Im honestly scared to get into pirating but some things are just way too overpriced. i know theres the piract bay and such sites but it requires torrecting and a vpn but i cant afford a vpn so is there like a direct downloads version of the pirete bay or a safer alternative? im looking to get a few peices of media by the way.

also how do you all store so much media without issues or getting into trouble? also am i aksing the wrong place by chance?

i know there is internet archive but i find it hard to find what you are looking for and kinda clunky.

  • CorrodedCranium@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    It depends what you are looking for. NES Roms? You can use Internet Archive and a download manager. Some romance playlist you made on Spotify and now want to burn on a CD? You can use a converter that will fetch MP3 files from YouTube.

    The megathread is the place to look.

    You may want to look into Usenet. There is a price involved but it’s not significantly more than a VPN.

    To store stuff I use large hard drives. Most of my data is on one other device so those drives act as a back up in a way. It’s unlikely both devices fail at the same time

  • nullishcat@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Closest thing would be the Usenet, which is paid. (Decently cheap, but still.)

    Seedboxes and DMCA ignore VPS’s exist, which is how a lot of DDLs and streaming sites live. You can also encrypt it before uploading (although you’ll have to decrypt it afterwards.) For archiving, Telegram has 2GB file limits but is free and unlimited total storage.

  • mspencer712@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Unfortunately I think paying for an anonymizing service of some kind is required. It’s easier to afford if you just go all in and drop all of your paid streaming services. But that can be difficult to get everyone in the household to agree on.

    Seedbox services are a little more money, but for around $30/month you get a computer located in a country which doesn’t care about data piracy. It downloads torrents for you and you can just log in later and download the files to your home machine.