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I grew up in the late 90ies with internet in Switzerland, and as a broke pre-teen and teenager I was used to getting EVERYTHING pirated and this habit sticked w

I grew up in the late 90ies with internet in Switzerland, and as a broke pre-teen and teenager I was used to getting EVERYTHING pirated and this habit sticked with me, even though when in later years I was working as a software developer. Torrenting, sharing with friends and family is still completely legal in Switzerland. Only after pay services like spotify became a thing and were more convenient than managing and tagging my multi TB sized aac/mp3 library, I switched. Same for Netflix. But since fragmentation of streaming services started to happen, I'm going back to things like stremio/torrents/DDL sites. For software, as a hobbyist videographer I wouldn't purchase the Adobe suite and all the expensive VFX tools I use for my family videos. But whatever software I use professionally (at work and at my employer), I'm of course getting proper licenses.

danielrpa 5y ago
Legal considerations aside, pirating can be a fun hobby. In the early days of computers, pirating was one of the best ways to meet other computer geeks! Additionally, thanks to pirates and data hoarders (and the Internet Archive), we have a LOT of intellectual property preserved that would otherwise not exist due to fuzzy ownership and copyright complexities.
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woolion 5y ago
I would like to share that far from sticking it to big companies, piracy hurt independent creators way more than big corporate interests. Sure, software behemoths would be even happier to squeeze out more pennies from individual purchases, but they make their big bucks at governmental and institutional levels. Meanwhile, _consumers_ compare free software to "free" cracked software. If the equation was "does this software bring me 300 CURRENCY of value, or can I get this value out of a free alternative?", the results would be quite different. Which means we would also deal with better financed alternatives... Netflix etc are legal, but if you care about proper rewarding of creators and improving the situation, well.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > I would like to share that far from sticking it to big companies, piracy hurt independent creators way more than big corporate interests. Does someone remember the Bill Gates line about Windows piracy in China from the 1990s? Someone said something like "There are 300 million pirated copies of Windows in China" and Bill Gates responded "I'd rather they pirate Windows than use something else."
hwers 5y ago
Really? It's legal? Would that mean someone running a torrent site should move their operation to switzerland to avoid getting prison time?
- chiheisen 5y ago
  Leeching is. Seeding is not. Its also more of a legal grayzone rather than a blanket "this is allowed".
  - rg111 5y ago
    Only German lawyers are disgusting enough to go after seeders and downloaders who never intend to distribute "illegally" downloaded content. Sometimes they themselves seed torrents and monitor who else is seeding or leeching. If they happen to not use VPNs or proxy, and based in Germany, they get a legal notice from them. Nobody ever went to jail doing this. Some paid hefty fines, though. But a friend said that you can send them a counter notice where they have to prove that it was you at that time at that computer downloading or uploading. After doing this, someone he knows never heard back from these absolute parasites of the society. (I am not a lawyer, and this should not be taken as legal advice.)
    - sildur 5y ago
      What I did was to ignore the initial letter, and nothing happened. Over the years I’ve found that not engaging is usually the best defense.
    - belter 5y ago
      Its a rite of passage in Germany to get a "Waldorf & Frommer" letter. I plastered mine on the wall and use it as target practice. https://kanzlei-bennek.de/en/waldorf-frommer-warning/ https://kanzlei-bennek.de/en/waldorf-frommer-warning/ Ignore these people and never reply.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    Downloading isn't really a gray zone, even though some of the content industry would like to paint it as such.
LaunchAway1 5y ago
When I was young I pirated everything but now I have paid the few proprietary programs I use. I prefer to spend some hundred on licenses, maybe a thousand in total if I sum videogames and have some hygiene on the computers I use to access my bank, private information and social networks accounts.
sorenjan 5y ago
For video, you can use DaVinci Resolve instead of Adobe. The base version is free for non commercial use, and it's a very capable program. I think it makes sense, Adobe has benefited a lot by having their software pirated and becoming the de facto standard, but they like to pretend that they're against piracy of all kind.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  DaVinci Resolve doesn't support mp4 files which makes it a poor option from the get go.
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    IME it does accept MP4, just not every variation and profile.
    - charcircuit 5y ago
      It seems to only be a problem on Linux. The paid version supports MP4(H.264), but not AAC.
      - readbeard 5y ago
        Well to be fair, Premiere Pro doesn't support MP4 on Linux either. :-)
  - sorenjan 5y ago
    I'm a very casual user, but I've only used it with mp4 files straight from my phone camera and Youtube downloads.
  - gruez 5y ago
    just use ffmpeg to remux the file?
    - charcircuit 5y ago
willis936 5y ago
I'm very wary of any pirated software these days. A lot of crackers and keygens I obtained long ago turned out to contain viruses. I wouldn't say the majority of the demoscene is like that and maybe even the viruses came from people remaking torrents with modified files then seed-boosted them to the top of the search. A few bad apples spoil the bunch.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pseudo0 5y ago
  It is of course smart to use caution when downloading anything from an unauthenticated source, but this has become a pretty minimal problem the last few years. AV heuristics and OS security features today are miles better than 5-10 years ago, and services like VirusTotal significantly reduce the amount of time a novel repacking of an old exploit can fly under the radar. Also in the case of a pdf vulnerability, the attacker would have to guess the right version combination of OS and pdf reader (or browser), reducing the percentage of downloads that would result in successful exploitation. This combination of factors seems to have made this tactic increasingly ineffective, so people have largely stopped trying it.
- young_unixer 5y ago
  If it's a keygen, just run it in a VM.
- compdoovid 5y ago
  We had a saying called: "ungewöhnliche Laufzeitpacker!", 'often and originaly used to shorten the filesize' of an '.exe'-file. Hope this helps cos wayback with the iphones there was an 'official and major bug' i remember, Radio/Press/and Tv warnigs told the people: 'jailbreaked-phones users downloaded viruses on their computers'-media (-; hint: 'shortend...'
zepearl 5y ago
> Torrenting, sharing with friends and family is still completely legal in Switzerland. Downloading might be legal (not sure if there are some clauses, e.g. only for own/private consumption), uploading definitely is not.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
> Torrenting, sharing with friends and family is still completely legal in Switzerland. This is incorrect in regards to torrenting. Torrenting by default distributes content to random strangers, which is crossing the line. Pure downloading from random sources and sharing with friends and family however is perfectly legal. Also, IIRC this applies to movies and music, but not software.
- latexr 5y ago
  > Torrenting by default distributes content to random strangers Torrenting distributes to whoever has the torrent file, which you can share privately. The most common usage may be to share with strangers, but calling it the default makes it seem like it’s inherit to the protocol. > Pure downloading from random sources (…) is perfectly legal. Does that mean uploading to share with strangers is illegal, but downloading from a stranger isn’t?
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Yes, it's only copyright infringement if you are redistributing the content.
  - pchangr 5y ago
    That’s exactly how it works in Germany.. but you can just route your traffic through more favorable jurisdictions
    - red_trumpet 5y ago
      I think streaming of illegal content became illegal in Germany in 2017. See here: https://www.simplegermany.com/streaming-in-germany/#Is_streaming_illegal_in_Germany_in_2022 https://www.simplegermany.com/streaming-in-germany/#Is_strea...
      - deleted 5y ago
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- 5y ago

danielrpa 5y ago

Legal considerations aside, pirating can be a fun hobby. In the early days of computers, pirating was one of the best ways to meet other computer geeks! Additionally, thanks to pirates and data hoarders (and the Internet Archive), we have a LOT of intellectual property preserved that would otherwise not exist due to fuzzy ownership and copyright complexities.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

woolion 5y ago

I would like to share that far from sticking it to big companies, piracy hurt independent creators way more than big corporate interests. Sure, software behemoths would be even happier to squeeze out more pennies from individual purchases, but they make their big bucks at governmental and institutional levels. Meanwhile, _consumers_ compare free software to "free" cracked software. If the equation was "does this software bring me 300 CURRENCY of value, or can I get this value out of a free alternative?", the results would be quite different. Which means we would also deal with better financed alternatives... Netflix etc are legal, but if you care about proper rewarding of creators and improving the situation, well.

HWR_14 5y ago
> I would like to share that far from sticking it to big companies, piracy hurt independent creators way more than big corporate interests. Does someone remember the Bill Gates line about Windows piracy in China from the 1990s? Someone said something like "There are 300 million pirated copies of Windows in China" and Bill Gates responded "I'd rather they pirate Windows than use something else."

hwers 5y ago

Really? It's legal? Would that mean someone running a torrent site should move their operation to switzerland to avoid getting prison time?

chiheisen 5y ago
Leeching is. Seeding is not. Its also more of a legal grayzone rather than a blanket "this is allowed".
- rg111 5y ago
  Only German lawyers are disgusting enough to go after seeders and downloaders who never intend to distribute "illegally" downloaded content. Sometimes they themselves seed torrents and monitor who else is seeding or leeching. If they happen to not use VPNs or proxy, and based in Germany, they get a legal notice from them. Nobody ever went to jail doing this. Some paid hefty fines, though. But a friend said that you can send them a counter notice where they have to prove that it was you at that time at that computer downloading or uploading. After doing this, someone he knows never heard back from these absolute parasites of the society. (I am not a lawyer, and this should not be taken as legal advice.)
  - sildur 5y ago
    What I did was to ignore the initial letter, and nothing happened. Over the years I’ve found that not engaging is usually the best defense.
  - belter 5y ago
    Its a rite of passage in Germany to get a "Waldorf & Frommer" letter. I plastered mine on the wall and use it as target practice. https://kanzlei-bennek.de/en/waldorf-frommer-warning/ https://kanzlei-bennek.de/en/waldorf-frommer-warning/ Ignore these people and never reply.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  Downloading isn't really a gray zone, even though some of the content industry would like to paint it as such.

LaunchAway1 5y ago

When I was young I pirated everything but now I have paid the few proprietary programs I use. I prefer to spend some hundred on licenses, maybe a thousand in total if I sum videogames and have some hygiene on the computers I use to access my bank, private information and social networks accounts.

sorenjan 5y ago

For video, you can use DaVinci Resolve instead of Adobe. The base version is free for non commercial use, and it's a very capable program. I think it makes sense, Adobe has benefited a lot by having their software pirated and becoming the de facto standard, but they like to pretend that they're against piracy of all kind.

charcircuit 5y ago
DaVinci Resolve doesn't support mp4 files which makes it a poor option from the get go.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  IME it does accept MP4, just not every variation and profile.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    It seems to only be a problem on Linux. The paid version supports MP4(H.264), but not AAC.
    - readbeard 5y ago
      Well to be fair, Premiere Pro doesn't support MP4 on Linux either. :-)
- sorenjan 5y ago
  I'm a very casual user, but I've only used it with mp4 files straight from my phone camera and Youtube downloads.
- gruez 5y ago
  just use ffmpeg to remux the file?
  - charcircuit 5y ago

willis936 5y ago

I'm very wary of any pirated software these days. A lot of crackers and keygens I obtained long ago turned out to contain viruses. I wouldn't say the majority of the demoscene is like that and maybe even the viruses came from people remaking torrents with modified files then seed-boosted them to the top of the search. A few bad apples spoil the bunch.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pseudo0 5y ago
It is of course smart to use caution when downloading anything from an unauthenticated source, but this has become a pretty minimal problem the last few years. AV heuristics and OS security features today are miles better than 5-10 years ago, and services like VirusTotal significantly reduce the amount of time a novel repacking of an old exploit can fly under the radar. Also in the case of a pdf vulnerability, the attacker would have to guess the right version combination of OS and pdf reader (or browser), reducing the percentage of downloads that would result in successful exploitation. This combination of factors seems to have made this tactic increasingly ineffective, so people have largely stopped trying it.
young_unixer 5y ago
If it's a keygen, just run it in a VM.
compdoovid 5y ago
We had a saying called: "ungewöhnliche Laufzeitpacker!", 'often and originaly used to shorten the filesize' of an '.exe'-file. Hope this helps cos wayback with the iphones there was an 'official and major bug' i remember, Radio/Press/and Tv warnigs told the people: 'jailbreaked-phones users downloaded viruses on their computers'-media (-; hint: 'shortend...'

zepearl 5y ago

> Torrenting, sharing with friends and family is still completely legal in Switzerland. Downloading might be legal (not sure if there are some clauses, e.g. only for own/private consumption), uploading definitely is not.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

> Torrenting, sharing with friends and family is still completely legal in Switzerland. This is incorrect in regards to torrenting. Torrenting by default distributes content to random strangers, which is crossing the line. Pure downloading from random sources and sharing with friends and family however is perfectly legal. Also, IIRC this applies to movies and music, but not software.

latexr 5y ago
> Torrenting by default distributes content to random strangers Torrenting distributes to whoever has the torrent file, which you can share privately. The most common usage may be to share with strangers, but calling it the default makes it seem like it’s inherit to the protocol. > Pure downloading from random sources (…) is perfectly legal. Does that mean uploading to share with strangers is illegal, but downloading from a stranger isn’t?
- rglullis 5y ago
  Yes, it's only copyright infringement if you are redistributing the content.
- pchangr 5y ago
  That’s exactly how it works in Germany.. but you can just route your traffic through more favorable jurisdictions
  - red_trumpet 5y ago
    I think streaming of illegal content became illegal in Germany in 2017. See here: https://www.simplegermany.com/streaming-in-germany/#Is_streaming_illegal_in_Germany_in_2022 https://www.simplegermany.com/streaming-in-germany/#Is_strea...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
5y ago