Piracy is an action sport. The ability to infringe copyright and steal valuable work induces a rush like no other. Whether you steal music, movies, books, applications, or whatever, it feels like breaking the law and it saves our wallets and purses from becoming empty. But not everyone is as fortunate as we are to know the ins and outs of the world of piracy. There’s so much to take in and only so much time for us to Google around for the answers to our questions. Luckily, you have a master pirate on deck to help you with understanding the basics that will get you downloading Spiderman 3 in no time.
For this Help Key, I’m going to break it down into a few separate sections. This will allow you to skip to the section relevant to you and will also allow us to discuss topics in an organized matter. Ok. Computer on? Let’s get started.
Understanding Piracy
Piracy is a vast underworld of skilled, ninja-like hackers who blow up mainframe computers for profit. Actually, this is a complete lie, but the underworld part has some truth to it. There are two types of people/groups releasing movies, music, and everything else to the general public. There is the individual pirate who is on their own and perhaps decided one day to sneak a camcorder into the 11:35am showing of Happy Feet. He will go home, rip the video from his camcorder, encode it in a proper format, usually in the XviD codec, and will upload it to either a server or his peers. Some would call “casual piracy.” Nothing too huge and the pirate keeps to himself mostly. Your casual pirate could also be a top-tier uploader as well, someone who sends file after file to sharing sites in order to improve their ratio so they can download other files.
Then there is The Scene. According to Wikipedia, The Scene is a term used to refer to a collection of communities of pirate networks that obtain and copy new movies, music, and games, often before their public release, and distribute them throughout the Internet (and previously through BBSes). A pretty solid description there and accurate as well. Scene groups work together over the Internet to put together “releases” which are then mass-distributed over networks such as IRC, Forums, Bit Torrent trackers, and so on.
So why do these people pirate? Who knows. It could be the thrill, it could be boredom or millions of other reasons. With the rise of DRM (Digital Rights Management) limiting the use of what we can do with something we already paid for, many people are turning to piracy as a way to free their data from the chains of DRM. After all, why the hell should I have to pay $15 for a Rage Against The Machine CD I lost back in 1997? I already bought it, I’m just re-downloading it because the CD can’t be found. Which brings us to our next topic…
Ways To Pirate Movies/Music/Software
If it’s a digital file, you can pirate it. But the sake of my fingers and your eyes, I’m going to stick to the top three pirated filetypes: music, movies, and software. This is a guide on how to pirate properly with specific applications. If you don’t know about some of these applications or methods used below, just search for them in Google and something informative is bound to come up.
As of right now, I’d say the best possible way to pirate something is through Bit Torrent. Using .torrent files and an application called a client, we can download files from other people using a tracker. A tracker coordinates the transferring of files among peers. All you need to know is that there are two kinds of trackers: public and private. Download from a public one such as Mininova, The Pirate Bay, or ISO Hunt, and you may find yourself getting sued by the MPAA or RIAA down the road. This may or may not happen and it’s all about being careful.
Public trackers are good for two things: learning how to use Bit Torrent properly and getting the occasional file we can’t find on a private tracker. The other day I wanted to watch a specific movie I couldn’t find on a private site. I went to Mininova, grabbed the torrent, and downloaded it. No big deal. I probably won’t get caught. I just know I should only use public trackers when all else fails. A lot of older movies are available on public trackers, so feel free to use them at your own risk.
On to private trackers. Private trackers are a part of invite-only or closed community Bit Torrent sites. I’m not going to name any specific sites here, but these sites require knowing someone who has an invite and asking them for one. Once you’re invited, you are expected to keep a certain ratio. This means for every gigabyte you download, you should upload as well. This keeps everyone on the site happy and allows for super-fast, safe downloads of content you’d otherwise spend hours downloading off a public tracker. So if you download an album off a music site that is 120MB, be sure to keep your torrent client open until you’ve uploaded 120MB or more.
The advantage to these invite-only sites is just that. It’s invite-only. This means the MPAA or RIAA or FBI can’t automatically sign up, upload a torrent, and track you. This ensures everyone’s safety and also keeps the idiots away who come to leech off fair users like myself. You’ll notice that private sites also tend to have a greater library of content and of better quality. Looking for the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie? It’ll hit the private trackers before the public ones, which again, is another advantage.
So now you’ve got the basics of Bit Torrent sites down. This method costs us no money, is the fastest free way to pirate, and can also save our asses from getting caught. But perhaps Bit Torrent is too hard for you to grasp or you can’t forward ports on your router properly due to limitations. Then what do you do? Use an alternative method of pirating. Duh.
Methods of Pirating
You can use multiple methods to get the same Rod Stewart albums you’ve been wanting for years. Here are some methods that will help you unleash your inner pirate:
Traditional P2P Applications (Kazaa, Limewire, etc.)
This is where your old pal Napster would fall in. Kazaa, Limewire, BearShare, whatever your poison is, these are all peer-to-peer applications that allow the sharing of files from one user to another. I personally keep Limewire around for times I need one specific song or a rare file. You can get caught on these still, but the chance is minimal as long as you keep your pirating to the obscure and hard-to-find items. Even getting one or five Beatles songs won’t hurt you. The downside is that a lot of viruses hang out on P2P networks. If you use a Mac, no biggie. But Windows users are probably better off just skipping P2P altogether or using it very cautiously.
Bit Torrent
Again, as we discussed above, this is currently one of the most popular ways to share files. You help share the file as you’re downloading it and after it’s downloaded. Everyone else does the same. It works out like a big, happy, sharing family. I already went into detail about trackers above, so I’ll recommend some applications to use for Bit Torrenting since some are actually banned on private trackers.
If you use Mac OS X, I recommend Bit Rocket. It’s pretty much the only stable, fast client with an aqua GUI and it’s easy to use. Windows users should definitely use uTorrent, which is by far the most robust torrenting software available for the OS. If all else fails, you’re in a pinch, or use another operating system, there’s always Azureus. Azureus is a huge, highly configurable Bit Torrent client written in Java. It will always work and will always get the job done, but on Mac OS X especially, it’s one slow application. Use Azureus if other clients start messing up or if you’re clueless about Bit Torrent in general.
Usenet
Usenet is an old global Internet discussion system that can be used to share files. It’s the fastest way to get your download on, requires no uploading, and a lot of stuff appears here first. However, Usenet isn’t entirely free. Your ISP may give you Usenet access, but most people end up paying a monthly fee to a third party like GigaNews for unlimited access. You can use a Usenet client for your OS to connect to a server which you’ll then download files off of. It’s also not the easiest method to rush into and requires a bit of reading and learning before you use it.
File Transfers
Have an AIM account? Does your friend? Great. Start up your AIM client, IM your friend, initiate a file transfer and presto, you’re now a pirate. Yup. You can use your favorite IM program to send huge files between two people. Easy, free, and you won’t be caught. Recommended for the casual pirate who plans on sharing a file or set of files once or twice tops.
Streamload/MediaMax
MediaMax is an online storage locker where you upload files to the company’s servers. You pay a monthly fee for a set amount of data to be downloaded (10GB for example) and once you’ve pirated that amount, you’re done. You can upload all you please and the company has a blatant disregard for anything copyrighted. I gave out my account to some people on private Bit Torrent forums and I’ve seen some cool stuff uploaded. The new Bjork album, Batman Begins, and plenty of other treats. Check MediaMax.com out and see how you feel about it.
IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. You basically connect to a server, go into a chat room, and start browsing through people’s material. When you find something you like, you type in a command and start downloading it. You may get lucky and can start downloading right away. Half the time though, you’ll get caught in a queue, which essentially means you’ll have to wait for people in front of you to finish downloading before you can start. IRC isn’t as popular as other methods, but it’s generally safe and packed with good finds, especially movies and software.
One of the best IRC clients for Windows is mIRC, while OS X users tend to use Chax or Talk. Personally, I use Colloquy on OS X and find it to be the best client to date I’ve used. Linux users can use the 100,220,393,292 clients people have built for themselves.
Burning CDs and DVDs
Get some software, ask your friends what they want, and make copies. You can make some lunch money doing this or you can be a good pirate or just do it for the sake of freeing media. DVD-Rs are a steal nowadays. This is an easy, safe method that’s perfect for friends wanting to share movies and CDs.
Releasing Materials
So you’ve downloaded a few copies of newly released movies and the excitement is kicking in. You love this. You want to help out and contribute. How can you? Easy. Go through your CD and DVD collection and see what isn’t publicly or privately available and start ripping. A good collection of tools for a pirate to have can include CD or DVD ripping software, video and audio encoding software, compression software, video and audio converters, file converters, and lots more. Just do a Google search for “CD ripper windows” or “audio encoder OS X” to get the appz you need. If they cost money, just pirate them.
Once you’ve got the end result, let’s say a ripped DVD movie, you’ll need to make two kinds of files to be a legit/respectable pirate of the Internet. Include a .NFO file with information about the file you’re offering. It may also have some ASCII artwork. Here’s an example of what you might find inside a .NFO file:
Movie length: 1:45:03
Sound codec: AC3
Video codec: XviD 1.02
Encoded by: handlegoeshere
See all that useful info? Be sure to include it in your release! For more on NFO files, check this link out.
We’re not done though! I said two files should be included along with your release. The second is a .SFV file. Not everyone will use this, but it’s good to have. SFV stands for Simple File Verification. As the name implies, it verifies that the files downloaded are not corrupted or the wrong ones. If the hash check doesn’t work out, you may have a corrupted file, a malicious file added in to your download, or some kind of tracker or watermark an organization has added in. This step is up to you, but generally it’s a good idea. You can learn more about Simple File Verification here.
When all your files are finished, throw them in a properly labeled folder, include any artwork related to your release, and upload it to the internet. If you’re using Bit Torrent, creatie a torrent using a tracker (a freely available public one or a private one) and start seeding the files. If you’re on P2P, just throw it in a .zip file and put it in your “Shared” directory. Using MediaMax? Just upload the folder. Voila. You’ve now released something into the wild and if caught and prosecuted, you’ll be paying all kinds of fines.
Oh yeah. It probably goes without saying, but don’t use your real name when uploading files. Pick a handle that’s not related to you in any way at all. For example, “DallasGuy1982″ is not a good handle. I know you’re from Dallas and were probably born in 1982. This narrows down the FBI’s search when they trace your IP address for uploading files to The Pirate Bay. Pick something funny, strange, or obscure. “ReeferMan” or “Gh0st R1d3R” are good choices, albeit cheesy.
Not Getting Caught
As you probably guessed, piracy is illegal. Getting caught can land you some serious fines or even jail-time depending on the offense. Those of you in college should probably stay the hell away from piracy. I personally know about three people who have been caught downloading via Bit Torrent or P2P. The only safe way to pirate is to not do it at all. There will always be a chance that you can get caught, whether it’s the MPAA poisoning a torrent, the FBI giving a plea bargain to your best friend who got caught 2 weeks ago, or one of thousands of other ways.
So how do you protect yourself? Download from private servers and torrent sites. Using public trackers and P2P is like announcing to the world “Hey! Look at me! I’m pirating!” Stay away from anything public related and download in moderation. Scooping up 2TB of files in a week will make you stick out like a sore thumb.
Going to college this fall? Great. Leave the pirating for CD-Rs and AIM. Your college may have a lot of bandwidth to spare, but that bandwidth is being monitored and trust me: the RIAA or MPAA will eventually catch you throughout the next four years of your life. Just read the news and you’ll see how many kids are getting screwed over for $3000 to $6000 for downloading some songs.
Also, don’t brag. You know how the bank robbers always end up getting caught in every movie, right? They start bragging to everyone about what they did and how much they made out with. Telling a friend or two about how you snuck a camera into March of the Penguins and leaked it is generally OK, but don’t start posting shit on forums. Now you’re just asking for it. This is why using a handle is an added layer of protection. Even if they trace a release back to “HornyDude”, they still might not be able to find out who he is. Plus, “HornyDude” will look great on the Federal subpoena.
Well we’re done. Hopefully by now you’ve learned some essential tips to keep you out of trouble and to help you pirate more efficiently. Just remember that it’s not what you pirate, it’s how you do it.
Disclaimer: This guide is for informational purposes only and should not be used to actually pirate. Any reference to myself or anyone else is purely fictional. I don’t pirate, I bought all 100GB of music on my iTunes library legally, yo.
Interesting guide, nicely summarizes what I already know, but a good read for newbies. One thing that should have been added is non-traditional P2P apps, namely encrypted file sharing solutions (such as GigaTribe http://www.gigatribe.com or Microsoft’s EFS (Encrypted File System) or even Freenet. Private P2Ping is great as you eliminate the risk of downloading viruses or fake files.
(the dog pic rocks too, arrrrrrrgh!)
Yay for pirates. That dog is awesome.
When you said “Piracy is a vast underworld of skilled, ninja-like hackers who blow up mainframe computers for profit.” I almost cried in rage and anger, but then you said it was a lie so it’s fine. Pirates are not lame ninjas. Pirates are much much better, and are actually useful.
Nice write up/guide though.
Amazing. You should do it in spanish too!
Interesting depiction. You forgot to talk about topsites or the ability to skip queues in irc channels if you have operator access. But who am I kidding… a whole book could be written on the topic and we would still miss out on things.
I also think it’s important with the rise of user-generated content sites and their indexing partners that a new form of piracy has arisen. Sites like alluc, peakvid, wegotshows, etc that index all that illegal content on sites like Youtube and 1dawg for the less tech-savvy individuals. While the quality may not hold up, it is still opening up the door to a whole new sector of our userbase online here.
kudos
Fun and informative. And you alluded to it but I just wanted to reinforce this: Stealing is wrong but sharing is fine, so seed.
hey there, good article!
on the bit torrent thing for mac os x, i would recommend xtorrent over bit rocket any day of the week. i’ve use bit rocket and it wasn’t very stable. crashed all the time (mac pro 10.4.9).
xtorrent isn’t free but it has a better search (with browsing capabilities) and it’s simple and clean. it’s done by the same guy who made acquisition, it was my p2p app of choice.
cheers!
If you do plan on going public kids please protect yourself with something like PeerGuardian. While it’s not a surefire solution, every little bit would help.
nice article
@protestant, xtorrent is not a good thing. firstly, who tries to charge for tools to download illegally? that’s dumb. secondly, it is full of bugs and because it ignores bt protocol is banned on any good private tracker.
You forgot topsites… pwned
you forgot hotline. LAWL ROFL ROFL ROFL.
forget the guide, i wanna know where i can get that pirate get up for my dog for halloween…
oh, and how difficult is it gonna be to saw off my dog’s leg?
Avenger, it really won’t be difficult at all if you’ve pirated a copy of Photoshop. :) er emm.. downloaded the beta copy of CS3.
I second elberon: grab PeerGuardian if you’re going to do the file-sharing thing. You can also avoid poisoned torrents by downloading only ones with a lot of people sharing them. (You’re more likely to be lost in the shuffle that way.)
Most of the movies I download I already own on DVD. Why? Because I’m too lazy to rip them myself and it’s convenient to pull up a list of movies on my HTPC rather than hunt down the disc. Some of them are rips of things I own on VHS but don’t want to take the time to encode. Many of us use filesharing as an easy way to exercise our “fair use” rights. Why should we be penalized for that?
Awesome Guide, I would always use Bitlord for my pirating needs but now thanks to this guide I am going to try Bit Rocket.
(I hope that dog was just photoshopped – poor puppy)
@everyone
you do realize half of you just bragged, or hinted that you were pirates yourselves…and i do remember a bit in there about that
so to those of you that didn’t, congrats, you’re not a tard
An interesting guide~~
nice article, very interesting
but what about torrent networks?
Azureus uses bydefault Public IP network (not anoymous)
And then there are 2 others in advanced mode u can choose/add:
I2P network
The Onion router (tor) network
How to handle?My friend selects all and says it made his download faster…
i think the RIAA would like to have a word… lol.
Great article, I would check out http://www.zeropaid.com for more info on all sorts of things relating to piracy and P2P.
Informative and humorous… great one d00d…
Nice guide… thanks for the info
A tip that somewhat noobish P2P users might find useful: It’s a classic mistake to search for a file, click on one that looks to be popular, and have it download in less than a second. Magic? Unfortunately not. Always, always scope the size of files before downloading them when on networks such as Limewire. If it’s drastically different than similar files, be suspicious.
An easy, safe way to pirate is through libraries. You can get pretty much any CD or DVD through interlibrary loan if your library doesn’t have it. The only downside is that it takes a little longer… usually about two weeks unless your library already has the media.
One thing about this that made me shake in rage is telling every Joe-Schmo to go and rip/encode all of their movies. We have a place for this and it’s called YouTube.com. Leave this step to people who know what they are doing.
Also, If you are going to use public torrent sites, don’t be stupid: at LEAST use something like Bluetack’s anti-p2p lists. It’s better than nothing.
Using a .sfv file for a BitTorrent release is sort of pointless as BT does it all itself automatically.
This is also the ebst way to rip an Audio cd: http://jiggafellz.isa-geek.net/eac/
While a little bit more time consuming, it is a much better final product.
Can’t one avoid detection entirely by using an unsuspecting neighbor’s unprotected wireless connection?
That pic of the dog fuxing rocks! Nice article too.
Don’t forget not all files flying around as torrents are illegal or “pirated” many linux distros, open source apps, and redistributable apps need BT to help save on bandwidth for the developer sites.
Oh and, uTorrent encrypts your BT traffic as long as you have done your port forwarding correctly, which helps with the whole bandwidth clamp down by ISP’s who think everything on BT is pirated. Also, it adds a smidge of privacy. For more privacy you’d need a proxy or TOR or JAP or one of many apps that help hide your IP.
Good on ya M8!
How secure am I using emule?
For college students, the best way to download is often with private direct connect servers (see DC++). I know such servers exist at many institutions of higher learning. They’re convenient, fast (over campus networks) and mostly secure (only accessible on campus).
The only such network I know that got shut down was a huge Internet2 DC++ hub, but they had a blatant website and it involved dozens of schools.
Don’t forget the modern “sneaker net” !
These days, with 300 GB portable drives getting cheaper and cheaper, more and more goodies are shared among my friends by simply plugging and unplugging various USB devices.
Great guide…
…but didn’t anyone ever tell you that magicians never reveal their tricks??
Woah. So nice to wait for couple days for getting some lame file with kazaa. Bittorrent is better but I prefer private sites ;)
From the Wikipedia entry for PeerGuardian:
As of April 24, 2007 the default “Level 1″ list stated as being to block anti-p2p organizations alone blocks 739,154,389 IP Addresses. As of January 2007 there are approximately 2,407,000,000 IP addresses allocated to the Internet. Therefore this list blocks an entire 30.5% of the Internet as supposed anti-P2P. This also ignores factors such as those allocated IP addresses not being in use on the Internet (either due to companies going offline and not returning IP space, or due to large pools of IP space being allocated but not all used all of the time).
Interesting article, though I would have expected a mention about DC++ (goes a long way back) and the Rapidshare/Megaupload… file hosting services – internet is filled nowadays with links on these sites.
Long live piracy!
Really. It’s not that we like piracy per se, it’s just that movie studios, record labels, software houses usually set their prices a little too out of their mind!
Believe me I could buy ALL the software I use if it was like 10 bucks or something each, but throw 399 for Vista? Wake the hell Up!!!!
The best way to avoid piracy?
Move up here to Canada, eh.
If you actually think private Bittorrent trackers are somehow “safer” than public trackers, you have no right to be writing articles like this.
Well, now we can obviously wait for a massive Internets breakdown.
LOL
You forgot the direct downloads, the international servers, and anything that lets you upload something that can be later retrieved via web browser.
Noobs will have to start learning “non-english” [gasp]
My two cents on this… stay away from piracy, theres not a movie that’s worth the three years in jail plus $250,000 in fines.
Finally there is legal use of such things as torrent files (think Bittorrent.com or the several Linux Distros that use it too).
yeah, because we need more retards knowing how to pirate. napster wasn’t bad enough for the mp3 scene for you?. then there was kazaa, where suddenly everyone got photoshop 4 and thought they were an artist. leave the piracy/hacking/phreaking to the people that come to it organically – no one needs a manual on this shit, lame disclaimer or not. encouraging any more teenagers or non-technical people to get involved in anything like that will only dilute things further, giving those mega-companies/orgs like riaa, mpaa, bsa, etc more reason to go after more people.
the business models for traditional service businesses are becoming obsolete, but flaunting them is still just plain stupid (and illegal).
and agreed about private trackers – you realize there are whole taskforces about those sorts of sites, right?
What about using a HSDPA connection? Each data session is assigned a dynamic IP address. All data is routed through the carrier’s proxy server. Is there any way activity can be traced back to the user?
Sesame Street taught me to share.
Oscar was always in his bin leeching the BBS warez on his 14.4k.
This is really sad. I am a musician and I have seen so many people around me loose their jobs because of criminals like you.
How about writing a guide about child abuse or theft?
Either you are not aware that you really affect and destroy people’s lives with that or you are just a cruel bastard.
Josh, with all due respect, I think you are misusing the tech that is available to musicians like you. People who download music for the sake of enjoying it hurt the record companies (or sales department of) but actually spread the word on the music, thus merchandise and concerts (of which the record labels partake) make up for the revenue lost in record sales.
There are a ton of groups that skip the record label step altogether and still they pack stadiums and have a healthy fanbase.
It is a common misbelief that the “big artists” or “sales departments” are the ones who are hurt. With fading revenues the industry invests in the artists that are already known. These used to pay for the newcomers that are no “sure shots” but risky investments. These investments are the first to cut.
Your argument on the concert revenues are solely true for (a) artists that (b) perform. There are millions of other professions, ranging from producers, songwriters, engineers, studio musicians etc. that are not in the lucky position of making up lost revenues by performing live.
Noone cares about your friends’ jobs. The songwriter should sing his own songs or become a poet. The engineer should become another kind of engineer. My job as a music fan isn’t to support an industry, it’s to listen to music. Sometimes technology renders industries obsolete.
Maybe I have been out of the ’scene’ for a long time, but I believe you are leaving out the first stage of a ‘release’. It is first uploaded to a FTP Server that belongs to the release group or friends of in rar format with a hash check .sfv. Then it is FXP’ed from that (extremely fast) FTP to other FTP’s. This initial distribution is called ‘Pre-Release’ or just ‘Pre’. Then it is again distributed through FXP to ‘topsites’ which are still very secretive (It is now released). These topsites are ratio usually 1:3 or 1:2. People grow collections of these sites and ‘race’ the releases from site to site to build up a good ratio. When they have a good ration they FXP to ‘Dumps’ or ‘Pubs’ which are usually hacked computers on 10mbit connection. By the time it reaches the Dumps, it is already on literally hundreds of servers. I have heard that one hour after a release is ‘Pre’d’ it is on more than 10,000 different FTP servers. I feel obligated to throw in that I am not in the scene anymore so I have no idea if this still holds true. I do know that everybody I associated with laughed our fucking asses off at ‘noobs’ who used xdcc irc servers and bittorrent. But who knows, maybe DEViANCE uses bit-torrent now.
I am totally aware that you do not seem to care about anyone but yourself.
It is interesting how you justify stealing by how you think people should lead their lifes.
@will: so what you are saying is as a fan of sportscars, it is my job to steal and drive them and not to support the car industry by buying them?