Piracy General

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
I believe I mentioned Soulseek earlier but that's still another good one even today. It works differently from torrents in such a way that you won't get copyright nastygrams like you might with unencrypted / unobfuscated torrenting. Soulseek is mainly for music but you can find e-books there too and I've also found Doctor Who audio dramas I couldn't really find otherwise.
 
Last edited:
Belisarius Cawl said:
I believe I mentioned Soulseek earlier but that's still another good one even today. It works differently from torrents in such a way that you won't get copyright nastygrams like you might with unencrypted / unobfuscated torrenting. Soulseek is mainly for music but you can find e-books there too and I've also found Doctor Who audio dramas I couldn't really find otherwise.
Click to expand...
I'll only use Soulseek if I can drink blue Pepsi while watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force while waiting for my mp3s to download. I want that true 2002 experience.
 
Belisarius Cawl said:
I believe I mentioned Soulseek earlier but that's still another good one even today. It works differently from torrents in such a way that you won't get copyright nastygrams like you might with unencrypted / unobfuscated torrenting. Soulseek is mainly for music but you can find e-books there too and I've also found Doctor Who audio dramas I couldn't really find otherwise.
Click to expand...
Use Nicotine+ instead of the old client. It uses the same network, but has tons more options. I switched a few months ago and never looked back.
 
Hentai-Semitism said:
Use Nicotine+ instead of the old client. It uses the same network, but has tons more options. I switched a few months ago and never looked back.
Click to expand...
I don't have any really special demands of Soulseek. I occasionally download audio dramas, share my e-books, and that's that. Is there anything really special about Nicotine+ that I'm missing out on?
 
Belisarius Cawl said:
I don't have any really special demands of Soulseek. I occasionally download audio dramas, share my e-books, and that's that. Is there anything really special about Nicotine+ that I'm missing out on?
Click to expand...

There's one thing in the official client that pisses me off: you can add files to your download list and it'll tell you they "aren't shared". That's because they are set to private and can only be downloaded by users on the other guy's friend list. You don't know this until you've already added them to your queue. In Nicotine+ those files are marked "private" in the search results, so there's no surprises.

Other than that, you don't have to wait for it to scan your shares every time you start the program, you can set it to dark mode (black/grey skins and backgrounds) etc. Try it, you won't regret it.
 
This might not be piracy, exactly, but my mother has entered her total advertiser/grifter death phase. "I'm tired of every asshole on the internet telling me to give them $10 a month so I don't have to hear this shit." Specifically she's tired of the 10+ minutes of ads at the start of podcasts. I found a github project that uses a series of AI services to strip ads out of mp3s, but it requires payment to OpenAI.

Anyone familiar with a free method to do this, even if it's self hosting LLMs or something. Right now I'll see if she can get comfy with some audio editor.
 
Last edited:
ghastlyretard said:
This might not be piracy, exactly, but my mother has entered her total advertiser/grifter death phase. "I'm tired of every asshole on the internet telling me to give them $10 a month so I don't have to hear this shit." Specifically she's tired of the 10+ minutes of ads at the start of podcasts. I found a github project that uses a series of AI services to strip ads out of mp3s, but it requires payment to OpenAI.

Anyone familiar with a free method to do this, even if it's self hosting LLMs or something. Right now I'll see if she can get comfy with some audio editor.
Click to expand...
You might find what you want here, or at least it will help in another way, or help you get closer to a solution:
(Despite the name, there is no need for you to run the software on a Pi)
 
ghastlyretard said:
This might not be piracy, exactly, but my mother has entered her total advertiser/grifter death phase. "I'm tired of every asshole on the internet telling me to give them $10 a month so I don't have to hear this shit." Specifically she's tired of the 10+ minutes of ads at the start of podcasts. I found a github project that uses a series of AI services to strip ads out of mp3s, but it requires payment to OpenAI.

Anyone familiar with a free method to do this, even if it's self hosting LLMs or something. Right now I'll see if she can get comfy with some audio editor.
Click to expand...
If the ads are embedded/part of the actual podcast recording, are they listening to it on YouTube? Because Sponsorblock would be the solution there, autoskipping configurable self-promotion/sponsor segments, highlights to instantly jump to 'content' etc. The only edge case with Sponsorblock is that it is community driven, so if you are early to the release, people might not have submitted segments. yt-dlp even has integration for it, not 100% sure on how it treats segments, if it discards marked segments or just marks as chapters or such.
 
Belisarius Cawl said:
You might find what you want here
Click to expand...
Civillian 18 said:
If the ads are embedded/part of the actual podcast recording, are they listening to it on YouTube?
Click to expand...
The issue is the ones embedded. I am going to set up a pi-hole for her though - I had long ago when I lived at home, but when I moved out I simplified the network setup.

I thought sponsorblock was YouTube only, but it would be valuable for her regardless.
 
ghastlyretard said:
I thought sponsorblock was YouTube only, but it would be valuable for her regardless.
Click to expand...
Sponsorblock is YouTube only yeah, so it will not help if she listens through Spotify or some other platform. I do not listen to podcasts much anymore, but all of them are at least mirrored to YouTube so Sponsorblock works to strip the crap from them.
 
I haven't checked but it's highly likely most of my video collection is h264. Should I bother encoding it all to h265? I'm not considering AV1 for fears of incompatibility with some devices (possibly unfounded). Another fear, also possibly unfounded, is that I would feel compelled to check every file thoroughly afterwards, just in case the re-encoding fucks the files up somehow. Not sure I wanna commit to that.
 
Jang Joo said:
I haven't checked but it's highly likely most of my video collection is h264. Should I bother encoding it all to h265? I'm not considering AV1 for fears of incompatibility with some devices (possibly unfounded). Another fear, also possibly unfounded, is that I would feel compelled to check every file thoroughly afterwards, just in case the re-encoding fucks the files up somehow. Not sure I wanna commit to that.
Click to expand...
Yes. Re-encode everything. h265 encoding is substantially higher-quality at lower bitrates. You'll cut the size of your collection in half and not be able to notice unless you're autistic enough to check with a magnifier tool to look for differences. Not only does everything out there play h265 now without difficulty, but the reduced bandwidth requirements actually make it easier for more devices to play the stuff since it takes less data to get the same picture to the screen (so shitty wifi reception or crappy internet links are less likely to hose playback).
 
Betonhaus said:
Does anyone know where I can find the french version of ghosts?
Click to expand...
Searched 'Ghosts: Fantômes en Héritage regarder en ligne' on Yandex, which is typically superior to Google for the purposes of piracy; found this:
Two caveats:
  • The embedded frame wouldn't just work in Firefox. To open it, I right-clicked the frame, headed down to "This Frame" and then selected "Open Frame in New Tab"
  • You will have to sit through a bunch of attempts to get you to look at ads before the video actually starts playing but you probably already know this
Screenshot 2025-10-14 13:42:16.png
 
Belisarius Cawl said:
Searched 'Ghosts: Fantômes en Héritage regarder en ligne' on Yandex, which is typically superior to Google for the purposes of piracy; found this:
Two caveats:
  • The embedded frame wouldn't just work in Firefox. To open it, I right-clicked the frame, headed down to "This Frame" and then selected "Open Frame in New Tab"
  • You will have to sit through a bunch of attempts to get you to look at ads before the video actually starts playing but you probably already know this
View attachment 8035569
Click to expand...
If that's the French name I might have better luck finding a torrent, but I'll try this when I get home
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom