Safe and official are not the same thing. I’m not sure there is any pirate site that is 100% safe when downloading applications. You are always taking an educated risk based on the history of the site, the moderation, the users and the application in question. It is not a good habit to think of things as clean or unclean, safe or unsafe, because circumstances can always change and you need be actively on the lookout for warning signs.
SolidTorrents is a pretty good aggregator. You can also search on non-English sites (I use Korean ones).
You sort of asked two different questions there. Generally I don’t torrent music these days, though I have done in the past (Audio-4U, for example). I do use P2P methods like Soulseek for some stuff but predominately I rely on direct downloads through DoujinStyle.
In terms of why I pirate, it’s because I can’t afford to buy all my music and streaming services offer inferior quality, catalogue size and revenue to the artists. I’d rather manually curate my own offline collection and put the money I would spend on a streaming subscription directly towards an artist whose work I particularly liked whenever I can afford to do so.
Pirate websites only manage to release it faster because they get access to the unfinished product and then have people work on them with no regards to any work laws in order to finish and release it as soon as possible without any schedule or time constraint.
This is the context that was missing from the original comment. I agree, this does not sound like a service problem.
A lot of people read it from illegitimate sources simply because they can manage to release it two to three days earlier than the official every week.
This still sounds like a service problem.
Not in Australia. Relevant section of the Copyright Act 1968 as it would have existed back then, for those interested:
COPYRIGHT ACT 1968
- SECT 111 Filming or recording broadcasts for private and domestic use
(1) The copyright in a television broadcast in so far as it consists of visual images is not infringed by the making of a cinematograph film of the broadcast, or a copy of such a film, for the private and domestic use of the person by whom it is made.
(2) The copyright in a sound broadcast, or in a television broadcast in so far as it consists of sounds, is not infringed by the making of a sound recording of the broadcast, or a copy of such a sound recording, for the private and domestic use of the person by whom it is made.
(3) For the purposes of this section, a cinematograph film or a copy of such a film, or a sound recording or a copy of such a sound recording, shall be deemed to be made otherwise than for the private and domestic use of the person by whom it is made if it is made for the purpose of:
(a) selling a copy of the film or sound recording, letting it for hire, or by way of trade offering or exposing it for sale or hire; (b) distributing a copy of the film or sound recording, whether for the purpose of trade or otherwise; © by way of trade exhibiting a copy of the film or sound recording in public; (d) broadcasting the film or recording; or (e) causing the film or recording to be seen or heard in public.
The same laws still apply today, just reworded. By the way, this practice of recording live TV is known as time shifting.
Which version of the application were you using? And where did you download it from? I haven’t encountered this on the Samsung TV version or the APK from the Stremio website.
You don’t need to make an account. There is a guest login option.
The shadiest thing I am aware of them doing was the time they added a crypto miner and asked users to choose between that or ads.
It released in 2015. Many of us have been using it since the beginning without issue.
I’m not sure why no one suggested AudioBook Bay, but it is also quite good in my experience.
Pirating is even more woke than watching Netflix or Disney+! Take that Ron DeSantis!
Wonder if ads actually makes up for the difference or if it’s just under priced to push people towards it.
The ads are almost certainly making up the difference and then some, otherwise I don’t see why Netflix would pursue that strategy at all. The only other theory I can think of is that people are less likely to initially cancel an $8 monthly subscription than a $19 subscription, and are therefore more likely to forget to cancel it in the future.
Like the rest of the tech industry, Netflix is way past the point of making a loss just to drive growth and is now obsessed with driving maximum profits because their shareholders are demanding (or are owed) returns on the big investments they made in a different financial climate years ago. That’s why Netflix is introducing ads, pushing up prices and cracking down on shared subscriptions (and now even a one-off payment to “add” an account member from outside of your household) and cancelling projects with real artistic merit at short notice when they don’t show immediate signs of becoming the next massive hit. It’s all about making as much money as possible now. We are no longer in the age of focusing on providing a reasonably priced and objectively good service and that will drive people back to piracy, just as it has done previously.
How is the standard plan a bad value?
Because of how it is priced relative to the other tiers. It is significantly closer in price to the highest tier ($7 gap) despite being almost identical to the lowest tier in terms of features ($11 gap). The only meaningful difference is ads. It’s very clear that Netflix is trying to price out customers who are unwilling or uninterested in paying for all the features limited to the highest tier (4K, double the simultaneous streams, better audio, etc) and force them on to the cheaper, ad-supported plan instead because they believe they can make more money this way.
Additionally, the middle tier is priced closer to the highest tier to imply that the highest tier is great value (because it has so many extra features for a smaller price increase than between the lowest tier and the middle tier). This is a classic retail strategy designed to trick consumers into spending more money than they originally needed or wanted to because “it’s better value”. Consumers often conflate “better value” with “saving money”, even though they are doing the complete opposite when they pay $7 more for features they didn’t initially care about at all.
The funny bit to me is how obvious they are about restructuring their business model. Netflix clearly wants a greater proportion of their revenue to come from advertisers, so they’re charging exorbitant prices for the 4K and, in particular, standard plan while keeping the “ad-supported” plan fairly low. They were probably seeing waves of short-term subscribers in response to big releases and are trying to bait those people into staying subscribed permanently while also milking then through advertisements. I wouldn’t be surprised if the standard plan is removed at some point because it’s such bad value now.
How often would you be forced into torrenting those mediums and how great is the risk? E-books do not need to be torrented as there are plenty of alternative ways to access them (including legal methods such as libraries). Audiobooks potentially do, but AFAIK are not prosecuted to the same extent as films and TV or video games. It can definitely be convenient to torrent music and it is a riskier medium than e-books or audiobooks, but similar to e-books there are plenty of alternatives to torrenting. I just don’t see why you would bother signing up for a free VPN if that’s the stuff you’re after.
It appears to have a 10 GB limit per month, which is so low that it would essentially be useless for most common torrenting purposes I can think of.
Yes, exactly. Negative emotions have been shown to drive more engagement in users, so the algorithms are designed to highlight conflict and increasingly extreme viewpoints. For younger viewers, the algorithm favours addictive content to ensure they stay glued to the screen.
I don’t think recommendations being messed up by the algorithm is the real issue with YouTube (or any big tech social media platform). It’s the fact that the algorithm is so good at predicting what you want to watch before you even think about watching it, that you slowly become pushed into an echo-chamber where your entire online space is inhabited only by people who agree with you, issues that you think are relevant, etc. It’s the entire concept of algorithm-based recommendations that is messed up and it’s damaging society.
I don’t really care about the name attached to the file (I’m more interested in quality and compatibility). Usually it seems to be something by NTFS (Not Here To Fuck Spiders), SuccessfulCrab, EDITH or ETHEL.