It's 2016. Why Do You Torrent?

[realshotgun]

Good question BlastGT1, long time no see BTW.

I have no loyalties to torrenting. As some of you may know, I started long long ago on BBS systems and dial-up. That morphed into serving in AOL chatrooms, Mass Mailing "warez" eventually leading to IRC and FTP. While I played with napster a little bit, a couple years before it's conception, a piece of software came out called Hotline, and my love affair with BBS style server/client software began. A couple of years of Hotline led me to KDX, where I still run a private server today. I came to the private torrent world thanks to an invite to OiNK! from the same person who introduced me to Hotline and KDX both.

As BBS software isn't really made anymore, at least not the software I am familiar with, most of the software being used for BSS style server and client applications is extremely outdated, with poor security if any and downloading from them is dependent on the server having a top notch connection. I have done all these things, and kept content alive (my oldest content comes from 1995 warez groups) because I believe that it is important for media and art to be archived. I believe that TV and Motion Pictures are an integral part of western culture, and nobody should be kept out of their local culture simply because they can't afford to participate. So I archive, and download, and make available any content I can. When something like the anti-south shame washing in America presently, and they quit airing shows like Gone with the Wind and Dukes of Hazard, I feel exonerated in my actions.

For me, torrents allow me to archive more efficiently than any other current method I know, but I would be happy to get away from torrents considering their popularity, if there was any other system that came close.

 

[BlastGT1]

Long time indeed, my friend, and thanks for posting.

In fact, thank you to everyone who has posted so far. I really enjoy learning how so many fellow pirates found their way into torrenting, and filesharing in general, as well as your opinions on various aspects of the whole system.

 

[Andromeda]

I torrent because there is free stuff out there and I want it all. LOL

And, for those ads that say, "You wouldn't download a car" ... I say bull. The moment technology allows the downloading of cars, I will do so immediately. And pizza. Please someone find a way for me to download pizza.

 

[Bezerra]

Because i love it!

 

[captaincold]

Well the actual question is: why not torrent?
If you dont have a problem with ISPS warnings and notifications or just either can have a small seedbox,things get easy then.
With torrenting there is much diversity on the content+ can prove a lot of fun.
Needless to say,uploading stuff on trackers can end up being an interesting hobby and really helpful at the same time to people who may really need the stuff you offer.
In the end,its for a number of reasons,even strangely in 2016..

 

[PirateRog]

I torrent because there is free stuff out there and I want it all. LOL

And, for those ads that say, "You wouldn't download a car" ... I say bull. The moment technology allows the downloading of cars, I will do so immediately.

Technically You Can download a car. You Just need appropriate 3d printer.

Wow we are living in age of Impossible(I am Possible).

 

[demonotaku]

Technically You Can download a car. You Just need appropriate 3d printer.

Wow we are living in age of Impossible(I am Possible).

But can I take a dump in a cops hat....then give it to his widow....then steal it back again?

 

[688]

Technically You Can download a car. You Just need appropriate 3d printer.

Wow we are living in age of Impossible(I am Possible).

Hmm,that sounds interesting.I might give it a try to download a F1 car if i find an opportunity

 

[ChopperYoHo]

But can I take a dump in a cops hat....then give it to his widow....then steal it back again?

One of my favourite shows.

 

[BigDanJesusMan]

2 Reasons -
1. Australia sucks when it comes to content,
2. I would be thousands in debt if i bought everything i have ever torrented

:gotgold:

 

[Janner]

More reasons than ever to torrent - broadband getting faster, seedboxes getting cheaper, more content than ever available - plus I don't work anymore so I have more time to watch all my ill gotten downloads
[DOUBLEPOST=1454762891][/DOUBLEPOST]

And pizza. Please someone find a way for me to download pizza.

You're going the wrong way about it - first of all someone has to work out how to upload pizza
Oh, and a good antivirus that can detect if said pizza has been laced with rat poison

 

[LadyCuddles]

Funny, this thread started, and I didn't even notice... then... thought I might have already posted something... Nope.

I think, for me, it has many faces. I started out file sharing / torrenting / pirating simply because I had a computer and an internet connection. Possibly, I was bored. I soon found programs from a Country I didn't live in, and were not represented on local "over-the-air" TV. About that time, I had lost a few jobs, and found it almost impossible to keep up with the local record store, and its prices (especially on unemployment).

I soon got into a relationship, and Christmas found me paying a heavy price for a "collectors" edition of LOTR Trilogy, though it did come with a nice statue of Gollum, it was a serious cost. I recently had to watch Comcast as my mum lost her significant other, and found, that, not only did I dispise commercials, but even searching for something I wanted to watch, On Demand, returned no results. Who the heck doesn't have On Demand during Christmas "A Christmas Story" ? (idiots!)

I guess I got the bug, because I can't imagine not torrenting / file sharing / pirating anymore. I have a ton of movies, and even more series shows (complete), and I am able to watch them at a moment notice, or need.

Seriously though, I don't think the "culture" is relative to the year, it is not only cost, but economy, and the selection is far greater than dish, cable, and retail store combined. And, I don't even do anything software. Just music, movies, and TV shows. It used to be the selling point for dish, and cable, was to provide viewers with more than what they could get over the airwaves. Well, torrenting, file sharing, and pirating, provides more than that, combined. In many ways, it comes down to cost, and availability.

Cable and Dish provided more options to watch things that couldn't be found on your local rabbit ears. Unfortunately, they all got the hint, they could make a lot of money at it, and sell the service to viewers by providing them with "packages". Which started out as a good idea, but soon became a way for them to make even more money, by removing channels you liked to watch, and replacing them with channels you didn't. You would then call them up, complaining you wanted Channel X, and they would sell you an additional "package". A simple consumer would be forced to have multiple packages, just to get a few channels they "wanted", and paying higher costs for channels they never wanted.

Torrenting, file sharing, and pirating solved the problem. You get what you want, for the price of internet, and nothing you don't want. Of course dish, cable, and even local TV are pissed, you don't pay for crap you don't, or should I say, what they think you want. They don't get it. I don't think they will ever get it, and, I am happy with that.

So, in conclusion, I think 2016 is perfect for file sharing, pirating, and torrenting. I figure, until these "fat cats" who seem to think they know all the answers, and know what viewers want, and that they have unlimited checkbooks, can get a clue, this practice will continue for many more years. Even if they put an unexhaustable supply of legal beagles on everyones back.

 

[DeepBlueMorocco]

I'm enjoying this discussion! Permit me to contribute.

I'm an archivist and music journalist, and as such I have a predilection for seeking out the avant-garde. In this regard, streaming services can't hold a candle to filesharing.

My listening style is contextual – when exploring new musical territories I prefer to experience an artist's body of work as a complete chronology. I begin with their albums, then their demos, followed by singles and b-sides, prototypes and outtakes, DJ mixes (in the case of electronic music), live albums, soundtrack contributions, side projects, and finally solo efforts. This process makes filesharing the clearly superior method for surveying a composer's catalog.

Similarly, I enjoy surveying niche record label's libraries and their development over time. For labels such as Blue Note, Deutsche Grammophon, Obscure, Ohr, Brain, ECM, Nonesuch, and NinjaTune a listener can develop a far more cohesive understanding of a genre by exploring the refinement of its sound over time.

There is also the matter of sound quality. WCD's archival FLAC library rivals the bitrates of streaming services and is ideal for cultural custodians like myself.

Cost is most certainly a factor. At present I've over 13,000 albums, the cost of which would be astronomical in a physical format, to say nothing of the international shipping expense to import all of the records from their countries of origin. My method is simple: I begin exploring a genre or artist via torrent, educate myself, read all related literature to develop a cohesive contextual understanding of the work's socio-cultural relevance, and then I purchase the crème de la crème selections for my vinyl library.

Accessibility is another major contributer to my methodology. By building a massive personal archive and hosting a Subsonic server, I can instantaneously access any discographic library or personally-crafted playlist I choose from any web enabled device, lossless and commercial-free.

The moral rationale that I use to justify my illegal activities is purely mathematical. Statista reports that the U.S. average consumer spending on music was $48. I spend, on average, $1200 annually on vinyl directly as a result of my dastardly activities – 25 times that of the national average. And the most valuable 25% of my vinyl catalog is currently appraised at $15,500. Statistically speaking, I'm not the guy the feds need to worry about.

And on a final note, like texteditor I am a sorting and tagging fetishist. I delight in metadata, folder structures, and data visualizations. Large library management is a personal passion and a delightful advantage for a filesharer like myself.

 

[XoG]

Hmm,that sounds interesting.I might give it a try to download a F1 car if i find an opportunity

You still need at least half of the full cost as 3d printer can only print body with plastic(you can't make engine with plastic can you?) So you still need paints,engine,tyres,helmet etc.

 

[688]

You still need at least half of the full cost as 3d printer can only print body with plastic(you can't make engine with plastic can you?) So you still need paints,engine,tyres,helmet etc.

I know,i wasn't serious though but i saw a guy in a Facebook page that made a Ferrari F1 car with 3d printer.It was beautiful.You won't have to pay 100$ for a model car if you become a pro on this.

 

[Xylaz]

There's just too much content available that I want to watch. Purchasing all of it just would not be viable! I'm also very impatient. 12+ hours for the new "The Flash" etc is way too long!
Building an archive of Remuxes would also take a significant amount of time by myself.

 

[JACObLEECH]

I don't torrent nearly as much as I used to, but I am still required to do so to some degree.

I live in a 3rd world country (when everything is working as it should) so getting the content I require can sometimes be a hassle if not by means of torrenting. Thankfully things are getting better these days. Thanks to Steam/Origin I haven't pirated a game in a few years, steam/origin provides me with everything I need (the constant updates are a hassle when I don't have internet but that's another issue). I am not going to pay $60 for a tv service that does reruns all the time and forces me to sit through commercials, so I have the recently launched Netflix and one of the 3 local competitors we have of that (which gives free 3G/LTE data to stream as much movies/series using their service as you like for about $8 pm, the content is older but I enjoy it in my current setup so it's a temporary measure). Once I am back to living with ADSL I will probably have Netflix + proxy service since the lack of content is hilarious. For music I use Apple music, works great and I have discovered many new indie artists that I love thanks to Reddit. I enjoy going to the cinema/Imax for big releases so I go watch them there.

This leaves me with needing to download the new releases of series that I follow, the odd movie here and there that I don't find on Netflix, and some obscure artists music that I can't find on apple music. All in all much better than a few years ago where if I wanted anything I had to get it via filesharing.

 

[everfang]

TLDR version, I download music because it's convenient, and if I bought it I'd buy used and not support the artist anyway, and TV shows can suck my dick if they want to squeeze anything worth money out of me. I might as well donate sperm.

These days I don't torrent much, but the main things I do torrent are music and TV shows, for two different reasons. I'm living in Japan, and there are reasonable means to get both of these things, but hear me out. As far as music goes, it's a wonderful thing, and the people who make it should be rewarded. That being said, my entire life I've only ever bought music, whether it be on cassette tape or CD (a bit too young for buying vinyl in its prime) I've always bought used unless there was a good deal new. So it was never really helping the artist anyway. Here in Japan a new CD costs around $30 (USD) and that's just ridiculous. Maybe I'm just living in the past, but when I was 13 or 14, I could buy a new CD on special for less than 10 bucks. Score. I would do it with my hard earned money mowing lawns. Ok, so mowing lawns isn't so hard, but it was as honest a living as any teenager could muster. So, outside of the $7.00 CDs I would buy new, everything I bought was used. There are shops in Japan that sell used CDs, sure, but if you've got a specific album you're looking for, it's not really efficient to go to one of these shops and trudge through their cases for the exact album you're looking for. They are usually just all thrown together with no sort of organization.

As I kind of mentioned before, while I was living in the US, I would buy used more often than not. The store i went to (which I happened to work for during high school) had everything totally organized, and if they didn't have something, they could ask their other stores if they had it, have it shipped to your local store, and you could buy it there. Regardless, this isn't helping the artist any, which is kind of a big topic in the whole anti-piracy thing. Anyway, I'm kind of a cheapskate and love a deal, which doesn't really help the industry at hand.

As far as TV shows go... They are made for TV, so like Blast inquired.... Yes. Fuck the man. TV is free. Ads pay for it. Commercials pay for their (mostly) shitty programs. If there happens to be a good one among them that I would like to watch, they've already been paid by the companies wanting to advertise during their spot. With technology these days, there are hard drives specifically made to record TV shows so you can watch them later, and even skip the advertisements. I'm sure the advertisers hate this, but to be honest, I'm not so sure the producers of the show do so much, with the consideration that some people who record them will upload them to the internet. Anyway, fuck paying for TV shows. Especially if it's not on a cable channel. Not to mention here in Japan, box sets of TV shows cost in the hundreds of dollars. WTF is that? Are you kidding me? For ONE season. Get out of here. Assholes.

 

[GerardPique3]

• Why Do You Torrent?
  

immm its the need of happiness mate, happiness
i mean you can't quit watching Tv-Shows, you just cant

 

[DeepBlueMorocco]

Tonight served as yet another reminder of why I torrent. Last week I stumbled upon the wonderful sounds of Michael Rother, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Möbius as the shortlived proto-ambient krautrock supergroup, Harmonia. I quickly discovered that their complete catalog from the early 70s had just been remastered and released as a fantastic vinyl box set just weeks earlier. Curious to give them a listen, I torrented a vinyl rip of the set and was instantly in love with it.

Sadly, the set is a German-only issue and distributors are not permitted to import it to the west. $160 later, I was able to get a copy shipped to the US from a private distributor with a contact at the label (which had sold out of the set weeks earlier).

Included with the set was an official digital download code courtesy of the record label. Disappointingly, the official digital file is a set of 192 bitrate mp3s - abysmal for rare and unreleased tracks rescued from analog tape distributed as a limited edition vinyl release. You're specifically marketing to collectors... and you give them 192kbps MP3s?

It's kind of sad when the pirated free copy is better quality than the official release.

It's the Esper 25th Anniversary Blade Runner 'Retirement' Edition all over again. The fan-circulated expanded edition far surpassed the quality of any official release.