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this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Okay, I see this so much, but I have been ~~pirating virtually all of my media~~ downloading Linux ISOs (in the US) without a VPN for… 20 years?
I’ve gotten about a dozen letters from my ISP and I just chuck ‘‘em in a bin.
Haha, I used to do this (throw away the letters). Then one day my ISP shut off my internet for 24 hours (Verizon FIOS), so I got a VPN.
Yeah, if they’re going to twist my arm, that’s one thing haha. Surprised that your ISP actually took action.
Depending on the ISP your service can be terminated for pirating. VPNs are cheap enough where you might as well just use one
Okay, so I kind of lied, when I set up my radarr/sonarr/transmission/etc docked compose setup earlier this year, I did purchase PIA VPN, which is like $60 per year I believe. Didn’t want to have to think about it anymore, and I can afford it now, so whatever.
But still, over 20 years, that’s like a $1200 savings. When all that you’re realistically risking is having to switch ISPs, and that’s so unlikely that I’ve never met anyone who had to do it, I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as people make it out to be.
Having said that, don’t pirate things without a VPN and blame me when the fuzz comes for ya
@jemorgan @manapropos
Before using a VPN, I was sent numerous letters from my isp to knock it off. It really depends on both isp and where you live. If you live in the US, my understanding is that it's the isp who can get sued for allowing you to pirate, so while they don't want to lose your money and will give you numerous chances, they will eventually cease to do business with you.
I'm on Xfinity and the only time I've gotten a warning was torrenting a movie from a public tracker without a VPN. I switched back to a private tracker and no issues even without a VPN.
Your mileage may vary.
What's a cheap good VPN for someone in the US?
Mullvad's fast and $5, but it's hosted in Sweden. Can't have everything I guess
I’m using surfshark, I got it a 3 year subscription on a discount a while back. On reddit they had r/vpndeals if I remember right, that was a good source to find discounts. Not sure if there’s a similar community here on Lemmy
I still can't figure out why ISPs are even doing this. They have no financial reason to stop piracy from happening.
I’ve always thought it had something to do with absolving themselves if liability.
From what I understand, companies hired by copyright owners send a DMCA request to whichever ISP owns the IP addresses that show up in their honeypots.
ISP has to act on those requests in some way, so they send a sternly worded letter that basically says “we have been notified that your network was used to download copyrighted material illegally. Piracy is bad, you naughty boy/girl. If this continues, we may have to take action which could include canceling your service (don’t worry we won’t because we want your money)”.
Hypothetically, they could turn your information over to the digital rights company, who then could hypothetically file charges against you, but there is established judicial precedent in the US that says that showing that activity came from a specific IP address isn’t enough to convict an individual of a crime without more evidence. Could have been anyone in the household, or it could have been someone who hacked into the network and used it for piracy.
If we want to get even more hypothetical, they could try to convince a judge to issue a search warrant, seize your device, and look for evidence there, which could be used to convict you. But that is an insane amount of effort to go after one of the hundreds of thousands of people who downloaded ~~an episode of game of thrones~~ an Ubuntu ISO.
They do pull out all of those stops going after the original uploaded, though, but if that’s you you’re using way more than a VPN.
@jemorgan @mechoman444
I have had my service turned off for 24 hours once and that's why I finally started using a VPN, as that was just annoying.
Yes. They turn my internet off until I call them and someone over the phone scolds me for wanted to watch The Flash.