You need a VPN for everything when it comes to pirating. (kbin.melroy.org)

submitted 1 day ago by Nyxicas@kbin.melroy.org to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Let's not turn this into what the Reddit subreddit of Piracy has turned into and that's an endless sea of questions that are all the same - "Do I need a VPN?".

And the loud and vocal answer to such a question is - yes. Yes you do need a VPN for pirating. Nobody gets a VPN for casual use and I'm under the impression that VPN services know a lot of people are going to be going to them for pirating and not just accessing content out of their country. And it's for that reason, is why I'm skeptical on entrusting my activity with the bigger VPN names available.

I use ProtonVPN myself, by the way.

Pirating under your raw IP address, only will set you up to get pegged by your ISP whether it's in a short time or a long time. I've only ever gotten one single ISP letter in my entire 26 years of pirating and it was simply because I downloaded without a VPN. Well I was also downloading off of someone else's network to take the fall, but I was confronted about it either way.

And I've gotten away with so much pirating because of my careful cautiousness when it comes to pirating. That and this applies to the United States, but the statue of limitations is 3 years when it comes to copyright infringement. So, good fucking luck to any ISP or so that wishes to try and nail me for something I downloaded 10 years ago, but I digress.

But a large part of me avoiding so much does contribute to having a VPN. So, yes, VPN is required. Please don't ask anybody in the pirating community 100 questions that are all just ways to ask whether or not you need a VPN. You do.

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[-] drkt@scribe.disroot.org 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I don't have to worry about any of this because I live in Denmark! It is not possible for me to pirate stuff because it implies that I did not pay, which I did as there is a special piracy tax!

We call it 'blankmedieafgiften'.

~~we call it 'kulturarvsafgiften' and apparently you can't google it which I'm not gonna imply any conspiracies about but yknow~~

[-] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 day ago

I don't know about your piracy tax specifically, but there's also a tax on any storage media, printers etc. in Germany.

The "Urheberrechtsabgabe" (copyright duty) is not about paying for pirate copies, but it's a compensation for the loss due to the right to a private copy. A private copy is e.g. a copy of a CD I own in case the original gets destroyed. It's explicitly not allowed to share them.

Sadly the right to a private copy gets canceled as soon as it's necessary to break a "working" copy protection. CD copy protection has been broken for decades, but it still counts as a "working" copy protection. Thus a private copy is practically not possible legally, but we still pay this tax on any storage media... I really hate the copyright lobby.

[-] drkt@scribe.disroot.org 5 points 21 hours ago

is not about paying for pirate copies, but it’s a compensation for the loss due to the right to a private copy.

Sounds an awful lot like a piracy tax... We pay this tax on any device which can store bits, it's not just some storage mediums. If you buy a phone, you're paying this tax to a """non-profit""" org called CopyDan whose sole job is to make sure a few select fat cat copyright holders get paid. If I don't break their copyright, I still have to pay as if I did. Therefore, it's a piracy tax.

[-] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 hours ago

Sounds an awful lot like a piracy tax...

It's pretty similar. The difference is that it only exists for legal private copies, not for generally illegal piracy.

We pay this tax on any device which can store bits, it's not just some storage mediums.

That's also the case in Germany (and likely most of Europe). The actual rate depends on the product category.

[-] antipiratgruppen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

Do you know, is this another tax additional to "blankmedieafgiften" ("blank media tax" or "private copying levy"), or is it the same tax under a different name?

[-] drkt@scribe.disroot.org 2 points 21 hours ago

Actually it might be blankmedieafgiften, that sounds far more correct. I was having trouble finding the exact term and ChatGPT was very confident (I know...) when I eventually gave up and asked it.

[-] kungen@feddit.nu 2 points 19 hours ago

Private copying levy. In Sweden, it's called privatkopieringsersättning.

[-] drkt@scribe.disroot.org 3 points 19 hours ago

That's semantics. They're charging it because they're afraid you're copying copy-protected materials, which is piracy. It's a piracy tax.

[-] kungen@feddit.nu 3 points 17 hours ago

No, it's ackshully a private copying levy. I get what you mean, but it's a "good" thing, because otherwise 12 § upphovsrättslagen probably wouldn't exist anymore:

Var och en får för privat bruk framställa ett eller några få exemplar av offentliggjorda verk. Såvitt gäller litterära verk i skriftlig form får exemplarframställningen dock endast avse begränsade delar av verk eller sådana verk av begränsat omfång. Exemplaren får inte användas för andra ändamål än privat bruk.

[-] drkt@scribe.disroot.org 2 points 17 hours ago

I don't get it. You think laws will stop existing if we stop paying some fat cats for sitting on some copyrights?

I also don't care what I'm allowed to do, I don't believe in copyrights, so you can't really argue in favor of it to me.

[-] kungen@feddit.nu 1 points 16 hours ago

Think like this: for our sooo beloved politicians and legal systems, everything in life is seen as a transaction. Due to the fact that I've paid my "private copying tax" or whatever you want to call it, I therefore have the right to make private copies and share them with limited groups of people. If they want to restrict those rights that I have paid for, they would "need" to remove the tax -- but they will never do that because it's tons of free money.

But if they did get rid of the tax, there's no longer that "transaction", and therefore there's nothing hindering them from criminalizing private copying. Sweden is already USA's lapdog in all other regards, so you can bet it'd be repealed quickly.

I don't support copyright laws either, nor follow them, but I can appreciate how it's currently set up here, simply because it would otherwise become much much worse. At least here, normal people can do what they want without worrying about getting a legally binding order to pay 700€+ in damages like the Germans get.