I've been reading a lot of Stephan Kinsella's writing's recently so that I can better respond to ignorant "stealing" accusations when I download music for free. The main reason I hesitate is because I hear a lot of talk about how "they're cracking down" on downloaders, and I don't want to get sued or something.
Is there anybody here who uses free file sharing programs to download music, movies or books? Which are the safest to avoid trouble?
Zizzer: Is there anybody here who uses free file sharing programs to download music, movies or books? Which are the safest to avoid trouble?
You could always use direct download websites if you are scared of sharing, I think for the most part they only go after people who upload to others.
If you do want to use P2P, you just have to be safer about it. Definitely use an IP Blocker (if you are on Windows, PeerBlock is a very good one):
http://www.peerblock.com/
Thanks, I used to use torrents a lot but heard they're not very safe. Do you know of any good direct download sites with large databases or do you generally have to use a different one each time?
I have used torrents for the past 5-6 years.... had not had any problems with it
My Blog: http://www.anarchico.net/
Production is 'anarchistic' - Ludwig von Mises
Zizzer:Do you know of any good direct download sites with large databases or do you generally have to use a different one each time?
Google is your friend. If you do a search for, "SampleBand.Sample.Album.Title.Year-ReleaseGroup" and then perhaps a filesharing site such as megaupload, you may or may not get some relevant links.
Zizzer:Thanks, I used to use torrents a lot but heard they're not very safe. Do you know of any good direct download sites with large databases or do you generally have to use a different one each time?
People have been using the words "cracking down" for years. The idiots who talk like that are the same ignorant asshats who say things like "well, actually, inflation has been going down the last few years, what we really should be worried about is deflation."
Look, yes, there have been a handful of cases over the last 10 years in which some poor bastards were singled out to make an example of...but for the most part, they were just that...people who the powers that be were trying to use to scare everyone else. Just because you have a couple of court cases you can point to does not mean "they are cracking down." Not to mention they were idiots about it too...almost asking to be caught. For example a few of them were morons who used their university's online network to do the downloading, and didn't even use any encryption. They downloaded for days on end, on a highly watched, highly regulated, virtually public network.
Every time I hear the words "they're cracking down" I want to shoot something in the face. There's nothing wrong with torrents, and the people who say "those aren't safe" are the same idiots I mentioned in the first sentence above. They're obviously the best (i.e. safest in terms of IP laws) form of file sharing out there...the way the content is shared is a decentralized network, making things more difficult for would-be prosecuters and, ironically, more efficient for the sharers. That's why it's been around so long without any trouble. (Yes I know they've been trying and have been successful in shutting down some related sites that offered a searchable library of the torrent files, but so the hell what. There's a thousand of those.)
Just be smart about the torrents you use, be on the lookout for suspicious looking files (basically this means look for clues...you learn to see what bad files look like, but for the most part you can easily tell just by the popularity of the torrent (downloaders and seeders) and also just look at the ratings and the comments. The community (i.e. market) will tell you.) And use a good client like Azureus (Vuze) and if you want to be cautious just make sure you use encrypted transport...and if you're really cautious make the settings such that you don't engage in any transfers that aren't encrypted.
Of course another great way (if you just want individual songs every now and then) is to capture a full video on youtube and then just strip out the audio into a single file. It's an extra 20 seconds of work, but you have absolutely no worries...you're not doing anything even questionable as far as the law is concerned. And no one would ever have a way of knowing anyway.
Sorry to be so deficient in computer skills, but how do I make sure my actions are encrypted? I have µtorrent.
People post stuff onto megaupload, rapidshare, etc through blogspot all the time. Use the advanced google search function:
type
mises institute site:blogspot.com
for example
Replace mises institute with whatever musical work you are looking for (which is distributed as a free download, of course )
Third party hosting:
1. Hosts lol at complaints of RIAA as they are based overseas
2. Can't nab you for redistributing or uploading
Use this:
http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
I get into a lot of debates with my boss about this one.. I work at a recording studio and all the employees are artists as well. We all have strong opinions on the industry and downloading music.
All I know is this: at one point in history, unless you were rich, you probably didn't have music in your life consistently. If you did at any point, you would have seen it live. You couldn't bring the composure home. Now, you can bring every composure home, even in your pocket... but the shows still continue. Merch still sells.
To me, a musician (maybe not just a song writer) will get out and perform for people, nomatter what genre. And if there is still the will to watch someone live, even after being able to add their entire catalog of music to one's own, then I'm pretty sure musicians will make money for years to come, even if the ancient institution of 'record labels' cease to.
Before the net and its transformation of the industry, most label signed artists wouldn't make any money off their CD sales, but merch and touring. Thats why the general rule was to get as much of an advance from the label on signing. Nowadays, labels aim for 360 deals where they make money off merch, touring, online sales, ringtones, etc..
Mr. French wrote a really good article on this: http://mises.org/daily/4662
I guess what I'm really trying to say is: Pirate bay all day.
Herb time....
Zizzer:Sorry to be so deficient in computer skills, but how do I make sure my actions are encrypted? I have µtorrent.
This shows you how using the most popular torrent clients...
How To Encrypt BitTorrent Traffic
Zizzer: I've been reading a lot of Stephan Kinsella's writing's recently so that I can better respond to ignorant "stealing" accusations when I download music for free. The main reason I hesitate is because I hear a lot of talk about how "they're cracking down" on downloaders, and I don't want to get sued or something. Is there anybody here who uses free file sharing programs to download music, movies or books? Which are the safest to avoid trouble?
I noticed piracy (just for convenience, let's call it that way, even though, that's not true) is much less common in US than in Europe or other countries/continents. Also there are much more severe panlties in US. In my country there were few lawsuits too.. and all they were lost. There was a huge lawsuit against the biggest torrent tracker of Lithuania... and that's failed. Though, I am not so optimistic, I think the worse things are still in the future.
The safest way is the expenssive and slow way - usenet, proxies proxies proxies, TOR and so on. All that keeps your IP anonymous. But the fastest ways are for sure public and private torrents. And I almost always get decent speed from Russia and other Europe countries.
P.S. like someone noticed, no one is cracking down anything. It's a scare tactics. So if you are not paranoid, forget about it and act normally. I recently started russian trackers, but usually PirateBay provided me with most obscure movies that are not even availbale anymore to buy. However, recently I have an error trying to download from PB so stopped using that and jumper to russian sites, even though I am not very good at reading russian language.
For music I use mostly soulseek, just beware of musical elite (aka snobs). Hahaha.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Willink: Sorry to be so deficient in computer skills, but how do I make sure my actions are encrypted? I have µtorrent. Use this: http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
You know that PeerGuardian is just an IP Blocker (blocks you from sending information to certain computers), and does not encrypt your information.
Also, PeerBlock is the successor to PeerGuardian (people took the code and expanded greatly on it):
Thanks everybody, I learned a lot from those links. It seems that encrypting does little to hide you but allows you to avoid throttling from ISPs, while IP blockers do more to keep you anonymous.