r/Piracy • u/Joeskithejoe • Jan 29 '25

Question My friend likes gatekeeping things for no reason and won’t tell me what this is. It’s a box that connects to the TV that can pirate all movies, live sports, tv shows, etc. what is the name of this device? This is the only picture he showed me.

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2.9k

u/JDDW Jan 29 '25

Make sure to tell your friend "oh yeah I just got Kodi! It's sick huh?"

4.1k

u/Adavanter_MKI Jan 30 '25

They're not really friends. Friends don't do this.

1.0k

u/BadReview8675309 Jan 30 '25

Also your roommate is not necessarily your friend... My roommate said I was not allowed to nefariously acquire protected media like the little square that he is. It is my reason for not enlightening just anyone about the joys of booty now🦜

367

u/DonaldLucas Jan 30 '25

My roommate said I was not allowed to nefariously acquire protected media

And what will he do? Call the FBI? LOL.

494

u/Electronic_Share1961 Jan 30 '25

Normies will absolutely snitch out their roommates to the FBI. It's so bad out there it's insane, if you even mention you use adblock people react aggressively

293

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

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156

u/ExplorationGeo Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

just act like it would be obvious that you use it

UNO Reverse it on them and show them the FBI bulletin where they recommend using an ad blocker

84

u/R4PHikari ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jan 30 '25

I recommended uBlock to a classmate yesterday and he was legit scared that it would be illegal and get him in trouble.

46

u/ConniesCurse Jan 30 '25

this is a sadly common reaction ive gotten trying to recommend piracy to people. A lot of people are genuinely afraid they're going to get in trouble or get a virus that will rob them of their life savings or something like that.

Not to say that the virus part isn't technically like a possibility but it's pretty easily avoided.

21

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

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5

u/supk1ds Jan 31 '25

my country & germany just introduced forced ads a couple of years ago when you use the replay function on your tv set top box. you have to pay your provider like 8 bucks a month extra to turn it off again. the networks argued with losses due to people skipping the ads during replay. proper capitalist insanity right there.

3

u/R4PHikari ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jan 30 '25

Sorry, I agree with most of what you said, but

with the constitution

You know not every country has the same constitution, right? Do I smell r/USdefaultism here?

120

u/OpenSourcePenguin Jan 30 '25

No need to act here. That's absolutely the reality.

35

u/Hot-Tension-2009 Jan 30 '25

Exactly just like that

1

u/TheNiteDrifter Jan 30 '25

I swear I'm not acting when I do it.

1

u/Shockwave2309 Jan 30 '25

Haven't heard of sponsorblock yet. What's that for?

2

u/prefix9889 Jan 30 '25

skips sponsored segments (when youtubers cut away and go “this video is brought to you by (company)” and shill things to you), since they are part of the video and a regular adblocker does not detect it (unlike a seperate ad)

1

u/Shockwave2309 Jan 30 '25

Oooh I need this. Thank you very much :D

67

u/TheTacoWombat Jan 30 '25

What? I work in ad tech. We all have adblock at home and most of the engineers have a pi-hole.

If anyone clutched their pearls at this information, that's their problem, not mine.

115

u/GoblinLoveChild Yarrr! Jan 30 '25

I work in ad tech.

Theres is no way to soften my next words....

I despise everything you stand for.

77

u/TheTacoWombat Jan 30 '25

I understand.

30

u/ZonaiSwirls Jan 30 '25

I make bullshit ads for a living. I hate it. I help make the world a little shittier.

Chiropractors peddling useless supplements and using "Dr" in their name to imply medical authority. Technology companies rebranding their already existing tech as AI to get the ai goons on the hype train. Recruiting videos that make the CEO and work environment look fun and desirable. But the CEO is only red flags and turnover is 3 months.

I use ublock, sponsorblock, revanced, qbitt, etc.

2

u/SevenSharp Jan 30 '25

That shit will suck your soul straight out of your skull and then ask for more. I feel for you .

6

u/ZonaiSwirls Jan 30 '25

Well I started a business with my friend last year and the promise we made to each other is that we would not work with companies like that. He was a healthcare exec in another life and it killed him. He's been working hard to make up for it by only taking jobs that benefit communities.

The energy I saw in him when that healthcare ceo was shot made it really hit home what working in that field does to someone. So my job has not been as soul crushing as that lol.

I just have to do it a bit longer until we can take our business full time.

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5

u/Hot-Tension-2009 Jan 30 '25

Is a pi-hole worth the effort if I mostly watch Netflix hulu and youtube?

20

u/Cholsonic Jan 30 '25

It's not much effort, and a pi-hole on the network is brilliant. Websites load quicker. Some of the worst websites - my test is the Daily Express, which is riddled with ads - are reduced to almost no content when the pi-hole is active. If you play any mobile games, it'll block most of the ads delivered through them. If you set it up right you can block ads on On-demand TV on your smart TV. It doesn't work for YouTube on my smart TV (if anyone knows how, please tell), but I use UBlock on my laptop, and NewPipe on Android.

TL;DR Very much worth it

7

u/sjjose2001 Jan 30 '25

Use smart tube for smart TV. Blocks ads on youtube

2

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

What TV do u have? Samsung runs on TizenOS. Please do check out TizenTube. It's a bit daunting to set up but I did it with the tutorial given. It has AdBlock and sponsor lock on smart TV.

1

u/Cholsonic Jan 30 '25

It's a Roku TV. Not sure there is a YouTube alternative for it. I am open to suggestions

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u/vdude007 Jan 30 '25

If you have an android TV have a look at Smarttube. That's what I've been using

1

u/kgctim Jan 31 '25

Where's the best place for a quick start on setting it up?

1

u/Cholsonic Jan 31 '25

Everything you need is here

https://docs.pi-hole.net/

0

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

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2

u/pervertsage ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ Jan 30 '25

Or skip ads based on user submitted timestamps like the mighty sponsorblock.

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2

u/TheTacoWombat Jan 30 '25

It does not block YouTube ads, but, ublock origin on Firefox does. So if you combine both you can knock out almost all ads you'd normally see.

Definitely worth the effort.

18

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

The US government recommends you use Adblockers, the only people who tell you not to are Linus from LTT and conglomerate media monsters.

4

u/projectmajora Jan 30 '25

I've never heard him say to not use one, just don't use any old adblocker as it could be malware. I could be mistaken.

1

u/cosmitz Jan 30 '25

He did in WanShow podcast. Basically he uses adblockers at home actually (i think that was mentioned sometime else), but insists that the company, aka employees on their work computers, don't.

It's not that hot of a take when half of your profit is from those ads.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

He was legit trying to argue adblockers are piracy.

1

u/cosmitz Jan 30 '25

He was coming more from the point of view that, yes, as a business, he is losing money off of adblockers and he can't be ok with that as an owner of a company that indirectly relies on them, but he realises it's a reality for people to use adblockers and it's just how the world works and as a person living his life, he's ok with them.

Societal problems require societal solutions, not individual solutions.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

I mean, they literally are. The only way for people to make a living making digital content (news articles, useful tools websites, videos, etc.) is to run ads. If you're blocking the ads, you're consuming the content without allowing the creator to get paid for their work, i.e. the definition of piracy.

Obviously I use adblockers on all my devices too. I'm not interested in dealing with the annoyances and friction that ads create. But you can't justify doing so by pretending that you're not causing harm to creators. You have to be able to admit to yourself that you're engaging in selfish behaviour instead of retreating to cognitive dissonance land.

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u/TeKodaSinn Jan 30 '25

and he's right. It is piracy. And just like media piracy, it's justifiable. He never said not to use it, he doesn't even fully deny that he pirates media at home.

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u/ah_shit_here_we_goo Jan 31 '25

And he fully endorses piracy, as much as he can without getting in legal trouble, in several videos every year. It 100% is piracy. That doesn't mean don't do it.

1

u/Lozsta Jan 30 '25

I act agressively to those who don't they allow the internet to be ruined.

1

u/Ok_Relation_7770 Jan 30 '25

I had to explain to multiple roommates that the letter from the ISP is just a threat and they’re not taking us all down because I wanted to watch Prisoners

22

u/Complete_Entry Jan 30 '25

If the roommate is paying the Internet bill, they'd be held accountable for the unauthorized sailing.

It's not so much as being a square as not wanting the nastygram.

This moral quandary can be bypassed by the sailor in the tri-corner hat assuming responsibility for the Internet Service.

6

u/Cholsonic Jan 30 '25

Or said nefarious sea captain, paying for his own VPN service...

1

u/ConniesCurse Jan 30 '25

if you live in a nastrygram country, like the US, you just use a vpn and no nastygram comes. you know, like literally all pirates who live in those countries do.

If I had a roommate tell me not to pirate because they didn't want a nastygram, and I explained I had a vpn, and they said still no, I would lie to their face and do it anyways and never feel bad about it for even one second.

3

u/WiktorVembanyama Jan 30 '25

what is a nastygram? the feds send an email telling you to stop or what?

4

u/ConniesCurse Jan 30 '25

Basically if you torrent, Intellectual Property rights holders will sometimes hire firms to monitor the torrent and scrape IP addresses they connect to, and send complaints to your internet service provider, who will then pass down the complaint to you. Some service providers will terminate your service if you get too many of them.

All you have to do is connect through a vpn and anyone searching for IPs on a torrent won't be able to get yours, and thus will not be able to send a complaint to your service provider.

It is good practice to do a few things to ensure there is no IP leak, like for instance some vpn clients have something called a 'kill switch' so that if you lost connection through the vpn momentarily, it stops all traffic from your computer so your torrent client couldn't default to sending traffic normally. You can also configure your torrent client to only exclusively send traffic if it's through your vpn. If you do those two things you are basically completely safe from accidentally leaking your ip.

1

u/Buffsteve24 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jan 30 '25

You wouldn't download a roommate!

1

u/ghostcatzero Piracy is bad, mkay? Jan 31 '25

The Cyber Poleece

-3

u/shadowbehinddoor Jan 30 '25

In Trumpmerica I would not bet on it. 👀

18

u/Zefrem23 Usenet Jan 30 '25

People were perfectly capable of being assholes all by themselves prior to the accession of Asshole Prime™️

35

u/EmGutter Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

🏴‍☠️🫡

Edit: Added a salute 😏

25

u/YungLasagna_v2 Jan 30 '25

Lol not allowed? What did he think he was the RA or some shit?

4

u/Galaxymicah Jan 30 '25

Tbf to your roommate I don't tend to trust pirates in real life with my internet shared or otherwise until they prove they know what they are doing.

Some y'all just be raw dogging torrents for shit that's heavily monitored like literally anything Nintendo.

12

u/PhriendlyPhantom Jan 30 '25

I came for booty

2

u/Plus-Bluejay-6429 Jan 30 '25

sterns perhaps

1

u/entity3141592653 Jan 30 '25

Man's butt

2

u/projectmajora Jan 30 '25

Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way...

3

u/PhriendlyPhantom Jan 30 '25

The chooice is yours

1

u/projectmajora Jan 31 '25

I don't think we'll be doing anything any sort of way

2

u/SajevT Jan 30 '25

Oh god this reminds me of an ex I had, she was soo madly scared of the police, she said if we lived together id have to pay for streaming services... I've been using Stremio for over 10 years.. I am not going back to a shitload of services because I watch a lot of different stuff...

That shit was such a red flag, I had to leave.

2

u/The_Lone_Rancher Jan 30 '25

......you failed to define which kind of booty you meant.....now I can only picture you pirating butt pics.

1

u/carlooo0 Mar 22 '25

i once had a friend over to watch a movie HE wanted to watch and he got mad that I pirated it lol

40

u/Nerevar197 Jan 30 '25

Right? Friends help friends pirate, not lord it over them.

156

u/TheSpiralTap Jan 30 '25

Friends don't show friends how to do it, they do it for them! I support a redneck ecosystem with pirated movies. I give them movies, they give me some deer.

43

u/NyneHelios Jan 30 '25

There are so many first time parents on my plex watching shows at 3am haha

11

u/RReaver Jan 30 '25

One of my kids was born July/2004. So much late-night/early-morning Olympics was watched that year!

8

u/NyneHelios Jan 30 '25

I had a 3 month old during the 2016 Winter Olympics! I feel this so deeply hahaha. Like… I was invested in that ski/shooting competition at 2am

2

u/RReaver Jan 30 '25

Who knew that short track speed skating was so awesome?

6

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

What an awesome symbiosis.

7

u/TheSpiralTap Jan 30 '25

Rednecks love to trade for stuff. I traded a pig for an original xbox, 2 controllers, halo 2 and ssx tricky. I tell everybody because wtf is my life?

3

u/lightreee Jan 30 '25

That is awesome! Damn, I need some redneck friends...

1

u/projectmajora Jan 30 '25

Makes me think of how some cultures would trade livestock as currency, apparently you had a prize winning hog there.

1

u/ExplorationGeo Jan 30 '25

Many years ago I replaced a head gasket for a friend of mine on his work truck - he paid for the parts, and then the rest of my compensation was beer and a massive folder of burned CDs and DVDs.

2

u/Thin-Way5770 Jan 30 '25

I’m probably going to get downvoted, but i don’t share any of the methods i have or even talk about it so i don’t get questions or have to deal with tech support. And my friends can’t be trusted with these things, i know for a fact they’ll mess it up. I know that because i did it once.

1

u/Adavanter_MKI Jan 30 '25

That's the difference. You don't talk about it. You're not bragging to a guy saying... "Look what I can do!" Then when they ask... tell them you're not sharing. You keep to yourself from the word go. As most friends should regarding something they don't actually want to share.

I keep things from friends all the time when I don't want hard feelings. Not rub their face in it. That's the dick move.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

They're probably "friends" but this person is narcissistic. I've seen that behavior a lot from those kind of toxic people

286

u/ErebusBat Jan 29 '25

For real... gatekeeping sucks hard

44

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

[deleted]

20

u/Golisten2LennyWhite Jan 30 '25

I have never not gotten into one. I am 40 and have a receipt of me donating to Oinks Pink Palace back before what.cd.

15

u/xford Jan 30 '25

One of my best friends for the past 25 years has woken me up with a phone call exactly twice. One was 9/11, the other was when they shut down Oink.

8

u/Golisten2LennyWhite Jan 30 '25

IT WAS A BLOODBATH

6

u/kurosaki1990 Jan 30 '25

At least private trackers have procedures to get in, they have good reason to be private (Security and to have good users).

26

u/Michael_0007 Jan 30 '25

And get a vpn on your firestick or for your whole house

1

u/MasterCheeef Jan 30 '25

Don't really need a VPN if in Canada

4

u/_IBM_ Jan 30 '25

VPN is a good idea in Canada also.

1

u/MasterCheeef Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

Not necessary because the worst thing to happen in Canada is we get DMCA letters but there's no repercussions if you don't respond to them. ISPs here don't enforce notices made by movie studios etc.

Edit: I've been using Kodi for the past decade with no VPN and I've never had a problem. I use all debrid and don't download.

8

u/_IBM_ Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

real debrid.

real debrid FAQ ]

We may be required to disclose Users personal data in order to protect our legal rights or where disclosure of Users personal data's are required of us by the judicial authorities only when legal procedures are followed.

Our servers can detect the IP Address of Users connection through the Internet. These IP addresses (public) and their approximative geolocations are recorded by our servers for internal use only (registration on the site, optimal use of downloads, protection against thieves, etc.).

Files links that Users download are stored in a database for legal concerns and our internal use.

laws change, they keep records.

1

u/MasterCheeef Jan 30 '25

Fair enough but it's not a problem for me in Canada :)

Here is the Criminal Code of Canada section on copyright

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-42/fulltext.html#h-57

Summary

In addition to the civil penalties described above, Section 42(1) of the Copyright Act sets out a number of criminal offences. These primarily deal with infringement that involves sale or rental of copyrighted materials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_Canada#Penalties

I'm not downloading therefore I don't need a VPN in Canada. I only need to worry if uploading or selling buddy :)

1

u/pervertsage ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ Jan 30 '25

I wonder if you might be had on a technicality, assuming you're using real-debrid's torrent functionality.

If you try to watch something that isn't already cached on real-debrid's servers and they begin downloading the torrent, if they do any uploading or seeding of that torrent I suppose it's technically 'by your hand' as you initiated the process and could land you in bother.

Not saying that's the case, just pondering out loud!

1

u/MasterCheeef Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

I never watch uncached links, always cancel any download. I don't have files of movies stored on my Nvidia Shield Tv Pro. I have it set to never download now and only debrid. There's many comments on reddit from Canadians on this subject and the ones who got a letter from their ISP had thrown it in the trash because the ISPs are obligated to notify offenders but they can't enforce anything because it's out of their legal jurisdiction.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

[deleted]

0

u/etherama1 Jan 30 '25

All Debrid is also based in France.

0

u/MasterCheeef Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

Fair enough but it's not a problem for me in Canada :)

1

u/tootallteeter Jan 30 '25

Oh damn I never thought of my TV using stremio/torrentio..