You can optionally create and maintain your own list on our hosted wiki. Any dbzer0 user can access the wiki to create/edit pages.

I don’t think there’s currently a way to automatically sync watch history across devices, but I’d love to be wrong about that tbh, because it would be handy.

For me it’s not just about ads, it’s also about surveillance. With FreeTube you can have subscriptions without needing a linked YouTube account, and all the subscription/watch history data is stored locally. So, it’s a good opt-out of Google/YouTube surveillance. And you can import/export subscriptions if you need to transfer to another device. I happen to use FreeTube for this because it is frequently updated and I like the setup, but other options exist - I’m not really promoting this option over other options, just raising some awareness about it.

Thanks for the reminder: Donate link

IMO it’s a good idea to use a VPN when accessing any pirated content, as a general rule. While there are exceptions (e.g. usenet, specific countries with piracy-friendly laws/enforcement) and it’s arguably unlikely end-users of pirated streams would be prosecuted, why take the risk? It’s cheap insurance and there are few downsides. In some countries ISPs will act on reported piracy at your IP address and you could have your internet cut off or suspended, and/or be fined. So, better safe than sorry.

[In 2024] More than 80% of global online piracy can be attributed to illegal streaming services.

- https://dataprot.net/statistics/piracy-statistics/

I think this is the main reason. Pirate streaming services are now directly competing with Netflix, Disney+, and other streaming platforms (aka the media industrial complex, or MIC), and they offer more content for a more affordable price (or for free). Pirate streaming is also very accessible to a mainstream audience, who are already used to the concept. So, the MIC regards them as the biggest threat preventing them from jacking up prices even more, because people will naturally move to a more afforable option, if one exists.

So the main focus of the MIC is on killing off pirate streaming right now. Usenet and torrents have proven to be more robust piracy options but they also have a higher barrier to entry for mainstream audiences, so are always going to be more niche than streaming. But no doubt they are still tring to kill off usenet and torrent piracy - it’s just a lower threat to corporate profits, so wont get as much attention.

Some significant news for Telegram users!

See this article for some interesting backstory context on Pavel Durov and Telegram: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-telegram-billionaire-and-his-dark-empire-a-f27cb79f-86ae-48de-bdbd-8df604d07cc8

Since the post article is in French, here’s an auto-translation:

Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the encrypted messaging service Telegram, was arrested around 8 p.m. on Saturday evening as he got off his private jet on the tarmac of Le Bourget airport. The 39-year-old Franco-Russian was accompanied by his bodyguard and a woman.

The arrest was carried out by the gendarmes of the GTA (Air Transport Gendarmerie). Registered in the RPF (wanted persons file), Pavel Durov came straight from Azerbaijan. He had over his head a French search warrant issued by the OFMIN of the National Directorate of the French Judicial Police, issued on the basis of a preliminary investigation.

Why was he under threat of a search warrant?

The Justice considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with the police and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) makes it complicit in drug trafficking, paedophile offences and fraud.

This search warrant ran if, and only if, Pavel Durov was on national territory. “He made a mistake tonight. We don’t know why… Was this flight just a step? In any case, he’s locked up!” a source close to the investigation told TF1/LCI. Since he knew he was persona non grata in France, Pavel Durov used to travel to the Emirates, the countries of the former USSR, South America… He travelled very little in Europe and avoided countries where Telegram is under surveillance.

And now?

Investigators from the ONAF (National Anti-Fraud Office attached to the Customs Directorate) notified him and placed him in police custody. He is expected to be presented to an investigating judge this Saturday evening before a possible indictment on Sunday for a multitude of offences: terrorism, drugs, complicity, fraud, money laundering, concealment, paedophile content…

“Pavel Durov will end up in pre-trial detention, that’s for sure,” comments an investigator to TF1/LCI. “On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of misdemeanours and crimes to be committed for which he does nothing to moderate or cooperate,” said a source close to the case.

His pre-trial detention at the end of his indictment is indeed in no doubt. Pavel Durov, a billionaire, has substantial means to flee and his guarantees of representation will hardly convince the judges.

A net with international resonance

For the investigators, this international sweep has various objectives. First, it makes it possible to kick the anthill, impress and deter the perpetrators of crimes and offences who exchange, until now, freely on Telegram. Secondly, they aim to put pressure on European countries to step up joint work to make secure messaging on terrorist cases bend.

Indeed, Telegram is a hive of criminal content. At the moment, the platform is in the news with the illegal broadcasting of Ligue 1 matches. But on this encrypted messaging service, many accounts are used by organized crime. Beyond terrorism, the most dangerous pedophiles communicate on Telegram to exchange content. “It has become for years THE number 1 platform for organized crime,” comments an investigator.

Yeah, farewell Telegram. He should probably have stayed at home.

See https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/yt-dlp-error-piracy-this-website-is-no-longer-supported.93995/ for some pertinent comments.

See list of forks here https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/forks. If you find one that works, let us know.

Calm down buddy. It’s just a fun meme. Read the comments for context.

That’s true - Raymond Hill, the uBO developer, doesn’t accept donations or payment for his software. Truly a legend. I’d 100% donate to them if they accepted donations.

The meme is about Adblock Plus though which does have a paid tier. I prefer uBO myself, but if you are stuck with Safari then it’s a legit option.

If you prefer the one curated by an individual then go with rentry version. If you prefer the one maintained by the community then go with the wiki version. The wiki is basically a fork and has diverged from the rentry version in places.

Yes, edits are limited to members of the dbzer0 instance, but anyone else can view it. There’s an element of trust involved in any wiki with public edits. Hopefully our community would notice any problematic edits so they can be reverted. But since edit access is tied to an instance account, anyone found vandalizing the wiki can be easily banned.

@sunbrothersco@lemmy.dbzer0.com maintains the Megathread and it is the same one linked in the sidebar for both Reddit and here. You can contact them for edits.

I did make a django wiki clone of the Megathread (community edition) a while back that members of this instance can make edits on. It can be found here: https://wiki.dbzer0.com/piracy/

Reminds me of the “Physician, heal thyself” quote, except “Website, police thyself” with the added bonus that a bunch of pro-copyright lobbyists wrote all the anti-piracy laws that you are now obliged to enforce on their behalf.

You are going to have to be more specific about the type of files if you want useful advice.

I think the reason people don’t post much about how to host pirated media and distribute to a wide audience is because in reality it’s not so easy to do this. This community mainly exists to help people learn the basic of piracy: e.g., how to torrent safely, how to setup a jellyfin server, which websites are good for obtaining certain types of media, help with troubleshooting etc.

Let’s take torrenting as an illustrative example. It’s simple to learn how to download a torrent, and even simpler to seed it (though you might not think so given the actual number of damn seeders lol). But if you want to become a torrent uploader of your own pirated content there are many barriers to entry:

• If anyone could upload torrents to [insert your favorite public torrent tracker site here] then it would quickly become swamped by malicious uploads that contain malware. That’s why it’s hard to find any public trackers that allow torrent uploads. You may have better luck on a private tracker, but then you will have to jump through hoops to get an invite, and then prove yourself over a period of time.
• It takes time to establish a reputation as a trusted uploader, and even one (accidental or otherwise) slipup and you have destroyed your reputation. That’s why pirates love uploaders like fitgirl (for example), who has created clean and trusted repacks for many years.

Hosting is problematic because it’s a constant cat-and-mouse game with domains being seized frequently and DMCA notices being sent to the hosting provider who will often happily delete your account and give your info to the po po. You’ve also got to consider bandwidth and infrastructure costs.

Apps like Jellyfin are great for personal use (a few friends and family) but usually can’t cope with a large number of simultaneous users. Online streaming piracy is very user friendly, but extremely expensive and technical to setup at scale.

You can upload to Usenet but you have to be very careful to hide your tracks since your IP address could be logged when uploading. And Usenet is often pretty hopeless for older stuff because uploaded content often gets copyright claimed quite quickly, and content is only retained for so long.

Maybe I2p is part of the answer? It has some enthusiastic advocates, but I haven’t really engaged with it much so far.

Have some self respect.

The only helpful comment, thank you!

Fact is, it can be hard for new pirates to distinguish between a real virus and a false positive. For your future reference, OP, https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload is a good place to upload any files you want to check out properly. If 90% come up as “clean” and the rest say stuff like “crack” or “pup (potentially unwanted software)” then you’re likely good to go.

Fitgirl is a trusted uploader and you seem to be using the official site, so I would assume it’s totally fine. Make sure you read the instructions in the readme when you download games, because they will often advise to set an exception for certain files in your antivirus to ensure they aren’t detected as false positives.

It’s ok with me, and it’s a worthy cause. Thanks for raising awareness.