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Is Online Piracy ever Justified? A Yemenis Perspective
PowerNet posted a topic in General Discussion
I have A Internet Café In Yemen (Posted about it on Reddit PCMR) https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/wh4d8x/one_year_of_opening_my_dream_project_in_yemen/ Living here it always came to mind why Piracy is Big Here. We don't have Cinemas and The Internet is in Kbps, But does that Justify taking some ones hard work? It is said that 100k of jobs are lost each year and billions in revenue lost. Let me Know, what is your relationship with Online Piracy and would you ever justify it? I also went into details about this Issue of Piracy in Yemen in a Video <link removed by staff> -
Linus, you stated on Twitter that watching a youtube video while using an ad-blocker is literally piracy. Piracy is theft. I never intended to steal from you. I have already unsubscribed, because I do not have time to watch ads and will not steal from you further. As soon as I can figure out about how many of your videos I have watched, I will either make an appropriate purchase or donate via floatplane. Thank you for the informational content. -Brian
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Summary The OCCT dev has created a post explaining how LTT has blatantly pirated software from him. They have also refused to answer his emails regarding the issue even after Linus was ranting on video about making sure to pay people for their work and don't be a pirate especially for small creators.. Quotes My thoughts Seems like an incredibly terrible thing to do to a small time dev. Especially after ranting about people using AdBlock and comparing them to pirates because they don't give him a few pennies per video. Sources Straight from the Dev: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/srhalz/linus_tech_tips_pirating_occt_answer_from_the_dev/
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Microsoft is now the world's #1 culprit and promoter of software piracy
Delicieuxz posted a blog entry in Miscellaneous
This was originally a post I made in the Tech News forum, and concerns the data-collection of Windows 10. Nobody has agreed to grant Microsoft rights to their personal data by purchasing or installing Windows - and all data that is personally generated by a person's hardware, their owned software-licenses, their time, and their electricity costs, is their personally-owned data, and represents work that a person's property created, through their owner's personal expense, and time. Further, I believe it would not be legally-defensible for Microsoft to imply anywhere in their EULA that they do have such rights to people's personal data - noting that EULAs are not laws, but are subject to laws, and noting that there are legal protections against unfair contract terms, which I believe any clause claiming a person's personally-owned data becomes Microsoft's would be a perfect example of (and without such a claim, Microsoft cannot legally claim a right to take people's data). I would say that this applies to the taking of data at any level, but Windows 10 doesn't allow for complete shut-off of all data-stealing, so let's just go with the most basic level of data-taking for this point, which will also be the least-disputable: When Microsoft unilaterally takes peoples data, it's stealing what doesn't belong to it, what was generated by someone else's work and property, and what the person that data belongs to is not being compensated for. It's piracy, and it's the very same piracy as a gamer downloading games they didn't pay for, and deriving benefit from them, such as entertainment - or productivity and money, if it's a productivity application, or maybe an OS. It's the taking of data which a person does not own, for benefit. How can Microsoft claim to be anti-piracy, when they are the biggest committers and condoners (by example) of piracy in the world? And, if Microsoft unilaterally decides that it is entitled to pirate everyone's data form them, so that they can make profit off of that data, then why should everyone else not pirate Microsoft's software? What justification exists that would support a double-standard, where software developers base their business-model upon piracy, yet individuals should be expected to pay for software from people and companies who are stealing their personal data, and profiting off of it? Something to think about, which I think the answer is obvious in being that Microsoft's data-collection is a major issue, and is criminal, and sets the example that it's OK for people to take whatever data they want, without paying for it, and without permission - which is software piracy. I don't think that should be the case, and I don't think that's what's right, but that's what Microsoft's conduct is saying is right, in their view, and is setting the example for other people to follow. And the same also applies regarding the conduct of other companies that do the same thing, such as Nvidia. Again, data that is created by a person's bought hardware and software licenses, which is produced by their system's processing power and resources, on the person's own time, and using the person's own paid-for electricity is theirs, and property rights apply to it. For Microsoft, Nvidia, or anyone to unilaterally take that data for their own purposes, and for them to profit off of it (which they do), is for them to commit data-theft, and to profit off of the proceeds of crime. Essentially, Microsoft and developers who behave similarly are criminal organizations.-
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Hi all, as many of you, I am broke and cannot afford to fork over $100+ for a windows 10/11 Pro key code. However, I am not wanting to buy a key from a company that is selling lower end, or simply stolen keys. (Not really feeling like going to jail anytime soon). Do you all know when windows keys go on sale at legit sites, aka Newegg, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. or if there is another site that sells them at discount? Thanks WeTuLo
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Back in 2013 a policy was put in place where copyright holders would monitor copyright content on the web and inform ISPs to send out warnings to any IP addresses associated with that content. After receiving numerous strikes you could have your internet throttled, have certain webpages redirected to "tutorials" about piracy, and receive threatening letters. Well, just about three years later they realized that it's a waste of everyones time and doesn't work. Surprise surprise. So, basically, the people who account for the majority of piracy will never stop and the people who pirate occassionally stopped. Whoopdeedo. Not only was it a poorly implemented system with no real backing/punishment, it's also easily avoidable by something as simple as a VPN. Like all forms of anti-piracy, it doesn't hurt the big time pirates, it only hurts the "little guy". They report an increase in piracy, although, I'm sure that has nothing to do with this system, but rather consumers becoming more and more fed up with the bullshit/difficulty of watching some content legally. There is no new system that has been announced yet, but there will surely be something, movie studios can't just let people get away with stealing their original content. Anyway, here we are in 2017 and movie/game/other studios still think piracy affects their bottom line and they still think there is something they can do about it. How cute. http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/30/14445596/six-strikes-piracy-system-failed-ending
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/end-pirate-bay-virgin-media-9765951 This will lead to a clusterf**k i think. Lets face it VPNs and someone will come up with a bypass somewhere i think.
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Just had to post this even though it may be a rumor, but it appears that Denuvo Software Solutions may be using an unlicensed version of VMProtect Software as a part of it's anti-piracy software... From the article at TechSpot: http://www.techspot.com/news/69572-denuvo-allegedly-protected-own-anti-piracy-software-pirated.html As the article states, the sources are a little bit sketchy, however, if there is some truth behind this, it seems kind of funny... If anything, it may be a lesson to Denuvo to ensure their own licensing is in order. UPDATE: VMProtect Software has issued a formal statement clarifying that there are no open issues between VMProtect and Denuvo although it does not really provide any details... http://vmpsoft.com/20170606/vmprotect-and-denuvo-gmbh/ Whether there really was anything that happened in the background still isn't clear, however it would appear that Denuvo and VMProtect are currently in each others good graces.
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The hacking group 'thedarkoverlord' (-Twitter) Has hacked into a LA ADR company and released the new season of OITNB (Orange Is The New Black). They have spoken to torrent freak about this and claim to have large amounts of unreleased content from both film and television. thedarkoverlord was in talks with Larson Studios in an attempt to hold the content they had stolen ransom for the price of 50 Bitcoins (~£51,819.00) Larson Studios signed the contract agreeing to this however failed to pay the requested 50 Bitcoins It looks like thedarkoverloard means serious business about the content they are holding as leverage and it is possible we may see more leaks in the near future.... From thedarkoverlords twitter; The stolen content is not complete to broadcast quality and will contain audio errors, missing ADR and audio levels before they are properly mixed. The Video quality will also be missing its final touches such as colour grade. Original article; https://torrentfreak.com/hackers-leak-netflixs-orange-is-the-new-black-season-5-premiere-170429/
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Sources: Mashable, Kaspersky [here and here] This is why it's hard to judge whether which side is telling the truth. All the US media says is that anonymous individuals especially unnamed Israeli hackers have witnessed Russian hackers using Kaspersky AV to data mine the US government. At the same time, Kaspersky only did an internal audit of their databases although they promised next year they will become more transparent and even have their source code inspected. Now, I'm reserving judgement until third parties are able to inspect both the source code and their databases but if what Kaspersky lab is saying is true, it's embarrassing for the NSA. First of all, how stupid would it be for an employee to take home classified files for cyberespionage and later run a pirated Microsoft Office? It makes me wonder how much NSA is paying its employees that they'll cheap out and resort to software piracy which they know is illegal and dangerous. How stupid for the NSA employee to use a pirated software to begin with? If proven true by third parties, it only shows that using counterfeit/pirated software is dangerous even if you have nothing to hide on your computer since it can be used as a remote malware factory and distribution and even in this forum, so many new members are asking questions like "How to get Office for free?" or "How to get a Windows 10 license for free?" I think at the moment there has been a hearing about Kaspersky but no details have been release publicly at the moment. Speaking of transparency, they promised next year that they'll have more third parties inspect their source code and databases and increase their bug bounty rewards up to $100,000 per vulnerability. https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/transparency-initiative/19870/ It makes me question my career choice as being an ethical, white hat hacker seems to be very lucrative. Edit: Here's the full video of the hearing assessing Kaspersky Lab. I haven't watched the video myself at the time I added the video. Here's an interesting debate from Fortune:
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Source: The Next Web My first thought of this is that cracking down on cloud services will never ever solve piracy. If media companies want to lessen piracy, they should make it available to more countries but of course, there's the issue of licensing. I just hope that the likes of RIAA and MPAA won't go as far as requesting courts for encryption backdoors to identify pirates which reminds me a lot of SOPA (Stop online piracy act) in 2011. Just imagine governments issuing you a warrant to give away your Google account password and device with 2-factor authentication codes under the pretense that you're a media pirate. What would happen if you made a digital copy of a DVD/Blu-ray but for your eyes only? But then, it's easy to be innocent by masking your IP address with a VPN as well as hiding your DNS requests with a VPN that hosts their own DNS. The only solution I can see with piracy is to make content available to more countries and making them cheaper. In fact, with the rise of Spotify and Netflix, internet piracy is falling [Source]. Also, just a reminder to everyone. Talking about ways to pirate is not allowed by the community standards.
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Supposedly a ban wave has gone out against 3DS users pirating the new Pokemon Sun and Moon games, causing their 3DS' to lose access to any online services, including Nintendo eShop access, and access in the game itself (also Includes all other games with online access, not just Pokémon). I've never heard of pirating a game that hasn't been released on the 3DS platform, so this is a first for me. So for first time offenders it's not that bad. They'll be able to play after all the hype is over, but as for the 2nd time offenders...... I guess their only option now is to buy a new DS, since they're banned by their serial number. Source: http://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/11/16/pokemon-sun-and-moon-pirates-hit-with-nintendos-ban-hammer-big-time/ More Sauce: http://gametransfers.com/pokemon-sun-and-moon-early-ban-for-those-who-use-pirated-copies/ And... as a friendly reminder.
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First, I'd like to begin by saying that I do not condone piracy. This post is not intended to encourage people to pirate the game. The aim of this post is to create a discussion about the state of gaming industry and steam to a lesser extent vis a vis Sekiro Shadows Die Twice. In fact, I'll post a solution down below for those who purchased the game legally and want it now (through legal/ethical means) With that disclaimer out of the way, I can finally begin the actual news. As implied by the title, Sekiro was cracked by Codex today before it was even released on steam. Here's an article that explains it. The theory that is most likely, from what I've read, is that Codex obtained the Asian release version since Sekiro is out in Asia right now. Currently on steam, many are complaining about the odd timing chosen by Fromsoftware. Some in fact decided to get a refund. Solution: If you are from the West and want to get Sekiro now (legally), the best course of action would be to use Tunnelbear (or a similar VPN), as advised in this steam post. Scratch that, seems like steam users are having problems with VPN installation. My opinion: I think they should have released the game for everyone at the same time. Shouldn't be that hard to coordinate. It seems like a lot of people are pissed off about this, but I'm personally a bit conflicted. On the one hand, having to wait 1 day isn't that big of a deal. On the other hand, I can understand how some would feel a bit "cheated" even though they bought it legally through steam.
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You read the title correctly, the RIAA and their ilk are suing Charter Communications claiming, and I quote: They are trying to argue that providing high speed internet means Charter, and other ISPs, are profiting off piracy and enabling it. It's almost like they don't even know what an ISP is or does and how their business model works, they provide internet. Most places literally have one or two (if they are lucky) choice(s) of ISPs who offer maybe 3 or 4 plans. I guess because Charter recently upped their minimum in a lot of areas to 200Mbps that means they want more people to download pirated material and consume more bandwidth? LOL. I do wonder, does this mean, if successful, I can sue the RIAA for making it easy to pirate their work, thus enabling piracy in the first place? Perhaps I can sue bottled water companies for keeping criminals hydrated or oil companies for powering the cars that let criminals get away? Link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/music-labels-sue-charter-complain-that-high-internet-speeds-fuel-piracy/
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Source: Motherboard TL;DR: If successful, a lawsuit from the Media Industries could force ISPs to heavily monitor users and potentially ban them from Services. Media: Quotes/Excerpts: My Thoughts: With the recent victory against a smaller ISP, the music industry has a potential precedent for future cases that could easily force them to go the same way. While the industry hasn't challenged any of the big players yet, this is definitely something we should be watching.
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https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR11.TRC1.A0.H0.Xwindows.TRS0&_nkw=windows&_sacat=0 And then the official stuff: https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Windows-10-Pro-Download/dp/B01019BOEA/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1520827250&sr=8-5&keywords=windows+10 What is this stuff? I mean I don't want fake deals or virus in the form of a CD nor do I want to pay 100 plus dollars when I could just pay 5 bucks. On fact is that most on Ebay show good review while if found 3 that say probably Pirated and none say virus. So, someone clear up the mess.
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Polygon https://www.polygon.com/windows/2018/4/25/17280178/eric-lundgren-windows-restore-disks-microsoft-prison arsTECHNICA (Most Recent) https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/why-the-man-who-tried-to-sell-windows-recovery-discs-will-go-to-prison/ Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/04/24/recycling-innovator-eric-lundgren-loses-appeal-on-computer-restore-discs-must-serve-15-month-prison-term/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1b6641afb067 Summary: Eric Lundgren, 33, has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison and a 50k fine, with the court ruling that his "restore disks" infringed upon Microsoft products costing $700,000. In 2011, Lundgren ordered $80,000 worth of re-printed Windows recovery disks from China. These were intercepted by US Customs and Border protection. It is reported that these are restore disks, which do not come with a product key or license and cannot be used to activate Windows. Therefore, these disks should be nearly worthless, as an installation/restore disk can be made free of cost with a utility provided by Microsoft. However, as many forum members have noted, it is against Microsoft's terms of use to redistribute this software. Note that currently being reported is that a US appeals court upheld a district judge's ruling. This is an appeal, not the original conviction or sentencing. Qyotes: My favorite:
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A bit of an introduction to the case Roughly 2 years ago Danish police charged two men for assisting piracy by sharing information on how to install and operate the torrent-based streaming service Popcorn Time via a dedicated website (which has been offline since 2015). https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/20/9181243/popcorn-time-how-to-sites-arrested https://gizmodo.com/you-can-get-arrested-in-denmark-just-for-spreading-info-1725141324 Today there was a ruling in the case in the municipal court in Odense. The ruling: One of the men behind the website was sentenced to 6 months probation (with 120 hours of community service) and has to pay a fine of 506,003 DKR (about 83,400 USD). - Dorte Køhler Frandsen, state lawyer with the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime. (My translation) Simply put, there's now a precedent within the EU that allows for people to get jail sentences for simply sharing information about illegal streaming sites (and possibly other illegal sources of content). Note, this is not actually downloading anything illegal, mearly talking about and demonstrating an illegal service. The fine was given due to the ad revenue it was estimated that the website had brought in. I guess the only major modifier in regards to just sharing information about the illegal pirate services, is that the website also instructed the users on how to avoid getting caught Unfortunalty, I could not find any information as to whether or not this had any impact on the court's decision. Sources (in Danish, unfortunatly) http://anklagemyndigheden.dk/da/forste-gang-i-europa-39-arig-domt-udbrede-ulovlig-filmtjeneste https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/foerste-sag-i-europa-dansk-mand-doemt-spredning-af-ulovlig-filmtjeneste Personal thoughts: While the content of the website was quite clearly against the Danish penal code, I do think this case could set a dangerous precedent. This case might have been pretty clear cut, but I fear that it could become applicable to cases that fall into a legal grey area. What about torrenting programs like qBittorrent or Vuze? Are those illegal pirating services? While torrents can absolutly be used (and are used) for completely legal purposes, there's also a not insignificant amount of illegal traffic going about through torrenting. Does that mean that installing BitTorrent on your friend's PC is illegal? Is Ninite responsible for assisting in piracy? Edit: The intitial arrest was also discussed on the forum here:
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http://www.hardocp.com/news/2016/07/19/google_bing_have_no_obligation_to_censor_searches_for_torrents <<< Good summary http://betanews.com/2016/07/19/bing-google-need-not-censor-torrents/ <<< Full article A red letter day for search engines? Not really. I'm just happy to learn that in some cases, common sense does win.
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While people are being sent to jail for imaginary crimes by the big studios, the developers over at CD Projekt Red, makers of the Witcher series, tell us a different story than what our corporates masters wants us to believe: WUT??? So you're telling me that as a developers or publisher, if i am fair to the consumer and give them a good product, people will lean more toward buying mt stuff instead of pirating it? That i don't even need DRM stuff taking a toll on performance to see a positive income? That a pirated copy doesn't mean a lost sale? NO WAY! The fat cats know what's the true right way of doing things, this guys are just being hippies /s source: http://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/07/19/witcher-3-studio-talks-piracy-says-it-was-an-irrelevant-factor/
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i was on reddit and i found a subreddit called /r/vesselrips they have a ton of ltt content and this is illegal so i just thought i let let u guys know
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So now copyright infringement is on the same level as printing money, umm ok uk parliament, maybe you should focus on EU matters instead of shilling for media companies just a thought This is the change in question, changing the max sentence to 10 years. They then go on to explain the circumstances which this level of punishment may be carried out, though vaguely. The maximum sentence will only carried out in rare cases, ok but they didn't explain the cases they deem valid I assume it will be for pirate site but I feel this could be abused unless spelled out in the legal code, also this means you could get less than 10 years but still more than the previous maximum (2 years) for a less "rare" case, I find copyright laws to already suck adding harsh penalties won't actually stop it, but it will expose just how corrupt the people who voted this in are. So what do you guys in the UK think about all of this, I'm an outsider of course but this does remind me of a Simpsons joke. https://torrentfreak.com/uk-bill-introduces-10-year-prison-sentence-for-online-pirates-160706/
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Until now, I've downloaded all my operating systems illegally. Now I want to better my life, but I can't quite figure it out. The very moment I purchased the Windows 10 key, my Windows 7 discovered it was not legit. Now, I can't upgrade to Windows 10 because my Windows 7 isn't legit. I could of course reset my PC and just install W10 plain on a clean HDD, but I like my stuff and having to re-install it would be a major pain. I've searched the web a little but no-one seems to have a solution. Does anyone here know a way?
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The original post is from Android authority. Two pirates operated their own sites to distribute pirated Apps back in 2012 have pleaded guilty to criminal counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit it. I wonder how they came up with the $17M figure? Did they count the number of downloads and multiply it by the cost of each of those pirated apps? In any case, I guess it's still justice, though it was at a snails pace that they will soon be the first to be prosecuted for Pirating Android Apps.
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