Torrenting

maeve99

Do you do it? Nearly all my friends and family, even the least computer savvy, torrent songs and movies.

Is it morally wrong in your opinion?

Thargor

I use it for absolutely everything, films tv books music and games. It does seem to be a dying art though (not that it will ever die), a lot of the younger people I speak to at work don't seem to know what it is, they don't seem to engage in any piracy tbh, happier to have 10 different subscription services dipping into their bank accounts every month.

Glaceon

It dropped off for a long time with many people thanks to Netflix and Spotify. But now that there’s so many streaming services out there and because it’s too expensive to take out subscriptions for them all, torrenting is making a comeback.

B.A._Baracus

There's been threads about this before on boards. Some view it as theft as its not like you paid for it. Others view it as victimless as its not like you stole it from a shop. Then there's those who justify it. It's sharing etc. No different than giving someone a blu ray etc.

I hate the latter though. Like come on now, let's call a spade a spade. Connecting to 50 strangers computers to get a file is not the same as lending a blu ray.

Is what it is. Millions do it.

bodhrandude

I use it if Netflix streaming is patchy, which it is sometimes is, its quicker to download a season of a series and view it on the computer, I also still use SLSK (Soulseek) which still great for getting albums and tracks, or rips of festival streams and gigs.

Ubbquittious

I love a bit of torrenting :)

Atlantic Dawn

You wouldn't steal a car, so to speak.

igCorcaigh

I used to use some demonic site for ebooks and stuff, maybe the odd movie. Is it still a thing though?

I prefer to use a paid service like Spotify for music, but prior to those services becoming accessible, I did use Napster back in the day.

And people were jailed for doing that; I think it's a failure of the market to catch up with the digital age, and so wrong to criminalise people for sharing material. I still do watch some films by nefarious means; just haven't come across a fairer alternative, even though I do sub to Netflix.

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117911969#Comment_117911969

Cars ain't digital AD.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912207#Comment_117912207

I'd download a car

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4939441/files

Sonic the Shaghog

It was a big thing with most I knew until Netflix offered a large TV and film catalog for a cheap price and everyone used it religiously for years it's the was the only option.

Now with every studio offering their own service and subscription often when they only have 1 or 2 bits worth watching it's like being back to the heyday of Sky and paying €80/€90 a month depending

I've now noticed a lot of people might have Netflix for sheer boredom watching but for everything else have then gone back illegally streaming or in smaller cases torrenting.

In general I'd say the only ones I know that torrent would be for stuff you can't stream such as games and ebooks. But the whole torrent/illegal streaming stuff is def coming back a lot

B.A._Baracus

I say torrenting is gonna get even more popular and not how it is now. 3d printers are still early days but you can already download files to print a gun!

Can you imagine what they will be like in 30 years? Every home might have one like a TV. Companies like nescafe could sell files to print a coffee machine say. That's all gonna go on torrent sites.

Could be a crazy future.

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912253#Comment_117912253

Yeah, absolutely. It's still very hard to find niche stuff on film. Netflix is mostly bad or mediocre content, bar a small few quality drama series. I find Spotify excellent for 95+% of my music needs, and youtube fills the other gap. I don't miss paying £20 for a piece of plastic to listen to an album. My days of supporting the giant music label industries are well over, so I will torrent guilt free if I choose.

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058209503/torrenting

To answer your question though: mostly No; it is not morally wrong.

Having said that, I do believe in supporting artists. And there are ways of doing this outside of feeding the corporate labels. Criminalizing and bullying consumers of freely shared data is morally wrong.

Thargor

Growing up in the middle of nowhere made me too wary of streaming even with my beast connection these days, I just cant relax during a stream (except Youtube), I have to have the files on my HDD so I know its not going to start buffering. Also I love the way massive 1440p files look on my big tv over HDMI from the pc.

StupidLikeAFox

Used to torrent a lot. These days I only torrent if I want to watch something I can't get elsewhere. Typically if a new series is released on amazon or so.e other streaming service i will pay the 7 quid and cancel it after a month, much less hassle

retalivity

I never got music streaming or spotify, I had about 15k mp3s collected for years that I listened to, wasnt much new stuff out there that I wanted to listen to so streaming passed me by. I lost about 10k of those about 2 year back, but just re-torrented everything again. I prefer having the physical file resident on the computer, weirdly.

And I still use winamp to play them.

lintdrummer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058209503/torrenting

Nice try FBI man!

endacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117911969#Comment_117911969

I would if I could download one.

riclad

If you can afford to pay for music ,use spotify, or youtube, if you have fast broadband a pc or ,laptop you can afford to pay for it. people used to just record songs on cassette in the days before the web existed . pc games are very cheap on steam, steam sales, free games on epic store , i see no point in torrenting a pc game.

most console games are 300gig plus, i don,t think anyone is torrenting ps4,ps5,or xbox 1 games .you cna also buy merch if you want to support your favorite bands .I use an app to download videos from youtube , i know people in rural area,s where all they have is a 4g connection on mobile ,theres no acess to broadband .Unless they get a satellite dish installed .i think its morally wrong to pirate movies if you can afford to pay for netflix.is there anyone really torrenting a 300 gig pc 4k game .theres also the risk of malware,virus, s if you are using torrent websites for game files i,m happy to watch any film in 1080p hd.

I'm using this new program called Napster. 👀

Penn

I have Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime (though I might cancel that one). I still torrent because not everything is available on them (such as HBO stuff), and I'm not paying for another subscription even if the likes of HBO Max does become available here.

Homelander

I dislike when people compare torrenting outright to stealing. Stealing is an act of physically removing something, at a loss, from a premises.

In probably 95% of cases, people torrent stuff because they can, and if they couldn't, they probably wouldn't bother paying for it either. It doesn't translate to lost revenue and in some cases actually has a positive impact, eg Game of Thrones.

A few times I've torrented stuff that wasn't available here and later bought the Blu-Ray just to support the content if it was particularly good. Recently, I bought Danger 5, Death Machine and Processor Uncut on Blu-ray for just that - all still sealed and will likely never be opened.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912688#Comment_117912688

The future with 3D printing is rather interesting, all sorts in theory is possible once you have the plans available, lots of old school Jap cars I'd love to 'download'.

putthekettleon

I live abroad, there used to be a site dedicated to Irish movies and TV, I used that a bit because it's impossible to find people seeding them on the remaining sites. It's gone now though.

Tom Mann Centuria

If I can't find something I want to watch on one of the myriad of streaming apps I use then I torrent. I do torrent plenty of audiobooks though.

circadian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117911466#Comment_117911466

You forgot rule #1 of SLSK. It isn't as good as it used to be mind you, but still amazing for finding white labels and that.

dasdog

I amassed a decent collection of jazz, soul, reggae and African music through Vuze. Most if not all of the artists and studio engineers are dead and I got my ears opened to a wide variety of art so I'm guilt free. Spotify is the real enemy paying a pittance to modern day performers it makes money off.

murpho999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912890#Comment_117912890

So following your logic, phishing scams doing the rounds now with courier links trying to get your bank details would not be stealing if successful?

Or ransomware attacks like on the HSE recently was not a crime?

I've torrented it in the past as stuff got too dear but I knew what I was at.

I gladly pay for my music service now as the artist gets some money (although not as much as they used to) and it's also great at curating new music for me (Using Apple Music).

As for video, Netflix, Disney & Amazon all great value and I pay as I do believe that stuff just won't get made unless you pay and I think what they charge is reasonable for hours of pleasure I get. Costs offset by getting rid of Sky completely, who do rip you off and use freesat and saorview for terrestrial TV that I use less and less nowadays.

accensi0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912642#Comment_117912642

It really whips the llamas ass.

circadian

+100 on Winamp Classic, nothing has come close in how many years? Nailed it on the first go.