this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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How is it fine for pirates to pay for a VPN to not pay for a service? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by BruceLee@lemmy.ml to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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I only use free VPN extensions or apps and I fully aware of the limitation of this. I use shabby ones, which don't protect and probably sell my data. It slow and I can't have only a few location. But I can't get around the idea that people can pay for a service to refuse to pay to a service. Please help me understand.

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[–] JoeCoT@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have a VPN that I pay less than 100 a year for. Here's some examples of what I use it for:

  • Free movies. Each of those movies would be at least $5 to rent and more to buy. If I could even find them.
  • Pirating TV shows for streaming services I don't have. For a long while, almost everything was on Netflix, so I didn't need to pirate shows. Now with everyone making their own streaming service, it'd cost me $50+ a month just to get access to all the different shows I want to watch. I have Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and I have access to HBO and Disney. But I don't have: CBS All Access, Apple TV, etc etc. There are a ton of platforms where there's only 1 or 2 shows I want to watch. I can pirate them instead.
  • Pirating TV shows for streaming services I do have. There are streaming services I have that my friends and family can't access, especially because of Netflix's new location restrictions. So often I'm subscribed to torrent RSS feeds for shows to put on Plex for my friends, even though I'll end up watching them through the actual streaming service.
  • Breaking through geo-restrictions on streaming sites. I'm a pro wrestling fan, but I don't have cable. In the US it's very hard to watch AEW without cable, because they have an exclusive deal with Warner Brothers. Eventually they might go on HBO Max, but in the mean time the only way to stream them is over Fite.TV, which is restricted to outside the US. I can VPN to England, then pay $9 for all the AEW weekly shows, with no commercials. I can also access a bunch of wrestling pay per views for half the price as in the US.
  • Pirating audiobooks. Often the only place to get an audiobook is Audible. I don't want to pay a subscription, the books are expensive, and I don't want to deal with DRM. Instead I can just download them.
  • Pirating retro game ROMs. I have a raspberry pi with RetroPie on it, a handheld abernic retro console, and a ROM cartridge for my N64. Instead of having to buy the same retro games over and over for new consoles, I can just download the ROMs and use them on very cheap retro consoles. Many of the games I wouldn't be able to buy at all, outside a flea market for 80 bucks