I don't use one. Never had.
this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Rants about not going to a big vpn because of privacy concerns, yet brings up one of the largest vpns still that their uses. Btw a vpn is only subjective to what you are doing, torrenting or any p2p activity you will need a vpn. Direct downIoads from datanodes, 1cloudfile or streaming from a site aka broflix, primeflix you dont need a vpn. Ive gone years without getting any notice from my isp with this information. Of course the websites will change over time but the info still stands true to this day.
Not everyone lives in the so-called first world. Here the ISPs don't care about pirating.
Is this a vpn sales pitch
VPNs are not required. Instead of egressing on your ISPs network, you're egressing on someone else's network. It's kinda like paying for a second ISP so you can egress your ISP to go encrypted to your other ISP. What does it accomplish other than putting you in another law jurisdiction?
Even purevpn who said "no logs" handed over data.
"In 2017, PureVPN, which advertised a no-logs policy, supplied connection logs to the FBI during a cyberstalking investigation. These logs enabled the identification of a suspect by linking activities to originating IP addresses. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PureVPN
"In 2016, IPVanish, another provider asserting a no-logs policy, furnished user data to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during a child abuse investigation. The information shared included the user's real IP address and connection timestamps. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPVanish
You pay them, and for what? To just take their word for it? Sorry but it's impossible to run a reliable network without some level of logging.
Not to mention that there have been documented instances Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), have been misused, leading to concerns about domestic surveillance.
This section allows the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to collect communications from non-U.S. citizens located outside the United States, even when those communications are routed through U.S.-based companies, such as cloud providers, internet service providers (ISPs), and tech companies.
At that point do you think you'll get some form of compensation from the VPN provider?
Not every country has firms that send warning letters/lawsuits for torrenting. Research whether your country does that before getting a VPN. In my country, I never had to get one.
pirating without a vpn is like having a naked phone. sure it's great but at what cost.
Zero cost.
I think there is a big misconception that the main use of a VPN is piracy when that is really only true when in a community of pirates. There are many legit uses for one as well.
For example, while VPNs are generally not a great tool for anonymity they can be a useful tool for privacy. One of the side effects of not trusting your ISP (or better put trusting your VPN over your ISP) with your data is it also makes it easier to torrent.
Its this relationship of trust that makes choosing a respected VPN (such as Mullvad, IVPN, or Proton) important over just choosing the cheapest provider with port forwarding.
Do I need a VPN to read this post?
Keep in mjnd that in the US, downloading isnt the illegal part, its providing the file to others (seeding).
Starting an AI company will also allow you to infringe copyrights on a massive scale without punishment
I know 2 Germans. They prefer Usenet over VPN. USA gives you warning. Germans don't give warning.
A "great" thing about copyright infringement in Germany is that the statue of limitations only starts after the copyright holder learns from the copyright infringement.
This means, even if I torrented a movie 5 years ago, and the copyright holder finds out my name only now, they'd still have another 3 years to sue me.
Anyway, there're private torrent sites in Germany. It's only public sites that don't exist.
DDL and streaming sites are really big in Germany. Usenet too, but until a few years ago I don't think there were Indexers with API's, so it's been either manual downloading or streaming.
UseNet over SSL?
Your mileage may vary. 25 years of downloading shit without a VPN and I never had a problem.
No doubt about the same and I have pirated everything.
Not everyone is US based, but ofc it's an understandable assumption since it's a very populous and well Internet-connected country (plus we're discussing in English).
To save one's behind when torrenting (pirating is a bit generic), a VPN is a great tool, but falling into the privacy/security and legal nightmare of a cheap service installing malware (or getting their proprietary app hacked) and/or stealing residential connections is a big risk (like with those services where a huge budget is spent on predatory marketing on youtube); paradoxically having that unrestricted VPN app installed might mean that a lot more people are torrenting with your residential connection. This point is not a deal breaker, just a "beware", do your homework and isolate that connection within your OS or even better within your network.
Other counterpoint: within a country where they haven't started to really crack down on it, you are protected by the impossibility of fining / suing / arresting millions of people at once. More people sign up for VPNs and torrent from outside the country, the more their connationals will also need protection.
Sorry for the wall of text..
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 'kulturarvsafgiften' and apparently you can't google it which I'm not gonna imply any conspiracies about but yknow
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?
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.
I live in Denmark (no Dane) and I never heard about it. Interesting to know.
So i see this alot and i understand it but at least in my country (canada) i have been torrenting for well over 15 years with out a vpn. The worst case is a 5k fine total but not before a letter from the isp forwarded to me on behalf of the copyright holder. Which i can ignore with out any issue since they have no idea who i am.
Issues will arise if you reply to them.
So is vpn required?
it depends on where you live and your confort with your risk.
Or I2p
Amen to that!