In my last article I wrote about what should be the safest possible way to use torrents. Yet, with torrents, there is always a risk involved (even when used legally). The only way to minimize that risk is to not use them at all. Now you're safe, but what about all that stuff you want to download? Well, I must first state that all the information in this article is purely for educational purposes and I will not be held responsible in how this information is used.
Isn't This Illegal?
Yes, it is. However, there are legitimate reasons to do this. I will provide a few examples for different pieces of media:
You end up downloading some music on iTunes. Something happens to your Apple account that has you create a new one. All your music was on your old account which can no longer be accessed. Is it right for Apple to make you to buy each song or album again?
I might own a Blu-ray disc of a movie I love. It has become so damaged it no longer plays. I still own the movie and still want to watch it. Why should I pay again for another copy of the same movie?
The new Mario game is about to arrive and you're feeling nostalgic. Digging through your garage you find your old NES console and a copy of Super Mario Bros. After everything is hooked up you find that the console, or the game, or both, are not working. Is it fair that something - which is discontinued - no longer works, through no fault of your own, and the only way you could get a "new" one is to have someone fix it (which may cost more than what it's worth)?
One problem with purchasing the Windows 8 OS digital download was that if you lost the email that had your key, that was it, it was lost forever. What if you did downloaded it and a couple of months later wanted to make a fresh new install of Windows 8. You realize you lost your email with the product key and Microsoft is of no help. Should you be forced to buy Windows 8 again?
My answers to these questions are no, that's ridiculous. While the copyrighted material should not be on the net in the first place, that doesn't change the fact that it exists. But copyright infringement is about infringing on rights. What rights are you infringing on if you already own the material?
No Torrents?
Yes, you should avoid torrents at all costs. That is, if you're ISP and/or country actually cares. There are plenty that really don't, trust me.
The reason you should not use torrents is because ISP's and cable companies can view and monitor what you are downloading since you are using a peer-to-peer network. Many people use VPN's for this very reason, and they can work well, if you ensure that your anonymity is safe. They also can cost you quite a bit, which was the main reason to use my method in my last article here.
Usenet is another option, but you do have to hand over credit card information to get access, so you could still be found out if that service hands over their information to a government agency or company.
Music Methods
The easiest to way get music is to use YouTube. There are numerous online sites that allow you to turn YouTube videos into MP3. There are some sites that will do the same conversion but output FLAC.
Albums are a bit different, and can be tedious if using the YouTube method. You can use "index of" tricks to search directories, and you may get lucky enough to find what you're looking for (if it's popular). There are plenty of sites that are just for downloading albums, not singles. And of course, there are plenty of host sites that allow downloads of albums. FilesTube.com used to be a good way to search, but they have since changed completely to legal content. There are other sites that will allow you to search these host sites though...
Video Methods
The YouTube methods for music also apply here. There are a lot of sites that will download YouTube videos for you, but there are better ways.
All over the internet hundreds of sites stream movie and TV show content for free. They will likely have a lot more variety than what YouTube offers, but they can also do one other thing that can greatly benefit you.
If you have a download manager you can download your videos at blistering speeds. This does depend on the hosting server limits and your Internet speeds, but it can be extremely helpful for those with slow speeds.
Games & Software Methods
These are a bit more difficult as your only options are hosting sites. Normally, if free, games or software will be divided into multiple chunks, and can take quite a long time to finish. What's worse, if there are something like 20 parts, and you get to part 15 realizing it has been taken down, you just wasted a bunch of time. To avoid this, open each part first and make sure they are available to download.
Furthermore, a download manager can help here too. Some hosting sites allow download managers for free users, and some hosting sites allow multiple downloads at once. This can greatly decrease the time used on downloading this type of content.
Older consoles and respective will usually have emulators scattered across the net that are free and quick to download.
Is It Safe?
These are by far your safest options. Unlike peer-to-peer networks, your ISP or cable provider can't just see what your downloading and if it's illegal or not. The most that seems to happen is if you use a hosting site for downloads, those hosting companies will either take the download down when they see or are told to by whatever company that owns the rights or represents the rights holder. Hosting companies are normally to big to constantly monitor and peruse through what is actually on their servers.
If you happen to be the uploader and are hosting illegal content, you can have your access restricted or completely revoked.
For Each Beginning, There Is An End
While I gave out ideas as to what can be done, I tried not to specify or detail too much. It's not exactly hard to figure out, but why poke the beast? Regardless, as I wrote earlier, there are legitimate times when downloading content should be legal. This doesn't mean you can't get in trouble nonetheless, but at least you would have a valid excuse if something were to happen.
Showing posts with label Copyright Infringement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Copyright Infringement. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Torrents: The Smart Way to NOT Get Caught. Or, Why You Shouldn't Use a VPN Anymore.
It's been a long time, and while I have written a couple articles, I didn't publish them because I felt like they just... weren't... grand enough! There are so many ideas and subjects out there, but I like to pluck the few that are truly incredible, original, or created by me.
Today I am going to discuss torrent downloading. Many people use them for illegal purposes, so this information is strictly for educational purposes. I will dive into some ideas on the illegal side, but I am making it clear that I in no way endorse breaking the law. That being said, let's continue...
Is a Torrent a Torrent By Any Other Name?
Short answer, no. I just needed a catchy title. There are many ways to go about getting media and/or programs off the net. One such way is through torrents.
Torrents are not illegal, but they are normally used for "evil". To avoid going into too much detail, a torrent is created for whatever (i.e. software, games, movies, etc.). You then use a torrent client to read torrents and download whatever it is it contains.
We've Got Issues
The problem with torrents is that while there are items out there that are free or public domain, most things out there are of intellectual property owned by existing companies who lose money when you download their copyrighted material illegally. This is commonly known as piracy.
Another problem beyond money is ratings. You don't pay per show on TV, you pay a subscription to a cable provider. But ratings help the networks gauge what shows should be renewed or cancelled, and also help bring in money for advertisements. If you download a show, those networks really have no way of knowing that you were watching the show, which in turn hurt the shows ratings and possibly its sponsors.
Ideal Situations
While it is illegal to download these properties, let me give you an example of why it should be allowed in certain situations. Let's pretend I am an avid watcher of a show and I realize my schedule no longer allows me to watch that show on its regular time. And maybe reruns aren't occurring (yet). So, I should be allowed to watch the show offline since I plan to delete once I'm done.
This would be an ideal situation for us watchers, but again, this is a problem for networks and ratings. Some networks do post reruns on their websites, which helps them with monitoring ratings. However, they are just for streaming. If you have an extremely slow Internet connection, it may be as good as not having any type of access at all.
Some Tips
What I have noticed from cable companies is that you get warned about three times if downloading things illegally (and sometimes even legally). It has happened to me - and yes, I deleted the files I had watched - and it will happen to you sooner or later.
There are three ways to avoid the cable companies from finding you out. The first is to find a way without torrents as torrents rely on peer-to-peer networks, which cable companies can access and monitor. Something like Usenet can be helpful, if you set it up for anonymity properly; but there are still other options...
A less stealthy approach is to avoid anything new or popular on torrents. It seems to me that if you are downloading a new show, game or software, the cable company will know. Remember, the cable company has limited resources, so they can't watch every single item on torrents. That would be impossible, and an expensive venture on their part. Instead they monitor whatever is extremely popular, like a movie from last year everyone loved, or that new game from last month everyone is clamoring over. While this may not always be the case, it certainly will decrease the risk associated with using torrents.
The last way is to use my method, which I will be explaining shortly. It is the cheapest technique I have come across yet, and should keep your anonymity.
Back In The Day
The most known methods nowadays is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service. These services allow you to hide behind their networks with varying anonymity, and often will allow you to bypass restrictions that ISP's give to access certain sites. Proxies are similar in that sense, but they are not meant strictly to hide your identity.
My biggest problem with VPN's are that some services keep permanent logs of data. Those logs are what can get you into trouble. Even though you may have been anonymous when downloading, if that VPN service handed over their logs to a government agency, they could find your IP address and link you to illegal downloading.
It is always best to check if a VPN service keeps logs, and if so, for how long. There are plenty who don't keep any logs, and others who keep them for a matter of time before dumping them. The ones that just keep them are the ones that can cause you problems.
My New Method
When I stumbled upon this it was purely by accident as I was actually searching for a hosting site that would allow uploading of my (personal) files and create torrents from them that could be downloaded by others; thereby avoiding the use of my resources - mainly bandwidth issues. Instead, I found a site that will allow you to ditch VPN and give you the same benefits.
You might ask, "Why would I ditch a VPN if this does the same thing?" That's a good question, with a better answer. While I did not find what I was looking for, I did find a site that allows me to download torrents through them. So you do avoid any of your resources being spent. That extra bandwidth can now be spent watching YouTube videos, or whatever you want to do with it.
Sure, at some point you might need to download the files yourself. I say might because if it is video (maybe music too?), you can do streaming directly from the site. But even if you need to download the files, you can use a download manager that will allow you to pause downloads when necessary and get them at much faster speeds - if you don't have extremely fast Internet speeds already. Otherwise, your browser should be able to pause and restart the downloads as well, albeit at slower speeds.
But by far, the best additional benefit is the price. The site does have monthly subscriptions, so that is fine and dandy for those who prefer to do things periodically. However, they offer a lifetime membership! That membership costs about $70 USD.
Now compare that to a VPN service. The cheapest I know of, that follows the guidelines I have outlined above, is about $10 per month. If you plan to use a VPN service for more than 7 months, this will greatly benefit you. Even if not, $70 for a lifetime membership is still pretty great since you could come back anytime and use it.
As a final point, they have the benefit of unlimited storage space. This is great for me. And while files can only be up to 10GB in size, that can always be circumvented by doing something like splitting up a larger file into several smaller ones like .RAR files. No VPN service I know of offers cloud storage, and no cloud storage I know of offer unlimited space...
Site Please?
I feel a bit odd at this point as it's like I'm advertising for a company who doesn't pay me. Yet I'm not trying to trick anyone, just trying to inform people of a better way to use torrents.
The site is: UploadHero.co
This is a French site, but it has an option [flag] to change the language to English. The reason I chose this site is because France seem to be one of the safer choices if choosing a foreign online service. They also have some interesting laws in concerns with downloading copyrighted material.
In the US, people merely have to send a letter or notice stating to stop using or downloading copyrighted material in order for a company to obey. In France (and other parts of the EU), a simple letter will not suffice. A notice needs to come from the company or person who holds the rights, or their legal representation, and I believe it also needs the power of a court order or something similar. This is a big hassle for foreign companies to go through, and it can be actually be smarter for them to avoid these legal troubles and take a small hit rather than going through all that (as unjust as that is).
From what I have read, France now has some system to automatically fine people every time they are caught downloading copyrighted material illegally. I am not sure how that works for companies, but it shouldn't matter for the end user unless that company actively seeks out illegal content in their servers. UploadHero does not seem to be one of those companies...
Anonymity, Am I Safe?
This method should be the safest route. Given the laws stated above that must be adhered to, it makes it difficult for a company to even get companies who are infringing to stop doing so. And even if it goes far enough to make a company stop, there should be little to no consequences to the end-user. Maybe a warning or a hiatus of service for a certain period of days.
However, it is unlikely that they will get your billing information, and thus your identity, as the company is the one allowing the "disservice", not its users. Besides, I am fairly sure there are some strong international laws that would forbid this being done easily. However, it might be different for cases involving French content.
Taking that all into account, the money wasted on a company going after these type of upload services - especially one such as this which has little impact in countries other than its own, and even then I'm not sure how popular it is in France - would be counterproductive to trying to maintain and increase profits. That being said, this information should only be needed if you are committing illegal acts. Users who are not performing crimes should have nothing to worry about.
BETA Testing
The current torrent uploading feature on UploadHero is in Beta. I tried it only a couple times and each time it gave me an upload error. They do ask to report errors, but I'm guessing from how they worded it that using English won't help much...
In addition, I didn't know about this feature until after I signed up and explored a little bit. As far as I know, they don't have any information on the site about torrents. If you search on the net you might find some other review sites that briefly detail this function.
One More Thing
I did neglect to mention that if you want to signup for UploadHero and are not in France, you may not be able to make a payment the first time around. I had this happen to me and I had to contact my bank to ensure that they would allow the transaction to go through. Once they did, I had no problem making the payment.
A final word of warning, the payment portal is in French, but it should be easy enough to understand what needs to be done. If not, use Google Translate to understand what is being asked.
The End Is Coming
As I noted earlier, this is not meant to be for those who illegally obtain copyrighted materials and intellectual properties. But in the interest of making an interesting article, I did include information that would seem to oppose this. In my defense, there are times when perfectly legal downloads will be wrongfully considered illegal, and that is why I have described everything as I have.
Knowledge is only power if you have it.
Today I am going to discuss torrent downloading. Many people use them for illegal purposes, so this information is strictly for educational purposes. I will dive into some ideas on the illegal side, but I am making it clear that I in no way endorse breaking the law. That being said, let's continue...
Is a Torrent a Torrent By Any Other Name?
Short answer, no. I just needed a catchy title. There are many ways to go about getting media and/or programs off the net. One such way is through torrents.
Torrents are not illegal, but they are normally used for "evil". To avoid going into too much detail, a torrent is created for whatever (i.e. software, games, movies, etc.). You then use a torrent client to read torrents and download whatever it is it contains.
We've Got Issues
The problem with torrents is that while there are items out there that are free or public domain, most things out there are of intellectual property owned by existing companies who lose money when you download their copyrighted material illegally. This is commonly known as piracy.
Another problem beyond money is ratings. You don't pay per show on TV, you pay a subscription to a cable provider. But ratings help the networks gauge what shows should be renewed or cancelled, and also help bring in money for advertisements. If you download a show, those networks really have no way of knowing that you were watching the show, which in turn hurt the shows ratings and possibly its sponsors.
Ideal Situations
While it is illegal to download these properties, let me give you an example of why it should be allowed in certain situations. Let's pretend I am an avid watcher of a show and I realize my schedule no longer allows me to watch that show on its regular time. And maybe reruns aren't occurring (yet). So, I should be allowed to watch the show offline since I plan to delete once I'm done.
This would be an ideal situation for us watchers, but again, this is a problem for networks and ratings. Some networks do post reruns on their websites, which helps them with monitoring ratings. However, they are just for streaming. If you have an extremely slow Internet connection, it may be as good as not having any type of access at all.
Some Tips
What I have noticed from cable companies is that you get warned about three times if downloading things illegally (and sometimes even legally). It has happened to me - and yes, I deleted the files I had watched - and it will happen to you sooner or later.
There are three ways to avoid the cable companies from finding you out. The first is to find a way without torrents as torrents rely on peer-to-peer networks, which cable companies can access and monitor. Something like Usenet can be helpful, if you set it up for anonymity properly; but there are still other options...
A less stealthy approach is to avoid anything new or popular on torrents. It seems to me that if you are downloading a new show, game or software, the cable company will know. Remember, the cable company has limited resources, so they can't watch every single item on torrents. That would be impossible, and an expensive venture on their part. Instead they monitor whatever is extremely popular, like a movie from last year everyone loved, or that new game from last month everyone is clamoring over. While this may not always be the case, it certainly will decrease the risk associated with using torrents.
The last way is to use my method, which I will be explaining shortly. It is the cheapest technique I have come across yet, and should keep your anonymity.
Back In The Day
The most known methods nowadays is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service. These services allow you to hide behind their networks with varying anonymity, and often will allow you to bypass restrictions that ISP's give to access certain sites. Proxies are similar in that sense, but they are not meant strictly to hide your identity.
My biggest problem with VPN's are that some services keep permanent logs of data. Those logs are what can get you into trouble. Even though you may have been anonymous when downloading, if that VPN service handed over their logs to a government agency, they could find your IP address and link you to illegal downloading.
It is always best to check if a VPN service keeps logs, and if so, for how long. There are plenty who don't keep any logs, and others who keep them for a matter of time before dumping them. The ones that just keep them are the ones that can cause you problems.
My New Method
When I stumbled upon this it was purely by accident as I was actually searching for a hosting site that would allow uploading of my (personal) files and create torrents from them that could be downloaded by others; thereby avoiding the use of my resources - mainly bandwidth issues. Instead, I found a site that will allow you to ditch VPN and give you the same benefits.
You might ask, "Why would I ditch a VPN if this does the same thing?" That's a good question, with a better answer. While I did not find what I was looking for, I did find a site that allows me to download torrents through them. So you do avoid any of your resources being spent. That extra bandwidth can now be spent watching YouTube videos, or whatever you want to do with it.
Sure, at some point you might need to download the files yourself. I say might because if it is video (maybe music too?), you can do streaming directly from the site. But even if you need to download the files, you can use a download manager that will allow you to pause downloads when necessary and get them at much faster speeds - if you don't have extremely fast Internet speeds already. Otherwise, your browser should be able to pause and restart the downloads as well, albeit at slower speeds.
But by far, the best additional benefit is the price. The site does have monthly subscriptions, so that is fine and dandy for those who prefer to do things periodically. However, they offer a lifetime membership! That membership costs about $70 USD.
Now compare that to a VPN service. The cheapest I know of, that follows the guidelines I have outlined above, is about $10 per month. If you plan to use a VPN service for more than 7 months, this will greatly benefit you. Even if not, $70 for a lifetime membership is still pretty great since you could come back anytime and use it.
As a final point, they have the benefit of unlimited storage space. This is great for me. And while files can only be up to 10GB in size, that can always be circumvented by doing something like splitting up a larger file into several smaller ones like .RAR files. No VPN service I know of offers cloud storage, and no cloud storage I know of offer unlimited space...
Site Please?
I feel a bit odd at this point as it's like I'm advertising for a company who doesn't pay me. Yet I'm not trying to trick anyone, just trying to inform people of a better way to use torrents.
The site is: UploadHero.co
This is a French site, but it has an option [flag] to change the language to English. The reason I chose this site is because France seem to be one of the safer choices if choosing a foreign online service. They also have some interesting laws in concerns with downloading copyrighted material.
In the US, people merely have to send a letter or notice stating to stop using or downloading copyrighted material in order for a company to obey. In France (and other parts of the EU), a simple letter will not suffice. A notice needs to come from the company or person who holds the rights, or their legal representation, and I believe it also needs the power of a court order or something similar. This is a big hassle for foreign companies to go through, and it can be actually be smarter for them to avoid these legal troubles and take a small hit rather than going through all that (as unjust as that is).
From what I have read, France now has some system to automatically fine people every time they are caught downloading copyrighted material illegally. I am not sure how that works for companies, but it shouldn't matter for the end user unless that company actively seeks out illegal content in their servers. UploadHero does not seem to be one of those companies...
Anonymity, Am I Safe?
This method should be the safest route. Given the laws stated above that must be adhered to, it makes it difficult for a company to even get companies who are infringing to stop doing so. And even if it goes far enough to make a company stop, there should be little to no consequences to the end-user. Maybe a warning or a hiatus of service for a certain period of days.
However, it is unlikely that they will get your billing information, and thus your identity, as the company is the one allowing the "disservice", not its users. Besides, I am fairly sure there are some strong international laws that would forbid this being done easily. However, it might be different for cases involving French content.
Taking that all into account, the money wasted on a company going after these type of upload services - especially one such as this which has little impact in countries other than its own, and even then I'm not sure how popular it is in France - would be counterproductive to trying to maintain and increase profits. That being said, this information should only be needed if you are committing illegal acts. Users who are not performing crimes should have nothing to worry about.
BETA Testing
The current torrent uploading feature on UploadHero is in Beta. I tried it only a couple times and each time it gave me an upload error. They do ask to report errors, but I'm guessing from how they worded it that using English won't help much...
In addition, I didn't know about this feature until after I signed up and explored a little bit. As far as I know, they don't have any information on the site about torrents. If you search on the net you might find some other review sites that briefly detail this function.
One More Thing
I did neglect to mention that if you want to signup for UploadHero and are not in France, you may not be able to make a payment the first time around. I had this happen to me and I had to contact my bank to ensure that they would allow the transaction to go through. Once they did, I had no problem making the payment.
A final word of warning, the payment portal is in French, but it should be easy enough to understand what needs to be done. If not, use Google Translate to understand what is being asked.
The End Is Coming
As I noted earlier, this is not meant to be for those who illegally obtain copyrighted materials and intellectual properties. But in the interest of making an interesting article, I did include information that would seem to oppose this. In my defense, there are times when perfectly legal downloads will be wrongfully considered illegal, and that is why I have described everything as I have.
Knowledge is only power if you have it.
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