Mastodawn

Back then, have you ever pirated movie rentals onto DVD / VCD or ripped them?

Back then, have you ever pirated movie rentals onto DVD / VCD or ripped them? - Lemmy.zip

This was during the era before streaming services became the norm, when Netflix was still brand new, they actually started by sending physical discs before launching their streaming service existed. You rent a copy and a disc is sent to your home within a few days but there’s a written letter telling you have to return it by a certain date otherwise they’ll charge extra. That copy isn’t yours to keep, so what ends up happening during those days were people using blank DVD’s alongside their PC and DVD burning software to pirate the content from movie rentals (also DVDrips existed, but those file sizes are massive during dial up internet being broken up into .VOB / .BUP in a folder or outright converted into an large .ISO file). It was either DVDrip (.mkv) or literally copying onto a blank DVD. VCD’s are an alternative for compression but sacrifices quality as a CD is designed to hold music rather than video. DVD ripping software exists, but you need heaps of storage on PC to hold those ripped files whilst maintaining their metadata (subtitles, dubbing, dolby / surround) and the file sizes are large. Even if you have the ripped files, you still needed software to play them (VLC media player) or any proper digital DVD player (as an .ISO file isn’t the same as an .mp4) but nowadays most discs have AACS 2.0 to avert piracy (especially 4K movies and Blu Ray, the file sizes for those are a joke to pirate as they’re over 50 GB in FILE SIZE! like WTF!).

bgrier 🇨🇦 🍁12h ago

Oh, so that's how it was done ;)

Reading:
"Long before the internet changed everything and made downloading files instantaneous, software piracy was already operating at full steam. Except the network back then was entirely physical, relying on boxes, face-to-face meetings, and, above all, the floppy disk. In the 1980s and 1990s, if you wanted a program or a game without paying retail prices, you had to move data magnetically from one piece of plastic to another."

Floppy Disk Piracy: How Software Was Shared Before the Internet | Comuniq

https://comuniq.xyz/post?t=1280

#VintageComputing #Apple #C64 #SneakerNet #Computers #Piracy

The Real Problem with the Civil Defense Fake Alert | Comuniq

Discover, vote and discuss the best content on the web. Comuniq is an open source community-driven news aggregator where real people — not algorithms — curate and share what matters most.

claim_arguably 13h ago

What's your favourite telegram group?

https://lemdro.id/post/41951708

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Nonilex 16h ago

#Trump, in response, threatened to impose #US tolls in the crucial waterway if a final deal with #Iran isn’t reached in 60 days, saying the money would be for “services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East.”

What a jackass.

#TrumpsWar #IranWar #IdiotInChief #piracy #RulesOfWar #InternationalLaw #law #Congress #WarPowers #geopolitics #NationalSecurity #MiddleEast #economy #inflation #affordability #CostOfLiving #oil #energy #EnergyCrisis

Nonilex 16h ago

#IdiotInChief #Trump threatens to charge #US tolls in #StraitOfHormuz if final #Iran deal not reached in 60 days

Iran on Saturday said that it closed the Strait of Hormuz because of #Israel attacks in #Lebanon & warned that while negotiators were going to Switzerland for talks with the US on their interim agreement, not much likely will happen if the fighting doesn’t stop.

#TrumpsWar #IranWar #piracy #RulesOfWar #law #NationalSecurity #MiddleEast #economy #EnergyCrisis
https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-israel-lebanon-hezbollah-june-20-2026-6e23fb5f37e23427dbfc2bc80c59bda8

Talks expected Sunday as Iran closes Strait of Hormuz over Israeli attacks in Lebanon

U.S. and Iranian negotiators are on their way to a venue in Switzerland to discuss details of their interim agreement to halt the war. This comes after Iran said it closed the Strait of Hormuz due to Israel’s attacks in Lebanon. U.S. President Donald Trump in response threatened to impose tolls in the waterway if a final deal isn't reached in 60 days. Talks mediated by Pakistan and Qatar are set to begin Sunday. The deal involves unfreezing billions of dollars of Iran’s assets, and Iran's negotiating team includes central bank and oil officials, among others.

AP News

themachinestops 1d ago

Korea Hosts International Task Force Meeting to Combat Global Piracy

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/70883436

Korea Hosts International Task Force Meeting to Combat Global Piracy - Divisions by zero

South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) convened an international enforcement meeting on June 9 in Seoul to strengthen global cooperation against copyright infringement targeting K-content. The “2026 International Copyright Protection Enforcement Conference,” held at Lotte Hotel Seoul, brought together law enforcement agencies from five countries — Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and the Netherlands — along with Interpol, the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Korea office, and Korean authorities including the Ministry of Justice, prosecutors, and police. Private-sector participants included major content industry stakeholders such as Naver WEBTOON and Kakao Entertainment. The meeting focused on sharing enforcement strategies and coordinating joint operations to track and apprehend overseas copyright offenders. Discussions also covered ongoing international investigations under Interpol’s “Stop Online Piracy” (I-SOP) initiative, as well as public-private collaboration efforts. The ministry emphasized that cross-border copyright crimes require coordinated global responses, pledging to further strengthen its investigative network with international partners.

Miguel Afonso Caetano 1d ago

"WeLib describes itself as an “endless library” founded on the principle that “education and literature belong to everyone.” The publishers, however, clearly don’t agree with the library framing, noting libraries can be trusted; pirate sites not.

“Libraries are trusted institutions that serve the communities that fund them by lending books and other publications they have lawfully acquired. Using this label for WeLib explicitly misleads the public and allows WeLib to hijack the goodwill that libraries enjoy and have legitimately earned.”

“WeLib is no more than a pirate website that reproduces and distributes works of authorship owned by others to users for a profit, without authorization from or compensation to the copyright owners,” the complaint adds.

The complaint notes that WeLib’s operators made efforts to keep their identities hidden. However, the site itself quickly became a go-to portal for many book pirates.

The complaint notes that, by WeLib’s own account, its collection includes 43 million books and 98 million articles. The site reportedly has over 80,000 active monthly users who accessed more than 51.7 million books and downloaded 14.5 million files last month."

https://torrentfreak.com/major-publishers-sue-welib-a-pirate-site-built-on-annas-archive-code/

#AnnasArchive #Copyright #IP #Piracy #Monopolies #Rentism #Feudalism

Major Publishers Sue 'WeLib', a Pirate Site Built on Anna's Archive Code * TorrentFreak

Less than a month after a New York court issued a permanent injunction against Anna's Archive, publishers have filed suit against WeLib.

ramble81 1d ago

Crunchyroll-Downloader Gone?

https://lemmy.zip/post/66454801

Crunchyroll-Downloader Gone? - Lemmy.zip

Does anyone know what happened to Crunchyroll-Downloader? I tried to log in and I got an invalid client. And then I saw the project was taken off GitHub. Did they finally get noticed and blocked? I’m bummed because I had some series I needed to finish off.