Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Yes. All the yes. I was shaky on it at first, because I really didn't want to dive out of my depth when it comes to piracy (which really only includes torrents). I thought it was going to be confusing, but it really is just "sign up, pay, and get your API key". And the price is right (using realDebrid).

However, I'm a little concerned. This makes it all so easy to stream and such, but what happens when everyone starts using it and torrents are no longer downloaded and properly seeded? Should I go out of my way to download something after I watch it and then seed for a few weeks? I still keep my VPN around, so that's totally an option. I'm using Stremio in conjunction with realDebrid.

I think I just want to know a bit more about how it works and how the P2P functions. I want to be able to give back, but I only seed a few torrents at a time. I just don't have the money for a large seeding server right now (which I may fix with a Pi5 at some point). Seeding is currently my only option/skill in helping piracy stay alive and the digital world stay free.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/311664

Comments

Anyone has a guide or can send a sample of the config.js (with api keys and any personal info erased)? I'm having some troubles following the official docs and I can't find info anywhere.

I've been on 1337x, ABC, torrentquest, eztvx, msearch, and pretty much all of the other sites on the megathread, both for "greatest treasures" (the general purpose section) and the movies & TV section specifically. Yet, the show that my wife and I want to watch is nowhere to be found in any of these. We're confused why, as it's not exactly an unpopular show.

Despite it not seeming to exist in a torrent format anywhere, among many other shows, it is forbidden both here and elsewhere to ask for help on finding a specific title. I was just hoping to learn the reasoning why. Is it just because the forum would be flooded with people asking for titles instead of taking the time to dig through the resources? What are people supposed to do when they do dig through the resources then?

A group of prominent intellectual property law professors has weighed in on the high-stakes AI copyright battle between several authors and Meta. In an amicus brief, the scholars argue that using copyrighted content as training data can be considered fair use under U.S. copyright law, if the goal is to create a new and 'transformative' tool. This suggests that fair use could potentially apply to Meta's training process, even if the underlying data was obtained without permission.

This case has a clear piracy angle, as Meta used BitTorrent to download archives of pirated books to use as training material. Notably, the authors argue that, in addition to copying pirated books from Anna’s Archive and Z-Library, in the same process Meta also uploaded pirated books to third parties.

This week, a group of IP Law Professors submitted a “friend of the court” or amicus brief, backing Meta’s fair use defense. The professors, including scholars from Harvard, Emory, Boston University, and Santa Clara University, have different views on the impact of AI but are united in their copyright stance.

The brief stresses that Meta’s alleged use of pirated books as training data can be considered fair use. The source of the training data is not determinative, as long as it’s used to create a new and transformative product, they argue.

“The case law, including binding circuit precedent, holds that internal copying, made in the course of creating new knowledge, is a transformative use that is heavily favored by fair use doctrine,” the professors write.

The professors’ argument is centered around the concept of “transformative use.” They note that using books outside their original ‘reading’ purpose to create an AI model, transforms the purpose of the use. This internal copying, they argue, falls into a category courts have consistently recognized as fair use, also known as “non-expressive use”.

The amicus brief cites several cases to back up their line of reasoning. This includes the Perfect 10 v. Amazon lawsuit, where the Ninth Circuit found that it was fair use when Google created thumbnails using images copied from unauthorized “pirate” sites, because the resulting image search tool was transformative.

The authors cited conflicting cases, but the professors note that cases where fair use was denied typically involved copyright infringement related to personal consumption, rather than use of content to create something new.

The brief distinguishes this case from those cited by the plaintiffs, which involved unauthorized copying for direct consumptive use (e.g., downloading for personal enjoyment). In contrast, Meta’s internal copies were allegedly not perceived by humans but used to build a new tool.

“Fair use, like copyright as a whole, ‘is not a privilege reserved for the well behaved’,” the brief notes. “Fair use doctrine should focus on the consequences of a ruling for knowledge and expression. Other considerations should be left for other legal regimes.”

Other countries, including Japan, have reportedly crafted exceptions in their law to allow tech companies to train LLMs on copyrighted material, without permission.

The U.S. has no such exceptions, but the professors urge the court to consider fair use. As the VCR and other innovations showed, copyright shouldn’t stand in the way of new tools and developing technologies.

For years an absolute champion named CC created great karaoke tracks and kept a Mega archive updated monthly. The Mega link is dead now. If anyone knows a new location I'd appreciate a tip.

CC if you are reading this, and it's all over, thanks for the good times. Your work was epic, and you really helped my karaoke parties.

I was surfing lemmy since some time ago, and checking this community I realized there are missing changes compared with reddit wiki. Is this because of any particular reason?

Edit: Sorry if this was asked before but I couldn't find any post with the topic. I'd be glad to help if possible.

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number and they say piracy is going to receive a huge blow. Obviously I have no intention of stopping but now I'll have to start using a VPN, if I want to continue my way. However, I do not trust VPNs a lot and I do not like the idea of paying for them (I could just pay for the movie in the first place)

I looked into using Tor network to torrent but it seems like it'd be a hindrance to the network itself, which is going to be a huge inconvenience for other users. Additionally I know that even if I found a way to throttle my bandwidth to remove this problem, Tor isn't exactly made for this sort of thing anyways.

Now, obviously it doesn't have to be torrenting, but I would gladly hear any suggestions on how to avoid paying and getting movies and shows without being caught doing it. Truthfully I was only streaming from websites for many years, so I do not know a lot about torrenting vs direct downloading either. Thanks in advance for any responses.

For those of you that torrent video files this question is geared toward you. I'm looking for a sweet spot between quality, size & speed for HEVC encoding. I'm using FastFlix and seem to be getting really wide and varying speeds.

I'm not really literate on all this video lingo but I can, at least, get it going. Most files take anywhere from 5-17 mins for a 30-40 mins clip. I have a AMD Radeon RX 470 graphics card but when I try and use the VCEEnc it won't let me use CRF which I've heard it the best way.

Anyway, if you're willing to share knowledge or what settings you use when you convert video to HEVC that might help me speed up my processing, I would be eternally grateful.

Hi all, I'm about to visit Mexico for 3 weeks. Currently in my country, I can download torrents and other stuff without VPN. Is it the same over there as well? I'd be using Wi-Fi over there.

This website has piracy sites that works in almost any tv web browser: https://www.bestfreestreaming.org/ These work in web browser included into tvs like samsung. For android tv browsers i have found that https://heartive.pages.dev/ works the best. Internet archive also works in android tv browsers. I have not tried it in the browsers thats included into tvs tho

Title

The clip is Megan Thee Stallion official video of BOA: youtube.com/watch?v=TKQY2ZlIEjY

I have several VPNs that play most videos alright, but this one is blocked via both my direct access and random sites promising me free yt downloads. It stopped to show up in search, yt-dl doesn't seem to work too.

Probably, it's due to DMCA because of their use of the Britney Spears' sample (?), a whole minus track of tik-tok tik-tok what're you waiting for song.

If someone can write a guide, how to access videos in that case, it would be usefull to us all. Alternatively, one can let me just download it from some personal cloud, and I'd be grateful for that. The track itself is barely average, but I did enjoy the work of visual artists there enough to post that request.

Please, tell me if there is another comm to post this.

Sorry for the noob question. I use JDownloader and don't know how to do the rest...

Hello! I've been working with the arr stack for common and popular file types (linux ISOs off course!), connected to jellyfin.

I've set up Readarr recently and I have a hard time getting it to find good, well documented sources. Book titles and formats are not often set correctly on public trackers.

Do any of you have good suggestions to improve the workflow? It seems I always have to manually pick the torrent, then manually import in JF. It usually works great for videos.

https://z-library.co/ from the libgen (BreaTheBook 3) discord.

It might actually be a public domain content. I am searching for the correct place to share this content.

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Somewhat notable due to previous drama these two groups seem to have had previously.

The following screenshot is from a few weeks back:

I've used proton for a year or two now and it is fine. Great for use on my phone when I want to use public/airport wifi and it sort of kind of works with gluetun (the rotating port is annoying but it still is a forwarded port).

But I've increasingly been annoyed with Proton as a company and am looking to migrate my email/domain to fastmail in the very near future. I COULD continue to just pay for the vpn (60 USD a year is pretty reasonable) but also feel like this is a good opportunity to "shop around"

Checked the wiki and other FAQs (which all basically crib from said wiki) and they all basically boil down to proton or mullivad... except that mullivad apparently stopped allowing port forwarding which is a bit of an issue for any torrents and the like.

So are there any other good options?

Thanks

from the look-at-the-big,-tough-guy-doing-big,-tough-guy-things dept

What public trackers do you always add to every torrent?

Where does everyone get music scene releases? I am able to find new releases OK but finding older/rare releases is tough. Are there online communities, IRC chats, torrent sites, etc?