One thing that leaps out at me about this ruling is that courts understand the internet a lot better nowadays. A decade or so ago Sony would have probably gotten away with the argument that Cox profited from the users’ piracy; nowadays judges themselves use the internet and are going to go “lolno, they probably would have been Cox customers anyway. It’s not like anyone pays for internet connection solely to pirate. And in most areas people don’t even have a choice of provider, so how is Cox profiting from this?”

  • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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    9 months ago

    Don’t believe that you’re always gonna be protected by some judge somewhere.

    Get a proper VPN, dammit!

    • sub_ubi@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      In the end, you can’t out-tech the law. You need rights.

      • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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        9 months ago

        Your so-called “rights” won’t hold to the pressure of massive media capital alone. It will erode away.

        • sub_ubi@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          They have so far. It’s still legal to use a VPN without verifying my identity. It’s still legal, though difficult, to access the Internet anonymously. The local police department doesn’t blanket monitor everyone’s search history.

          increasingly difficult tech solutions for privacy are a bandaid not a cure.

      • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        tech the law. You need rights. I’m not sure we can right-out the system, we probably need both.

        • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          The right to privacy could help, like media company’s can’t use legal action to get IP addresses

    • Alpha71@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I just wish they would advertise the truth. VPN’s are basically useless nowadays for everything except torrenting. Most websites once they detect a VPN address will just shut down. Go ahead and give Imgur a try with it turned on to see what I mean.

      • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I use a VPN constantly and sadly a lot of sites add known VPN ip’s to a ban list, I just reconnect my VPN and usually I get a good address but yea it sucks

      • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        I’ve never been able to find a private tracker to join in like 20 years of this shit. Everything is closed off to registration and you basically have to find some guy in a dingy alley to suck off for the chance they might give you an invite.

        • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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          9 months ago

          TorrentLeech has open registration several times per year. Keep an eye on Opentrackers.org for any of these. Note that some are open, while others are open application. The latter means you must meet certain criteria to be accepted. Typically this is proof of your stats on other trackers, but sometimes it’s exclusively for refugees from one that failed.

          Keep in mind that you will not ever find open registrations on an established, reputable tracker. They don’t need more users. They only recruit from lesser, more accessible trackers. You will need to start on these to establish yourself. There are plenty of guides on this, with most starting on RED or MAM.

          If you aren’t on any of these, it’s not because they’re too hard to get into- it’s because you don’t want to put in the effort. Which is exactly what private trackers want to avoid.

          Also, smaller doesn’t always mean bad. TorrentDB was a rising star, with regular open invites, right up until its collapse. Even the giants like PTP started from nothing. Getting in early is a perfectly viable strategy, especially if you help grow it.

          • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            If you’re into audiobooks, Myanonymouse is essential but easy to get into. Other than that, I’m the same. 20 years of torrenting and I’ve never needed a private tracker

            It’s mostly just an elitist thing

            • JDubbleu@programming.dev
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              9 months ago

              I’d say it’s more convenience than elitism.

              I’m in BTN and it’s the only indexer I use for my Sonarr instance because it has absolutely everything. I’ve never not been able to find something and almost everything I download will saturate my 1.2 Gbps connection.

              For Radarr I don’t have any private trackers and it takes 35 public trackers to get coverage that is almost as good. The options I’m given are way less organized and download speeds are a gamble. It’s not really an issue because I rarely watch movies, but I definitely understand why private trackers are so sought after. I’ll eventually try to get into some smaller ones which tend to be pretty easy to do.

              • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                About the same, but guaranteed seeders. Half the stuff on ABB will never download, MaM takes seconds

                • Cinner@lemmy.worldB
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                  9 months ago

                  That’s great, I noticed ABB doesn’t track my ratio anywhere even though they require an account.

        • taaz@biglemmowski.win
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          9 months ago

          Getting into MAM is easy tho and you can branch from there, there are people sharing invites to others.

      • Diurnambule
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        9 months ago

        They are on private trackers too. Just use a VPN.

      • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Private trackers just lessen the surface area. When the companies decide to lobby enough to change the laws you’ll need to hide with private as well.

      • Lemonparty@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Yo! What exactly is different about private trackers? Like how does that help? Im lucky enough to have one but due to the seed ratio rules, I find myself downloading from my usual sites more frequently because I worry about seeding indefinitely.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Private trackers are a false sense of security. If you’re able to get an invite to a private tracker, you really think a multi-billion dollar industry won’t also be able to get one?

        At most, private trackers offer more consistent content and more accurate seed/leech counts. But they absolutely won’t protect you from the lawsuits from media companies. If anything, being on a private tracker increases your chances of getting fucked in court, because enforced seed ratios means every single user is liable. Remember that leeching isn’t a crime, but seeding is. Because distribution is what the media companies care about, and that’s only accomplished through seeding. Just like how cops won’t typically be interested in busting a drug buyer, when they can bust the dealer instead.

        Your nice shiny 12.0 ratio means you’re getting fucked hard when the dildo of consequences finally arrives. And the dildo of consequences rarely arrives with lube.

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        Folks need to learn how to rip. It’s a little more tedious but you can’t be tracked and the quality is almost always better. Even the most inexperienced can get started after a few hours of research and tinkering.

          • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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            9 months ago

            You know! Like a bong!

            Sorry couldn’t resist. Ripping is a term from CD/DVD days. You’d “rip” the contents off, i.e. make a digital backup. Now it’s applied to making backups of streams as well. Obviously the contents of these discs and streams are your property or otherwise legally obtained materials and are not being duplicated, sold, or in any way distributed to others if the content does not belong to you.

      • nintendiator@feddit.cl
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        9 months ago

        “don’t use public trackers”

        it’s next to impossible to qualify for a private tracker

        let alone if the one you find has the stuff you want

        let alone making their so-called “ratio”

        ¿???

        • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Am I right in thinking though, if everyone used a debrib service, nobody would be seeding the torrents and it would all fall to bits?

          • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Yup. Debrid is a superleecher service. It doesn’t actually seed anything, so it contributes nothing back to the torrents. If everyone used debrid, there would be nothing to torrent as there would be no seeders.

        • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Please don’t follow this advice. These services don’t seed, if they get popular it will kill bittorrent.

      • nintendiator@feddit.cl
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        9 months ago

        “don’t use public trackers”

        it’s next to impossible to qualify for a private tracker

        let alone if the one you find has the stuff you want

        let alone making their so-called “ratio”

        ¿???

    • Lemonparty@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Yo! What’s a proper VPN these days? It seems like all the ones I used to trust went to shit.

      • UnfortunateTwist@beehaw.org
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        9 months ago

        I personally like Mullvad, their practices, and their straightforward price of 5€/month. They’re not going to try to lure you in with discounts by subscribing for multiple months or years. Now if Mullvad has gone downhill, someone chime in.

        • Miaou
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          9 months ago

          Mullvad doesn’t do port forwarding anymore, AirVPN seems like a good replacement but I forgot where they are based

      • muix@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 months ago

        Just self-host a VPN on a VPS so you can enable disk encryption and disable logging.

      • BassTurd@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Edit: looks like I need a new VPN…

        I use private internet access (pia). It’s reasonably priced, really good for the number of devices, and I don’t believe they keep logs. At least it used to be that way, but I haven’t checked that since I signed up a decade ago. I have had zero issues with anything or anyone while using it for any reason. Uptime is basically 100%. Also has mobile support if that matters.

        • Lemonparty@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Same, I used to use PIA for about a decade, but I could’ve sworn I heard they were one of the ones that had gone way downhill. Otherwise I never had an issue with them. I’ll have to do some digging, see if it was founded or just a reddit rumor.

          • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            PIA’s service is still decent and offers all the features that other VPNs do, but they got bought out by a company that has added spyware to programs in the past. So many users jumped ship when that buyout was finalized, because it’s hard to trust their application or their service when the owning company has a known history of intentionally infecting their users.

            • Lemonparty@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              Okay yes that’s what I remember reading. I have Express VPN now, and while researching found it’s still surprisingly highly and doesn’t log. it’s on the more expensive side though, so I may still give proton or one of the other recs a try.