Torrents, Usanet, VPN's, download servers etc...

[jonnydog]

Due to piracy becoming a bigger risk re: torrent sites etc... I was just wondering how people go about downloading music torrents etc...

Obviously unless you pay for the music then there's always going to be that risk there, but wondered what people on here are finding the easier, cheaper, and more secure method?!

[Mr1Croft]

I don't think anyone is prepared to discuss it on a public forum 

[MachoMadness]

The thing is with torrents is it's shaky legal ground. It's hard to prove what is and isn't ok to torrent because of the vague legal terms surrounding intellectual property - they have no way to prove you're not downloading something as a backup to files you already own, so it's hard to clamp down on. As long as you don't go torrenting massive amounts of music/films before they're released over here, then you should be ok.

If you can live with being thieving criminal scum, of course.

[jonnydog]

Oh it's not for me, just a hypothetical question you understand!!

[Chris]

Just download it from Amazon. You can get some great prices on there!

[RedJ]

Youtube downloader barmy army

[Rios]

There's a number of options, some free, some not and talking about them is not an admission of guilt!   

Torrenting or using Usenet without a VPN is not sensible and it's only a matter of time before you get a nice "pay up or prosecute" letter.  Hiding behind legal loopholes won't work for long either as it's the same principal as the police use to catch speeding motorists who claim it wasn't them behnd the wheel...so they pass the points and fine onto the registered owner.  The same will soon apply to broadband connections.

Filelockers have been the smart tool of choice of late (and the reason I haven't touched a torrent for three years!)  But with the recent closure of Megaupload and the current prosecution of Oron, the whole scene is in a bit of disarray.

Youtube downloaders are ok if all you want are short clips or music videos, but the quality generally isn't good enough and google is particularly fast with their DMCA takedowns on youtube meaning anything "hot" doesn't stay there for very long.

The future is in Anonymous P2P clients which are encrypted to stop traffic sniffing and can be made completely anonymous too.  They're not quite mainstream yet though and are mainly used by dissidents and criminals who don't want to be traced.  In my opinion the music and film industries would be better leaving the Pirate Bay alone as it leaves pirates visible (and therefore prosecutable), whereas if everyone starts using darknets on mass they really are going to lose the battle.

You pays your money (or not) and takes your choice (and risk!)

[Bald Rover]

a "friend" of mine once told me that if I ever needed to get a back up copy of anything that I owned I should use Pirate bay? I obviously thought he was a nut case and didnt have a clue what he meant ?

[DC-]

Spotify is the future for me. £5 per month, unlimited listening. £10 per month and you can sync to an Android phone. It's all perfectly legal, above board and for what you get it's a small payment.

Just be sure to clear your appdata (if Windows) now and again as it adds up quickly!

Any torrents these days are theoretically compromised. ISPs can track what a user goes on and so, whilst the laws don't permit witch hunts, they're able to get a sufficient backlog ready for when things change. Take note, I said when.

[bobjimwilly]

If the law changes, and the police start pursuing everyday torrent users, as long as you keep your downloads on a portable hard drive and don't let them find that, you're fine. Or better yet, when you've watched a film or whatever you're downloading, just delete it afterwards. 

Yes, ISPs can track which IP addresses you visit and the amount of data you download, but torrents themselves aren't illegal and ISPs cannot track what you are actually downloading. Just because you visited the torrent pages on PirateBay, Isohunt etc does not mean you actually downloaded illegal content through torrents.

Finally, there is plenty of non-copyrighted, free-to-distribute content online that you can download via torrents that could account for the amount of data you download 

[Glyn_Wigley]

The thing is with torrents is it's shaky legal ground. It's hard to prove what is and isn't ok to torrent because of the vague legal terms surrounding intellectual property - they have no way to prove you're not downloading something as a backup to files you already own, so it's hard to clamp down on. As long as you don't go torrenting massive amounts of music/films before they're released over here, then you should be ok.

If you can live with being thieving criminal scum, of course.

Downloading something as a 'backup' isn't a defence so they don't need to prove that. If you DO have the original CD or DVD, you do NOT own the material on it, you have only purchased a licence to play it in the physical format that you have in our hand. It does not give you the right to own and play that material in any other format such as audio/video files. You do not even technically have the right to rip it from that format for a backup yourself.

[jonnydog]

If the law changes, and the police start pursuing everyday torrent users, as long as you keep your downloads on a portable hard drive and don't let them find that, you're fine. Or better yet, when you've watched a film or whatever you're downloading, just delete it afterwards. 

Yes, ISPs can track which IP addresses you visit and the amount of data you download, but torrents themselves aren't illegal and ISPs cannot track what you are actually downloading. Just because you visited the torrent pages on PirateBay, Isohunt etc does not mean you actually downloaded illegal content through torrents.

Finally, there is plenty of non-copyrighted, free-to-distribute content online that you can download via torrents that could account for the amount of data you download 

is that right?!

[Rios]

If the law changes, and the police start pursuing everyday torrent users, as long as you keep your downloads on a portable hard drive and don't let them find that, you're fine. Or better yet, when you've watched a film or whatever you're downloading, just delete it afterwards. 

Yes, ISPs can track which IP addresses you visit and the amount of data you download, but torrents themselves aren't illegal and ISPs cannot track what you are actually downloading. Just because you visited the torrent pages on PirateBay, Isohunt etc does not mean you actually downloaded illegal content through torrents.

Finally, there is plenty of non-copyrighted, free-to-distribute content online that you can download via torrents that could account for the amount of data you download 

is that right?!

No.


The law doesn't need to change as the recently launched action by Golden Eye International proves.  Pay-up-or-else schemes do not rely on actually proving you downloaded, or more accurately due to the way torrents work uploaded the offending file.  They speculate that you'll want to avoid the embaressment of being dragged through court (especially if it's porn) when you can make the whole thing go away for £700.

As for not being traced because you save on a hidden portable hard drive... well that would be the case using file lockers, but as you also upload as part of the torrent process this makes the "don't have the file" argument null and void as they're not prosecuting you for downloading but for uploading the parts of the torrent you've already downloaded.

[Andy Thompson]

you can use peer guardians to protect isp's being able to see what you are uploading or downloading, but it will still show massive amounts of bandwith being used.

There are still lots of sites out there that use rapidshare and other download clients, no need to upload then. Lots of content is available to download legally, so if you hide behind a proxy or similar software it will just show stats on DL material.

Its a weird situation these days as: the speed of BB seems to get faster and faster (unless you live at Woodfield Plantation) and the places to download from are getting less and less.

[bobjimwilly]

Rios,

If you don't have any copyrighted files on your computer or to be found elsewhere there is no way anyone could prove you were downloading/uploading copyrighted files? If a court cannot prove exactly what you were uploading/downloading, then there is no case.

Happy downloading peeps 

[jonnydog]

If that's the case... I like the way you operate!!

Vaccines new album available now

[Rios]

Rios,

If you don't have any copyrighted files on your computer or to be found elsewhere there is no way anyone could prove you were downloading/uploading copyrighted files? If a court cannot prove exactly what you were uploading/downloading, then there is no case.

Happy downloading peeps 

You seem to be treating it like a drugs case, in that if the Police don't find anything on you then they can't charge you.  For digital copyright theft this is not the case as you can be caught uploading the segments of the copyrighted file as part of the torrent swarm and are therefore caught in the act so to speak.  What you describe is not a defence as they copyright company who have caught you are also part of the same swarm and will have downloaded part of the copyrighted file from you.  The main problem with torrents is that you technically, in the eyes of the law, become a seller as you upload the segments of the file you've already downloaded which is how they extrapolate the ridiculous figure of £700+ because that's the sales you've supposedly deprived the record company of.  File lockers on the other hand are pure download only and you can only be prosecuted for that which makes it financially stupid to chase people for that.

I've been involved in this for a long time, from BBS to Usenet to P2P to torrents to file lockers to darknets.  If you believe you're right then that's fine, don't want to get into a beef with you when I'm just trying to warn the unwary.  For anyone who's interested in the scene the torrentfreak website is a good place to learn.

[The L J Monk]

Rios - what's different about a magnet files/links?

[MrFrost]

Or people could not be right and actually purchase what they are wanting to listen to or watch. At the end of the day it is theft and a breach of copyright. You wouldn't go into HMV and steal a cd would you?

[Rios]

Rios - what's different about a magnet files/links?

It's just a different way of getting the actual torrent and it's mainly to save the hosting websites paying for such large amounts of bandwidth.  The magnet links have a much lower overhead as they download the torrent file from the seeds rather than from the central server/hosting.  In reality once it hits your torrent client there's no real difference for the end user.

Up until a year or so ago MrFrost I would have verhemently disagreed with you.  But with the recent uptake of Spotify and Netflix, along with the realisation that no-ones actually needs iTunes and it's walled overpriced garden I'm finding myself buying or at least listening/watching paid for content again.  The music and movie industries have a long way still to go but those two products do signify a willingness to go in the right direction.

[MrFrost]

Netflix is crap to be fair though.
I still buy physical copies of films. Music I buy in digital format. Not sure why, but I prefer buying BluRays than just owning a digital copy of a film.

[Rios]

Bluray's fine... unless you want to use it on Linux as it's DRM'd and protected to within an inch of it's life.  It's already been reverse engineered but I can't be bothered with it when the same quality can be downloaded (both legally and illegally) and I can play it on any of the devices I own.