How do some torrent sites manage to stay online for so long? And what services would even dare host such content? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by EphraimEscobar@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Recently I learned a reason the most popular BitTorrent Index is still online is because of cloudflare and easydns.com

https://who.is/whois/thepiratebay.org

Obviously cloudflare could never host the site, it probably redirects the users to the servers that host it. Yet for some reason the domain has not been seized by authorities, but like the FBI did it with a Nintendo Switch ROM Site ?.

If you are wondering why I am asking is because of a ROM site concept I have been thinking for the past 9 months (image redirect to my rentry page)

By the way, you don't have to mention such service in public, you can always send me a private message!

top 11 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] Yglorba@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago

Nintendo is a special case. Their entire business model is based around their first-party games only being available on their systems. As a result, piracy is a much much bigger threat to their business model than it is to anyone else.

(Beyond that I feel that there's a cultural thing where the people calling the shots at Nintendo just hate piracy a lot more than most other companies - they've always been weirdly aggressive about it. But it's not totally irrational - they really depend hard on games like BotW only being available on their systems.)

[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 4 days ago

I think there's a variety of complex legal, political, and technical reasons why torrent sites can avoid having their domain "seized", but I think the summary is: there be dragons here and it's not worth playing around with.

Politically, some jurisdictions define piracy differently and hosts won't comply with legal threats from the US.

Legally, hosting a torrent is not the same as hosting a ROM. In the former case the actual copyright works are hosted by users, the torrent site just hosts the torrent file which is a list of users from whom you can download the content. ROM sites tend to provide the actual file for download, which contravenes relevant copyright laws.

Technically, you don't need a commercial host platform to operate a website. It's entirely possible to host a site in your mum's basement on your laptop. Obviously for a large site you'll want more appropriate hardware but the point is larger torrent sites are likely to run on hardware maintained directly by the admins.

The most compelling reason not to get involved in a public facing grey area site like ROM or abandonware hosting, is that it doesn't really matter where you stand with the law - you won't have the resources to defend yourself. Suppose Nintendo decides they don't like you doing what you're doing. They have an army of sophisticated lawyers who have spent a lifetime learning how to weaponise the law. It doesn't really matter who's "right", all that matters is how much money you have with which to engage lawyers to defend yourself.

[-] EphraimEscobar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 14 hours ago

I really liked your elaboration on the consequences for hosting a torrent site. And forget about money, the only line of defense someone has on the internet is privacy.

Can't be sued if you don't follow the steps of a Ross Ulbricht.

[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 47 points 4 days ago

The Pirate Bay used to be taken down fairly regularly back in the early 2000s. A number of political and legal wins changed that.

[-] jbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 3 days ago

These days, torrents are honestly not as big of an issue from IP holders perspective as you would think.

In the mid 2000s, torrents accounted for 30% to 50% of all internet traffic (with higher share during peak hours). It was a big deal.

Nowadays, there are other priorities and torrents are seen as less pressing challenge.

[-] flamiera@kbin.melroy.org 8 points 3 days ago

The attention has gravitated away from torrenting to streaming. Where, the anti-piracy outfits are more concerned sniping down streaming services. It was almost like they completely forgot torrenting was a thing. But, they have also taken down some big names too during the heydays of torrenting.

[-] Yglorba@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago

As Gaben said, piracy is a service issue.

Streaming sites are a bigger issue because they're so easy to use, to the point where it's often easier to just view something on an illegal streaming site than to view it on Netflix. You can email your grandma a link to a torrent site and she can use it immediately. (I'd set her up with adblock first, ofc. But everyone should be using adblock.)

Meanwhile torrents, for people who aren't already set up to use them, are hard. You can't just email your grandma a link to The Pirate Bay.

[-] bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net 14 points 4 days ago

A lot of torrent sites are on cloudflare. The IP owners are less balls to the wall than you'd think for non-sports content because it loses money anyway and more exposure potentially makes money in terms of expanding the brand long term.