Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Tl;dr: skip to the bottom for links.

I originally posted this here, and linked to it in a subreddit where evidently a community of pirates hates piracy.

This post is intended specifically for the retro gaming communities, though it's applicable for anything related to information sharing. In these spaces there's a strange kind of self-harm going on circa 2024, in which a nontrivial amount of people(sock puppets?) are fomenting anti-piracy sentiment, and defending aggressive industry juggernauts, as if these corporations aren't actively harming and seeking to eliminate these very same communities.

This is strange since retro gaming is all but founded and completely dependent on the free sharing of information and culture, which often includes piracy for better or worse. The word 'retrogaming' is nearly synonymous with emulation. It used to be that older games would rarely, if ever, be preserved on new systems. Even to this day there are still many games considered to be "abandonware". It's arguable that the growth of emulation - and piracy that most often accompanies it - played and plays a critical role in the renaissance of both indie retro-styled games, as well as the plethora of classic games which have officially had re-releases.

Ironically even as these behemoths are actively trying to destroy emulation, many companies have chosen the lazy route of using emulators to re-release their classic games, rather than making the extra effort to either open-source the classic engines or port the source material themselves.

As a sidenote, here is a list of legal video game engine recreations and source ports, however many of these do require you to own a copy of the original game to make use of them.

What it comes down to is that they don't want to compete. With a retro handheld I can suddenly have access to thousands of games either through native ports, emulation, or open projects like PortMaster. What's even better is that I can trust that whatever other computer hardware I decide to use in the future - whether PC, single-board computers, Android devices, or the plethora of retro console and handhelds flooding the markets these days - I can preserve and bring all of the content I already own into all of these devices and keep playing without a hitch.

Importantly, these communities enable the wonderful world of romhacking - free sharing of info, whether legally sanctioned or not - is a benefit for creators as well as consumers, and can easily be a gateway for the latter to grow into the former.

By contrast what the game console racket wants is to scam you into buying the same games you've already purchased over, and over again, through planned obsolescence, ignoring the environmental impact of these awful business models.

They want to leverage proprietary software and weaponize copyright law to eliminate competition and keep their users in a walled garden, where the entire experience is controlled from top to bottom by them. Their business strategies are dependent on the de-legitimization and elimination of the free sharing of information and culture.

Piracy is only bad for those who want to horde wealth and build monopolies.

If you're a content creator or someone who aspires to create, you might feel like piracy is a danger to you. My hope is that if you read everything linked in this post, you might come to recognize that the free sharing of information can do the opposite - it can be an asset to your career. At a glance the Free and Open-Source Software movements are living proof of this. There is no need to remain attached to a Faustian pact.

• Who Really Has the Moral High Ground on Filesharing?

• File-sharing has weakened copyright—and helped society

• Artists Make More Money in File-Sharing Age Than Before It

• Study Shows Piracy Can Sometimes Be Beneficial To Markets & Consumers Alike

• Piracy Doesn't Create A Loss To 'The Economy,' But To A Particular Industry

• Game Developers Can Beat Piracy By Copying Their Actual Competition

• Ed Sheeran: Piracy Is What Made Me

• Economics Of Abundance Getting Some Well Deserved Attention

• Step One To Embracing A Lack Of Scarcity: Recognize What Market You're Really In

• How Being More Open, Human And Awesome Can Save Anyone Worried About Making Money In Entertainment

• Saying You Can't Compete With Free Is Saying You Can't Compete Period

• The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free

• Infinity Is Your Friend In Economics

• How to turn an open source project into a profitable business

• The Sky Is Rising 2024 Edition: Rather Than Destroying Culture, The Internet Has Saved The Content Industries

I have never pirated games before, have a few sites for other media, but am looking for a good place with game torrents.

Hey, so im having issues with downloading from NF, I have managed to download succesfully from D+ and amazing but somewhat NF is different. any help? I know how to decrypt it with l3 keys, just cant get the encrypted files. Also, Im planning to dl some stuff off of max and wonder if its as difficult as NF?

Free dissemination of knowledge that benefits the advancement of mankind should never be illegal.

Hi,

I recently built a new gaming computer and have been contemplating about the OS.

I prefer to move away from windows given obvious reasons and do like using Linux, but my experience with my steam deck has taught me that pirating games in Linux is hit or miss.

I played around with windows LTSC and honestly, seems like windows without the bloatware.

So question is, how is game pirating on Linux (in a desktop, not steam deck).

Is it as smooth as windows or should I just say fuck it and accept that my gaming computer has to stay windows for another generation?

I'm looking into finding a way to get access to the DLC packs for Rocksmith 2014 which have been delisted due to their licenses expiring.

I've been able to find some repacks that come with all of them bundled in as one, but I own a legitimate copy of the game itself. Is there any way to trick Steam into allowing me to use those files without a license attached to my account?

Update: I got it working! I downloaded fitgirl's repack, copied over the DLC to my Steam's installation and used CreampAPI to enable it. Thank you everyone!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22010430

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/58093

🤦

Is there a place to view the status of this service and or to view updates from it?

I have a couple of local copies of my media collection, but in case of my house burning down in a fire i would like to not have to rebuild my entire media collection. rsync.net offers some fairly reasonable storage prices (i guess there are many other good options as well).

Would you guys have any second thoughts on storing the entirety of your media collection on a remote server like that unencrypted?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/31443410

Cock.li will shut down before becoming complicit in crimes against its own userbase by duress of any government or organization.

For nearly 11 years, cock.li has remained one of the only public e-mail providers to allow registration as anonymously as a library card. The fact that it's still possible to get an e-mail address as easy as 20 years ago is a fact widely *hated* by international governments; at least the parts of those governments which have dedicated countless resources to target our service, our team, our family, and our friends with illegal surveillance, bad-jacketing, organized disinformation, and much worse.

A combination of these illegal tactics have become so serious that the site is now in grave danger.

The only way it's been possible for cock.li to weather this and stay online is thanks to the dedication of our entire lives to this bit. Our small team of 3-5 people have had our lives permanently altered and our stability sacrificed so Internet users worldwide can more-or-less enjoy the comfort of being able to access e-mail without requiring a phone number or other surveillance document.

Despite the constant attacks on the service and our personal lives, no one directly involved has ever been paid in 11 years for their work on cock.li. The personal costs of this volunteer work add up over a lifetime, and as we get older we've slowly taken steps back to compensate, when we should have been stepping up.

Stepping up is exactly what's needed right now, and we're here to do it. These recent issues have forced us to take leave from our jobs to make time just to keep the wheels spinning. I hope you can understand that is why, for the first time ever, I'm asking you to donate directly to the people who make cock.li possible.

Your donation will make a real difference by telling us to use the money where it will help the most right now. We have a sizable war chest for legal expenses that has never once been used to pay us for our work. Problem is, if we can't make time to put that war chest to work, what good is it? We believe cannibalizing this fund to offset our lost time would put cock.li in a worse position, so by creating a new fund we can make it clear what we're doing while keeping our legal funds secure.

It shouldn't surprise you that the people who are so passionate about this service are not profiteers or business people. We are private, unpaid individuals who don't want to see one of the last great liberties of this Internet fall victim to the criminal and violent attempts to shut it down. If these critical threats force us to change the world to ensure e-mail remains recognized as a human right, we won't hesitate to do it.

We never once asked for personal donations specifically in the hopes that if this moment ever came, our userbase would appreciate that we were able to make it this long on passion alone, and trust that your donation will make the best possible impact.

There is much work to be done. I will keep you updated as much as I can. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Monero:  41fqXKYNEWuBDuqYczhoSiE1aUN9tCGdWYrfjynebuTM3tdE5UUHEfeZjZ3iZpgqY8LdYLk9h4As66UBC5mARL4z98PfUwB
Bitcoin: bc1qg9ehmfzusgfd6dvudll0qxkcl8c5q3sh8qnetr

~!~

In the 2022 film `COCKCON 2020 (2019)`[0], a 250MB encrypted file was hidden in a second video track of the 1080p release. You can download this film here[1]. I don't know if the encryption key will ever be released, but if it does, you'll want quick access to that file.

Furthermore, two more files are released today, 2024-11-12: ins10.luks[2] (555MB) and ins11.luks[3] (64MB). Please download these torrents and seed them as long as you can. Please consider your privacy when seeding.

[0]: https://vc.gg/film/cockcon-2020/
[1]: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:TBU2RE2ENTL6USAZVX7HH7V3TYMK2KVI&dn=COCKCON%202020%20(2019)%20(2022)%20%5B1080p%5D%20%5BOvO%5D&tr=https%3A%2F%2Fpub.tracker.aaathats3as.com%3A443%2Fannounce
[2]: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:RZ5PIPVCPPJC7JWIVU74V5JANJ4O3RXL&dn=ins10.luks&xl=581959680&tr=https%3A%2F%2Fpub.tracker.aaathats3as.com%3A443%2Fannounce
[3]: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:DX6I2QFYIBYZPCP5FPRBORTQVCM4NVRG&dn=ins11.luks&xl=67108864&tr=https%3A%2F%2Fpub.tracker.aaathats3as.com%3A443%2Fannounce

I've told qbit to exclude those files and many other extensions from someone's helpful comment on here previously, but the stack keeps on grabbing and seeding them, which the latter I'm a little unhappy about sharing malware.

While all the boxes on my network have no sign of Windows to get exploited it does worry me about another family members arrr stack because there is a Windows laptop down there, but thankfully not used for media consumption.

Help?

edit: big thanks to kiszkot@feddit.nu for pointing me in line separators instead of comma separated exclusions!

Thought I'd copy the update from HDVinnie on what's going on with Blu.

I am still here for BLU. I am still here for the torrent realm. I am still here developing UNIT3D. I will continue to help as I always have.

I’m not good at this and will admit that off the rip. So bear with me. I know I have a lot of haters so it is what it is but this is my attempt to let everyone know the story.

As most know I started UNIT3D from scratch in 2016 after being a dev for xbtit and u232 for many years under a different name and other trackers. I grew tired of hard to manage and simply bad code. In 2017 BLU was born as the first UNIT3D based tracker. I have dedicated the last 8 years to BLU and UNIT3D. They mean a ton to me and the community has grown tremendously. I helped as many other failing torrent communities that needed help with code and porting so they could survive.

BLU was self run for the first 4 years of its life in which we then started to accept donations. We never begged with weekly pms, news, etc. The community was strong and we chugged along fine.

We have gone through server issues in past and recovered just fine. These things happen and with daily backups it’s not an issue which we were doing. Locally and remote to other staff. One staff resigned. Then the other. This was in 2024.

BLU was booming. Peer growth, user growth, content growth and all around community growth was exceptional. Yes we recently had a horror month event. Saying we brought in thousands and thousands from it is just false though. I won’t debate it in a public manner. The community was booming and we brought back the upload bot server.

Here lies the issue. I have been drained. I had personal things I can’t and won’t get into. We recently had ssd failures which is a normal situation would be fine. Wait for host to replace and load a backup along with all kernel and dependency tuning. When the one staff resigned that was managing the off server backups I failed as a sysops to retract it to another staff and turn my local copies back on. That is on me. I take full responsibility and apologize. I am crushed just as much as you guys. Those that really know and interact with me would know this.

That being said this irc post makes it seem like I just went awol and resigned with nothing but echoes. That is not the case. Yes I have stepped down. Why? Because after 8 years I failed with something I know like the back of my hand. Simple backups. Is my personal draining and life issues an excuse. No. But it is what it is. It cannot be undone. For this I don’t deserve to be at BLU at that level anymore.

I am working with staff. I have transferred control. I am working to help and make things right from the outside. I will continue to develop UNIT3D that BLU and dozens and dozens of other trackers rely on. Anyone that was invited to BLU if they bring it back will be reinstated. I am already working on building list to resend invites for staff to use. Donor statues will be reapplied. Will it happen overnight. No. But BLUs community is one of the strongest so please don’t hate. Bear with us. For those that feel you were robbed. That’s simply not true and it’s really sad to hear that. Feel free to email me.

Source

I'm wondering about what your piracy workflow looks like.

1. Where do you find what shows/films to watch?
2. Do you stream for convenience or download for superior quality?
3. Where do you store media?
4. What software are you using to watch it?
5. How do you keep track of your watchlist, which episode you already watched or where you left off in a movie?

I have Netflix and Disney+ (through family) and it already drives me crazy to remember where which show is available, download quality sucks, shows get delisted halfway through watching them. Sometimes multiple seasons even are across multiple streaming services. (I was very sad before I discovered there were more than 4 seasons of Adventure Time). I even want to pay for the production of good media, but streaming services make it a really hard sell 🤬

I know that the -arr suite with jellyfin is a pretty nice workflow, but I'm not into self hosting (yet).

I have a Plex server running on Mac OSX. Whenever I want to add media, I remotely connect into the Mac, login to my private tracker, download the torrent, wait for it to finish, then update my Plex library.

I'm hopeful that there's an easier way. I'm imagining a way I can remotely tell the Plex server what I want to watch and it takes it from there. Does such a thing exist?

The other domains are still online, though z-library has yet to respond

Post edited, thank you @mbt2402 for correcting me

vadapav .mov: Direct Download, no ads or BS, great speeds.... probably the best I'd ever used

Where will I download House S8 from now?

Hi folks, I'm looking for a VPN with port forwarding capabilities for some very basic torrenting. https://www.top10vpn.com/ showed up in my search with interesting articles and VPN provider info and evaluations. I just wonder if their tips are trustworthy or if they are completely beholden to someone.

so, because of recent events im kind of worried and would like to archive what litrature i can, mainly queer stuff as thats propably at risk or will be, are there any places that allow specific bulk downloads/torrents? tried annas archive but as far as i know that only allows for general and random bulk torrents, and i only have 60 ish gb to work with

Anybody ever found a hacked version of any "supposed BluRay/UHD rippers" like DVDFab, DumboFab or Leawo that actually worked? I really liked Leawo and got a good copy from TorrentGalaxy but when it attempts to read the BluRay and, I guess, get its information, the software returns an error message and freezes up. The only software I've found that'll handle most everything is MakeMKV but the only thing I don't like about MakeMKV is no preview option plus sometimes it coughs a furball on regular DVDs.

I was watching on it this morning but I just tried to go on it and this came up. The megathread needs to be updated.

https://goodbye.braflix.is/

I'm currently an Amazon Prime video member (Australia) and want to watch a show that appears to be only available on Amazon UK or Peacock US.

The show is a little gem of a show called Hapless that few people seem to know about and the pirating community has ignored or forgotten about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cz66za4X9k

There have been two seasons of six episodes thus far, and only parts of the first season (from 2020) are available as active torrents while the most recent season (2024) has been completely ignored by the 'community'.

I've tried to watch it online at the usual illicit places but it appears to unavailable. When I tried to watch it at Amazon UK, my VPN was detected and it wouldn't let me.

So my question is: is it possible to bypass the constraints at either Amazon or Peacock and watch this show? Alternatively, does anyone know of a private tracker that might have it as a download?

thank you!