Piracy - Blog Posts
it's quick it's easy and it's free: piracy
my roommates are very, very good programmers. some of the most technically competent people in the world. and yet both of them flail around helplessly when it comes to piracy. one of them couldn't pirate rimworld and the other needed help getting howl's moving castle. how? perhaps not all people are gifted with innate knowledge of Crime?? i dont understand it, but ive decided to write this helpful guide for them and everyone else with no cyberpunk in their souls*
Helpful reference but too much information for your first time: r/Piracy megathread
Download vs Torrent vs Stream
There are three main ways to pirate things:
Downloading**: this is when you go to a website and click a button and then your browser firefox gives you a little notification telling you it's downloading a file. Then you have the file on your puter and you open it or run it or whatever.
Torrenting: this is when you go to a website and download a torrent file. Then you open that file with another program called a torrent client and it downloads the real file for you.
Streaming: this is when you go to a website and you press play on a video/song and it plays you the thing right there in your browser firefox. no file ever gets downloaded to your machine
Or in flow chart form:
Downloading: firefox -> website that has Movie (2022) -> download button -> wait for it to download -> Movie (2022).mp4 is in your Downloads folder -> you play Movie (2022) with a video player VLC
Torrenting: firefox -> torrent website The Pirate Bay -> search for Movie (2022) -> download the torrent file -> open the torrent file with qbittorrent -> it downloads Movie (2022).mp4 -> Movie (2022).mp4 is in your Downloads folder -> you play Movie (2022) with VLC
Streaming: firefox -> streaming website swatchseries -> you find Movie (2022) -> click play -> Movie (2022) plays in your firefox window
Security Shit
Will I get in legal trouble (in the US or Canada) (I am not a lawyer this isn't legal advice etc etc):
Downloading: No
Streaming: No
Torrenting: No, see fine print. If you use a VPN Mullvad, then no, definitely not. If you don't then: there is a small chance the copyright holder will notice and send a letter to your internet provider. You will get a scary letter from your internet provider (ISP). If that happens a lot there is a chance your ISP will turn off your service (I don't know anyone who has actually had this happen). There is basically zero chance that the copyright holder will sue you: they don't know who you are. They need to get that information from your ISP, and ISPs don't give that information out very freely. They would also have to actually successfully sue you, and that mostly stopped. Overall the risk is that your ISP gets mad at you, not that you get sued and/or go to jail.****
Will I get hacked???
Streaming: No. If you don't have ad block it'll probably open a bunch of annoying popups tho. Get uBlock
Downloading/Torrenting Data (Video/Music/Books): These will generally be safe. Keep your player/reader software updated. Make sure the file has the right extension (mp4, mp3, pdf/epub/mobi, etc).
Downloading/Torrenting Executables (Games/Applications): Not safe. People can and do insert malware into the executable. It will still run, but it will do things in the background you don't want. The way to avoid this is by downloading only from places that are well-known and vetted by the community. I recommend fitgirl repacks. If for some reason fitgirl goes down, check the r/Piracy megathread
Don't ever give anything administrative permissions unless you're really super duper extra sure.
And of course, standard internet security advice applies. See the r/Piracy list of untrusted sites if you're curious about a particular site.
Books
Use libgen. Note that every once in a while libgen gets kicked out of a particular country and that link will break. In that case you should use your favorite search engine to search for libgen and find the new extension
Scientific Papers
Use scihub. Same thing as libgen applies.
Movies/TV
I generally recommend streaming rather than downloading. There's less risk and it's rare that you can't find what you want. Currently I use 123 chill (use uBlock). You can also use Video DownloadHelper to download a video file from a streaming site.
Music
uhhh tbh I get music with a script I wrote myself. Good luck lads, try reddit???
Games
Get torrents from fitgirl
thread.
*I'm deliberately picking one program/site for each step to minimize complexity. please dont do anything unbearably silly like list 8 different torrent clients or get into the minutiae of Firefox vs Firefox Developer Edition***.
**inb4 someone says "well actually torrenting is downloading too". you fool. you absolute buffoon.
*** if you so much as mention chrome I'll download your car.
**** if you are torrenting a lot then maybe your ISP sells you out. if youre going to torrent idk every video game ever then get mullvad
I cannot believe there's absolutely no way to watch free shows and movies anymore, there are too many paid streaming platforms and pirating websites have viruses and ads preventing you from watching it uninterrupted((.)) id rather follow the rules and purchase media moving forward because it is too inconvenient. Seriously, free and no ads or viruses with 1080p streaming is DEAD.
if you're subscribed to Microsoft word, you probably received an email recently saying they're upping their prices. Like, a lot. ($9.99/month instead of $6.99)
guess what though? you can log into your account, click Cancel Subscription, and get the option to continue your subscription at the same price WITHOUT their bullshit AI.
That's right, the new, higher price is actually a different subscription that includes AI that everyone is being opted into by force! What a cool and fun product that clearly everyone wants.
you can also choose to buy Word 2024 without AI for a single lump sum that will be yours in perpetuity, with no updates, for one computer.
Check your subscription if you need Word for work! Don't get duped into paying for something you might not even want
maybe it's just the Radical Rediker talking, but there's something pointed in the way that, say, popular pirate media like Pirates of the Caribbean dilutes the pirate's freedom to "bring me that horizon" as opposed to, say, "plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power" (Bartholomew Roberts).
broadly speaking, most pirates chose the life in order to escape and revenge the hard labour, corporal punishment, overworking, and unequal pay of merchant/navy/privateer ships; or the privations of their sudden unemployment once a war was over, ignored as soon as their ability to die for the state was unneeded. yes, many were thugs, but, consciously political or not, they were responding to a particular, material reality.
the pirate's desired freedom was from the effects of exploitative modes of statehood and capital production. but popular media usually shifts this into a general desire for freedom: freedom to roam, freedom to love (usually merely a cross-class white, heterosexual union), or freedom from the personal pressures of social norms. it's a vague, ahistorical, post-Enlightenment, libertarian ideal rather than a response to a real social and economic situation.
to be clear, this only really applies to specifically the late golden age of piracy, in the first quarter of the 18th century. earlier generations of pirates/buccaneers often displayed nationalist/religious motives, and were lauded, tolerated, or even encouraged by the French and English states for aiding their fights against the Spanish and Portuguese. only the last gasp of age of sail pirates had a truly anti-national energy, and both figured themselves, and were figured by the imperial powers, as the enemies of all nations.
but if we are to valourise the late golden age pirate, at his best, his ideals were for true democracy, and the abolition of nation, hierarchy, and labour exploitation; not "the horizon". he was striking out in response to specific political, social, and economic oppressions, rather than a general individual restlessness, and that reality - and its similarities to our own - are important.
I dunno, I just... have a lot of thoughts about the defanging of piracy in modern media. obviously there were a lot of things bad about them, too, and the level of egalitarianism varied between individual people and ships. but again, if we're going to be valourising them anyway... there were idealists. and they weren't subtle about they wanted.
"I shan't own myself guilty of any murder", said William Fly in 1726. "Our captain and his mate used us barbarously. We poor men can't have justice done us. There is nothing said to our commanders, let them never so much abuse us, and use us like dogs. But the poor sailors --"
While I always condone piracy from large corporations, it should never be the only means of watching a movie or series, since it both limits the audience and hurts the careers of those involved, especially with the absence of physical media releases and the attempt to seemingly erase all evidence of them from the internet.
The important thing to do now is continue to spread awareness and support of those series so that they remain in the public consciousness. That includes sharing torrents, making your own copies (preferably physical ones) and creating fan content so that more people know about them.
We shouldn’t have to deal with an entire generation of lost media just because some penny-pinching cunt on a stick decided that they’re not worth supporting anymore.
how i sleep knowing i will pirate every single thing released on disney plus
FAMOUS AUTHORS
Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.
Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.
Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.
Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.
Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.
Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.
TEXTBOOKS
Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.
Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.
KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.
Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.
Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.
MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.
Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.
Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.
MATH AND SCIENCE
FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.
Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.
International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.
Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.
Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.
PLAYS
ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”
ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.
MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE
Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.
Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.
ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.
Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.
Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.
Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.
Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.
Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.
HISTORY AND CULTURE
LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.
Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.
Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.
RARE BOOKS
Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.
Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.
Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.
Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.
Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.
MYSTERY
MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.
TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.
Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.
POETRY
The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.
MISC
Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.
(Pirate) Ship Roles for the Crew!
-------------------☆~>
Captain: On non-government ships, the Captain is voted by the ship's crew. Can be replaced by majority votes. They're expected to be great in battle, navigation and seamanship. Need to be a leader personality.
Quarter Master: Sort-of vice Captain, takes on the role of Captain when he's unavailable. Also elected to represent the interests of the crew. In turn he received extra booty. He also maintains order, settles quarrels and distributes all goods. Keeps records and account books for the ship.
Sailing Master/Navigator: In charge of navigation and sailing of the ship.
Boatswain: Supervises the maintenance of the vessel and its supply stores. Inspects the condition of the ship each morning and reports to the captain. In charge of all deck activities.
Carpenter : Responsible for maintenance and repair. Often, due to the tools, he would jump in as an emergency surgeon, too.
Master Gunner: In charge of the ship's ammunition and weaponry.
Mate(s), First Mate: On a large ship, there's often more than one (That's why First Mates exist). Served as an apprentice to the ship's Carpenter, Gunner, Boatswain and Master. Hard worker.
A.B.S. (Able Bodied Sailor, Common Sailor): Helps out with anything and everything, really! Has knowledge of most necessary things, like some navigation, steering, ..
Rigger: Works the running rigging and the furling and unfurling of the sails. Constant risk of falling!
Cabin Boy(s): Young boys who work on the ship as servants. Usually runaways or kidnapped from another ship.
Powder Monkey: Young boys who run gunpowder from below decks up to the cannons during battle.
Swab/Swabbie: Mop the decks. Has also become a slang for people you do not hold highly.
Source and further reading:
https://thepirateking.com/historical/ship_roles.htm
Seriously. Recording things places to preserve them is the basis of historical preservation. Companies have no inherent interest in preserving these things. It gains them no money with how copyright laws are written in most places.
Let people have archives, let people actually have the things they own. Im so done with late stage capitalism and treating companies like authority figures so we can have basic human decency.
This book was so good?? Please read it
SQUARE MILITARY RANK INSIGNIA MILITARIES
It's called corporate bootlicking
plus gatekeeping art from poor people
I thought piracy was something we agreed was like morally neutral, but some people are hardcore anti-piracy
And whatever you do, DO NOT disable JavaScript on the site either!! It displays the entire article, but WITHOUT the paywall!!!!
DO NOT DO THIS!!!
If a website has a paywall, like New York Times, DO NOT use the ctrl+A shortcut then the ctrl+c shortcut as fast as you can because then you may accidentally copy the entire article before the paywall comes up. And definitely don't do ctrl+v into the next google doc or whatever you open because then you will accidentally paste the entire article into a google doc or something!!!! I repeat DO NOT do this because it is piracy which is absolutely totally wrong!!!