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.

  • gazter@aussie.zoneEnglish
    1·
    31 minutes ago

    I think you are giving an overly simplistic answer, to the point of being misleading.

    Stating that you need a VPN for pirating is blatantly false. It’s perfectly possible to pirate without one. You can assume that people are asking if they should have one, but it is helpful to draw the distinction- including the why you believe they should use one. What does a VPN do, how is it helpful, what could happen if they don’t, etc.

    Teach people, don’t just give them blind rules.

  • moreeni@lemm.ee
    35·
    14 hours ago

    Not everyone lives in the so-called first world. Here the ISPs don’t care about pirating.

  • yeehaw@lemmy.caEnglish
    102·
    12 hours ago

    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?

    • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      4·
      6 hours ago

      I work for a VPN company. There may be many shitty VPN companies that do keep logs, but not all of them.

      You just need to pick the right ones, ideally audited ones.

      Also, VPNs are absolutely required in some countries if you’re using public torrents. Even if they’re not required in your country right now, you’re still advertising that you’re doing illegal stuff if you don’t use one.

  • Imprint9816@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    16·
    15 hours ago

    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.

    • LandedGentry@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      46 minutes ago

      Yeah I don’t really understand this post. I use a VPN pretty much 24/7 coupled with little snitch. I like controlling what information of mine is going out and who gets to come in.

  • CaptainBasculin@lemmy.mlEnglish
    16·
    15 hours ago

    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.

  • thefluffiest@feddit.nlEnglish
    291·
    18 hours ago

    Starting an AI company will also allow you to infringe copyrights on a massive scale without punishment

  • drkt@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
    231·
    7 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

    • Chewy@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      8·
      12 hours 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.orgEnglish
        5·
        7 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.

    • antipiratgruppen@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      11 hours 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.orgEnglish
        2·
        7 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.nuEnglish
          2·
          4 hours ago

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

          • drkt@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
            2·
            4 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.nuEnglish
              2·
              3 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.orgEnglish
                2·
                2 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.nuEnglish
                  1·
                  1 hour 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.

  • PiJiNWiNg@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    15 hours ago

    Keep in mjnd that in the US, downloading isnt the illegal part, its providing the file to others (seeding).