

Piracy is easier now than ever and the quality of pirated content is through the roof thanks to stuff sourced direct from streaming services. Games are always a problem, but I've always been a mac user so never been able to play any anyway >:D

But seriously, all my pirating is automated and I've got a media server that basically subs in for all of these services. This was pretty impossible without a lot of manual labor back in the day.

Well, I'm glad if it is that easy for you. Would be nice if you'd provide more details for the whole ordeal, because your message kind of paints you as someone who never went for anything that is not in mainstream in my eyes, while I'm here trying to dig out 90's Korean movies and up on several places requesting stuff that seemingly only exist in dead links nowadays or has never been uploaded online in the first place.

 

[Some_porcupine]

Anyway, my stance on legal purchase of things had been turned 180. There are still idiots that actually do circumvent those blockades to pay money to corporations, and that blows my mind. I know from some acquaintances that they do so in order to play online - and, well, one more reason to hate online gaming. Not only it prevents an actual motherfucking physical interaction and LAN parties - it also make people look like complete slaves in my eyes. Not only they are giving their money - they are actually actively working to give their money away!

fucking this
some things arent worth paying for
10s of subs services...?
pay - got ads still bs?
there are mods too, but i get it, (i am too) scared of embeded viruses "gifts" from malicious "goodhearts" !

 

[InternetGeist]

Piracy allows for local digital ownership when the majority of content is nowadays behind a subscription service provided by companies who have the right to revoke the service for the stupidest reason possible whenever they like. Sure, piracy would encourage people to "steal", but in most circumstances you are not even directly supporting the artist if there is a third party involved. I see nothing wrong in stealing from a business that should not even exist in the first place.

your predictions about if it will change for the better or for the worse

I would say that it will stay the same since it is impossible to eliminate something that is by nature decentralized. Back when zlib was taken down, everyone panicked at first, yet libgen was still going strong and Anna's Archive was also out. Torrenting could be harder but won't die off completely once zoomers dominate the Internet and you will get less seeders and people to put new media into torrent files.

 

[Shogun_Mosquito]

I think some of the biggest arguments for piracy exist due to lack of availability, ownership, and experience.

Availability because not everything is available in the country or format desired. I live in the US, so I can't speak too much on the country availability aspect (minus trying to get some things from Japan or British TV). But desired format? Sorry - I don't want to buy your 192kbps mp3s. Let me buy the song, then choose the format. Want to charge 2-3x as much for FLAC (if it's offered at all)? Congrats: you lost yourself a sale.

Ownership because our implementation of copyrights and licensing is fucked. If I buy a movie, song, game, or something else, it should be mine to use. Period. Let me buy it and store it on my storage medium of choice. Store going to shut down? Give us a heads up so we can backup what we care about. Let us download stuff we pay for. And get rid of the DRM (see experience). I'd even further this by saying at death, we should be able to transfer our copy/license/account/etc. to an individual. Let them inherit what was paid for.

Experience because nobody who pays for a product should get a worse experience than someone who didn't. I pay for a movie and then have to watch unskippable ads? Thanks for selling me on piracy. Same with DRM (though admittedly, I use Steam simply because it's so damn convenient - it's not ideal, but far better than many other solutions out there). Bottom line: piracy should (theoretically) be the side that has to jump through hoops to get things to work, not someone who is literally handing you money.

Instead, piracy still remains a premium experience in many regards (looking at you Nintendo). And as long as companies keep playing their games, they'll lose my business. I am happy to pay for good product under reasonable terms.

To this day, I pay for the majority of my games and software(unless they exist on defunct/unsupported systems). I buy music from bandcamp, and will support authors/artists directly if at all possible. Sometimes I'll buy movies for convenience (in part because I share accounts with my mother, which makes it easier on her). The rest? Piracy unless sold directly.

That being said, I don't feel like it's ever particularly hard to find what I need. Sure, if it's something niche maybe. But overall, there's something there. And for those who want the best (private) options out there, they are usually willing to do the work to learn how to use the systems currently existing. I see lack of piracy in face of the reasons I mention above to be solely due to convenience (everything in one location with no management of the user) and/or laziness (not willing to learn).

As long as private trackers exist, I think the preservation aspect should do well. Obviously, the more that exist, the better on that end. I'd personally like to see repositories emerge to provide non-tracker methods to obtain things. But as long as there is a desire for it, it will be there.

Public trackers have been worse than before, but I don't think unusably so. I think it's just the internet getting used to the convenience factor and people being unwilling to look further than the easiest method. People, given the option, will usually take the easiest approach - like water.

 

[handoferis]

Well, I'm glad if it is that easy for you. Would be nice if you'd provide more details for the whole ordeal, because your message kind of paints you as someone who never went for anything that is not in mainstream in my eyes, while I'm here trying to dig out 90's Korean movies and up on several places requesting stuff that seemingly only exist in dead links nowadays or has never been uploaded online in the first place.

Yeah, not much I can say that others here haven't. Get into good private trackers and you're set for the most part. There'll always be a few things that are impossible to find, but those things are also impossible to buy so it's not like piracy is any worse than the alternative.

 

[Ross_Я]

there are mods too, but i get it, (i am too) scared of embeded viruses "gifts" from malicious "goodhearts" !

Well, all I can say - don't be. They are not as scary. I do not even run a permanent antivirus program - a regular backup to an external removable HDD is all you need to protect yourelf from any virus, and what you should do regardless of the viruses if you value your data. Though I've never got a virus that was so bad I've had to restore things from the backup in the first place. But I notice if something's suspicious is going on in the system (for example, I've once caught a miner that ate up all my RAM and that was way easy to detect, greedy bastard), and run an antivirus and whatever else is needed to clean things up - and then remove all the protection again.
If you do not trust your computer senses, you can just do ocassional virus checks. In fact, you should do those. I do check PC, like, once a year, even if nothing happens. Running antivirus all the time is not recommended (for me, at least), as they do tend to intervene with a number of programs I'm using.
Overall, virsuses are hardly scary nowadays. Modern systems are protected as fuck by default, so I really doubt anyone can run another Chernobyl on your PC.

Piracy allows for local digital ownership when the majority of content is nowadays behind a subscription service provided by companies who have the right to revoke the service for the stupidest reason possible whenever they like. Sure, piracy would encourage people to "steal", but in most circumstances you are not even directly supporting the artist if there is a third party involved. I see nothing wrong in stealing from a business that should not even exist in the first place.

Word, signed, verified. I didn't even touch that, but the fact that you usually do not even own data you pay for is stupendous. And I will never forget when YouTube claimed a song by Blind Willie Johnson - man died in 1945, for God's sake!

I would say that it will stay the same since it is impossible to eliminate something that is by nature decentralized. Back when zlib was taken down, everyone panicked at first, yet libgen was still going strong and Anna's Archive was also out. Torrenting could be harder but won't die off completely once zoomers dominate the Internet and you will get less seeders and people to put new media into torrent files.

Well, hopefully so. I, myself do not believe even the goverment has the power to, like, wall off the internet completely - even the chinese firewall gets breached here and there. A friend of mine says it's possible, but, once again, I disagree. And as for corps - yes, I guess, at worst they will push us all the way down to P2P services, but as long as there are borders between the countries, the future is less or more secured.

Yeah, not much I can say that others here haven't. Get into good private trackers and you're set for the most part. There'll always be a few things that are impossible to find, but those things are also impossible to buy so it's not like piracy is any worse than the alternative.

Well, I've provided just one example in the OP - Syder Arcade. It is in Steam, for sale, and I couldn't find it. A lot of small, indie games are very hard to find. I used to get them from cs.rin.ru, but now that Google cut the links off - yea, that's a huge number of Steam files offline.
Some books are also aren't uploaded yet. In fact, if you would love to prove me wrong - here, run a search for this, as I'm still searching it: www.amazon.com/Texts-Relating-Horus-Collected-Temple-ebook/dp/B09RTQRYN5
These are just few examples. Overall, I'm saying a lot of niche stuff is offline for a reason. Mainstream is all uploaded, sure, but stray away from the line - and you are done for. And personally I feel like it's getting tighter.
Assuming "impossible to buy things" doesn't include old second hand stuff, of course - otherwise the list of things that are not available for download is infinitely bigger.

~snip~

Those are nice points. I'd say you are on your way.

People, given the option, will usually take the easiest approach - like water.

And this is the problem, really. Cheese and mousetraps, all that stuff - sometimes you just gotta think about it.

 

[Pangolin]

One thing not talked about is the proliferation of computer malware through pirated media. Sure your scanner didn't detect it in its limited heuristics/ signature detection engine, but that doesn't mean its clean. Can you really trust these providers to not try to poison your computer via malware? The game guys that steal wouldn't be too far above stealing the limited value you have stored on your PC.

In my opinion pirated media poses such unacceptable risk to my PC. I guess its a lot like the whole open source type of situation where it matters if someone is physically going out and inspecting the code/software/installer not to have any malware inside.

 

[Ross_Я]

One thing not talked about is the proliferation of computer malware through pirated media. Sure your scanner didn't detect it in its limited heuristics/ signature detection engine, but that doesn't mean its clean. Can you really trust these providers to not try to poison your computer via malware? The game guys that steal wouldn't be too far above stealing the limited value you have stored on your PC.

In my opinion pirated media poses such unacceptable risk to my PC. I guess its a lot like the whole open source type of situation where it matters if someone is physically going out and inspecting the code/software/installer not to have any malware inside.

I really do not know where this stance even comes from, really. Once again, I've been pirating things since the 90's, downloaded stuff from fishiest looking websites ever possible, and I've never-ever caught anything fatal. As I've said, I do not even run an anti-virus on a constant basis. Or a firewall, for that matter. I only install anti-virus when I see something funky happening in the system. Here's the three most dire things that happened to me since 2010:

1) Keylogger stole my password to PayPal, back when I've used it. They've tried to buy something for ~50 bucks about three times (each time resulting in PayPal sending me an SMS), before I've finally figured out something's off. Thing is, I never stored any money on my PayPal account, and every payment via the card wanted my approvement, which I, obviously, didn't give.
Edit: actually, I believe credit card that was tied to PayPal didn't ask for approvement. Or at least didn't ask back then. I just never store money on credit card either, even today. I prefer cash. Anyway, I've changed my password, cleaned my PC and was done with it. Lost nothing.
2) Keylogger stole the password to my e-mail which I use since 2000 or so. Contacted support and they've returned the e-mail to me. Judging by incoming messages, those dudes requested password reset for some other account of mine - do not quite remember, but either I've got my access back too quickly for them to follow through, or it was something so utterly useless (like a completely empty Twitter account which I've made out of pure curiosity) that I didn't even bother to check if they've succeded in stealing that from me.
3) As I've mentioned, I've caught a miner once. But that thing was too greedy and ate up all my RAM, so I've pretty much instantly spotted it and took it out.

Aside from that? Well, malware, like... about three more times. The most annoying things redirect the starting page in your browser to some other page, or just ocassionally make it open some ad-page...

Anyway, really, here's my result: 6-7 viruses in almost 15 years at this point, and I dig at the absolute worst websites of the web. I do not know how dumb you gotta be to make a score worse than mine. I bet you won't go at places I go, so as long as you do not click on the exe file when you were supposed to download rar archive, you should be two-thumbs-up-fine. And if things do start to get finicky, there's your AVZ, anti-rootkit and anti-malware. Clean it out - and there you go, good as new again.

Really, mates, here's to everyone: stop being afraid of viruses. We've got quite a number of threads here dedicated to post Gen X people and their dubious affiliation with tech, and this fear of viruses as if it is something paranormal is one of those symptoms of tech-stupidity that you gotta get rid of. All the soft to get rid of the viruses is there, and nowadays it is simple as one-two-three. Well, aside from AVZ, perhaps, but even then - there are forums online where people will write all the scripts for you as long as you'll give them the log file, and that is just several clicks of the mouse thing.

You have more chances to get royally fucked in case of running a routine chkdsk from Microsoft - that thing killed my OS. For the first time in 15 years I've had to re-install an OS. No virus ever did that to me.

 

[punisheddead]

I also cannot help but think that many americans, and, perhaps, europeans are simply afraid of engaging the piracy.

I've noticed this too, usually things like pop up ads and install some adware scare off people for life. Of course there's always the copyright troll letters too.

Now everything is decentralized

I would argue that this a good thing, the reason so much stuff got taken down is exactly because it got centralized. Sure it sucks for the average user but it's better for overall longevity of the scene.

I'd say the average user will never join a private tracker let alone even know what they are, because they aren't on the right parts of the Internet to get a chance of being offered an invite or knowing how to do the interview some offer.

I fall under one of these, not that I don't know about them but that I refuse to do an interview like I'm signing up for some crappy job. I get why it's done but I myself will never do it. There's other avenues.

But the negative side of piracy culture is that it fosters a sentiment that good art/media doesn't need to be paid for in any way.

I disagree. Piracy has been proven time again to not impact sales, it's so unimpactful that EU funded a study found it didn't have an impact and tried to bury it. People that pirate weren't going to buy the whatever anyways and a significant number have shown to change their mind. I've bought things that I have pirated before that I wouldn't even think of buying if I hadn't tried it.

One thing not talked about is the proliferation of computer malware through pirated media. Sure your scanner didn't detect it in its limited heuristics/ signature detection engine, but that doesn't mean its clean. Can you really trust these providers to not try to poison your computer via malware?

You have a point but this is extremely unlikely to happen simply because it's not worth it. Stuff like this has happened before (specifically 1337x back in 2023 but there are other examples) and the miniscule amount of money made by infecting once clean installers with bitcoin miners is miniscule compared to the money they could have made with website ads have their rep stayed clean. Now they're blacklisted by most and most don't bother. But it is a real risk when you pirate and it one you have to just deal with. If you pirate long enough you'll know what to look after and what are false positives and what aren't.


--
I want to talk about something regarding piracy that I haven't seen anyone mention. And that's that the scene is kind of dead and especially for gaming. Excluding private trackers the only players left are the cs.rin.ru guys and p2p players (usually from Russia and China). Nobody really cracks things anymore, big names in the scene are all gone and there doesn't seem to be anyone to replace them. Sure this isn't a problem with all media but it's starting to become noticeable. Games are uncracked for weeks sometimes months and programs are only cracked by shady DDL providers, which most have a dirty history and are definitely only in it for the money. Why is it like this? Do people not crack for clout anymore? Do they now need money or maybe political brownie points? Is it just not cool anymore? Considering what joke "the hacker aesthetic" turned into I would believe it. But in the end I don't know, maybe someone closer to the scene could shed some light.

 

[handoferis]

I disagree. Piracy has been proven time again to not impact sales, it's so unimpactful that EU funded a study found it didn't have an impact and tried to bury it. People that pirate weren't going to buy the whatever anyways and a significant number have shown to change their mind. I've bought things that I have pirated before that I wouldn't even think of buying if I hadn't tried it.

Best example of this is the guy behind Downie and Permute for Mac, he came onto biggest mac piracy forum and just offered 50% off discounts in the thread, loads of people bought the stuff, including me.

 

[Ross_Я]

I disagree. Piracy has been proven time again to not impact sales, it's so unimpactful that EU funded a study found it didn't have an impact and tried to bury it. People that pirate weren't going to buy the whatever anyways and a significant number have shown to change their mind. I've bought things that I have pirated before that I wouldn't even think of buying if I hadn't tried it.

Oh yea, by the way! That was a thing and it was a wild story since people only found out about it because the representative of German Piracy Party leaked it. It is available here: https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537

My favorite part:

The report found that illegal downloads and streams can actually boost legal sales of games, according to the report. The only negative link the report found was with major blockbuster films

I want to talk about something regarding piracy that I haven't seen anyone mention. And that's that the scene is kind of dead and especially for gaming. Excluding private trackers the only players left are the cs.rin.ru guys and p2p players (usually from Russia and China). Nobody really cracks things anymore, big names in the scene are all gone and there doesn't seem to be anyone to replace them. Sure this isn't a problem with all media but it's starting to become noticeable. Games are uncracked for weeks sometimes months and programs are only cracked by shady DDL providers, which most have a dirty history and are definitely only in it for the money. Why is it like this? Do people not crack for clout anymore? Do they now need money or maybe political brownie points? Is it just not cool anymore? Considering what joke "the hacker aesthetic" turned into I would believe it. But in the end I don't know, maybe someone closer to the scene could shed some light.

I have been thinking about it on ocassion, and I think that, at least partially, the reason is no one really cares about new games. I mean, gaming industry itself is a fucking mess nowadays, and AAA games suck. I know I only want to try, like, at best half a dozen of titles in that area. Aside from AAA, most interesting indies are usually on GOG that doesn't even need hacking in the first place. In case it is an obscure indie on Steam, it still likely doesn't have money to buy a proper protection, so all it has on board can be bypassed with a Steam emulator.

Now, what about people who crack games? Many R.G.s had key memebers, and those simply ceased to function once said key members left. The reason is usually internal disagreement or a prospect of a better job with better money. Like... Revenants, I believe, had Zeus, and once Zeus left they were pretty much done. Managed to float for about a year longer before going down.

People who fought for the idea, like xatab, are usually straight away dead at this point - xatab in particular, as it turned out, was almost 60 years old, and Santa Muerte embraced him.

Who are we left with? FitGirl seems talented, yet she doesn't want to do anything but compress data to hell. If I've seen an autist in the web - that's her. EMPRESS is definitely a drama queen who is in the game for "political brownie points". I know the chinese dude/group ALI123 is still fairly active - a number of recent hacks from my collection are signed by that name, but that is more of an exception... or I just do not see his/their reasons because chinese.

So, in two words: the old guard either died out or moved on, and the new games are... way away from geek culture? Just suck? Do not need cracks at all? I dunno, but whatever the reason is, the only people to replace the previous gen of crackers are ocassional autists and political cookies, it seems. Go figure.

 

[mesaprotector]

Probably in the minority in this but I'm fine with piracy declining, at least when it comes to media. Some aspects of piracy culture are beneficial for art, like how in video game emulation and comic scan/translation communities things that are out of print or don't have a published translation in a particular region are made available. But the negative side of piracy culture is that it fosters a sentiment that good art/media doesn't need to be paid for in any way.

I'd be happy to stop pirating if it were something like "pay $5/$10, get an mp4 file you can do whatever the hell you want with".
But I'm never going to pay for a streaming service on principle. Not interested in supporting "the industry", only the specific media I care about. And as other people have said, I hate the idea that stuff will just disappear if some corporation's license runs out.
As it is I mostly pirate anime, which is easy and convenient. Music and movies (rip RARBG) aren't that much harder. I don't know about the game piracy scene, which seems to be the focus of this thread. I've gotten a few older games from friends to use with emulation. For modern games, I dislike Steam's DRM but at least they let me buy games outright.