And you know we’ll bitch and moan the whole way “Don’t you know what I am? I’m a goddamn American! I have rights!” a la Randy Marsh.

Maybe it’s my doomerism at play, but even one year house arrest I’d be OK with. Keep him in NY in his Trump Tower penthouse. Don’t let him go out to campaign.

Obviously jail would be better. I just don’t think fines alone are going to cut it. He’s not going to pay them.

My parents were the ones who pointed me to the high seas. I was a kid (12-13yo) when Napster came out. Being the family geek, they told me to look into it since they heard about it on the news and wanted free music (early case of the Streissand Effect before it was termed as such). So I did. And we got free music. Even asked them to get me a CD burner for my birthday after that and they did.

As a kid on the earlier days of the Internet, I came across all sorts of ways to get free stuff. Games and Music at first, especially game cracks/warez. Then once torrents came on the scene, movies and shows.

I actually don’t pirate much anymore. Rarely pirate music since I’ve had Spotify for like 10+yrs now. Same with games since Steam and all the other digital storefronts have so many sales. I still pirate emulator ROMs once in a blue moon. Movies/shows would be where I pirate the most (though like once a month if that), even though I have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll. Even between those 4, I can’t find everything I want to watch.

But yeah, 99% of the time, I just don’t want to pay for things. The other 1% is that I can’t pay for something (mainly in the emulators/ROMs space). That’s all.

I don’t pirate very often anymore, but when I do, I use whatever computer I happen to be on. I just turn on a VPN and bind the torrenting client to the VPN only. This is how I’ve torrented for years, since the late 2000s. I’ve gotten a couple strikes from my ISP several years ago, but that was before I had a commercial VPN. Otherwise, I’ve no issues.

What are the potential security upsides of doing it on a VM/container or a dedicated machine? I can imagine some performance upsides, but that’s about it.

That’s a bot, right? That can’t be real.

I’ve met plenty of idiots. Some days, I’m probably one of them. But I don’t think I’ve ever come across someone who’s pro anti-piracy. Usually people are just neutral about it. Even the most law-abiding people I know, when I’ve told them I can download movies for free, are like “Oh, are you able to get this movie for me? Thanks!”

FYI on the rules:

Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.

Not removing the post, but just for next time, please.

The DNC has been later in August in the past, according to this page on wikipedia. Same goes for the RNC.

But I don’t know if Ohio’s law has always been this way or if it’s newer. Either way, it sounds like in the past that various states have had provisions for this scenario, knowing that this could and did happen. So if I had to guess, the issue is that, like many things in our political system, we relied on traditions and cooperation to maintain the system. And of course, Republicans for the last 8yrs (longer than that, really) no longer want to do that. They’d rather see it all burn down in the name of DJT.

I think pirating educational materials is less morally bad than pirating entertainment.

College textbooks, for example, are insanely expensive. I once paid like $300 for a single chemistry book. I never made that mistake again. Not because I pirated; I just started buying used or past editions. It’s not like chemistry for a 100 level class is cutting edge stuff. It’s the same ideas and knowledge we’ve had for decades or a hundred or hundreds of years. It’s all public knowledge at this point.

But you may need the book to do readings and assignments. So if you can’t afford the book, even used or past editions, then it makes sense to turn to piracy. I would sometimes grab the library reference copy of a textbook and just go crazy with a copy machine. That might technically still be piracy.

Entertainment, on the other hand, isn’t really required at all. So to me, that’s worse.

That all said, 99% of the stuff I’ve pirated is entertainment. My immorality is only bounded by the size of my SSDs!

Eh, the tech-illiterate come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors.

Same. Beehaw is my main, but I also have a Kbin account (which I know is technically different), and then a LW account, which I almost never sign into.

Even my Mastodon account is separate. It’s fine this way. I don’t need everything on one account. With a password manager, it’s not like I have to remember passwords anyway.

Hopefully the American people – those are still somehow on the fence – see this and determine that this isn’t the right thing for themselves or the country.

At this point, it’s not about loving Biden or liking Democrats. It’s just about making sure we have adults in the room managing and keeping an eye on things.

Yeah there are a lot of reddit-like behaviors on Lemmy. Often from the very people who say they hate reddit. Of course, why they hate reddit may have nothing to do with user behavior.

Which is a shame. We could do it better this time around, but we’re not. Some are, like many on Beehaw, but equally many or even more aren’t.

The Republican Party has been a RINO itself for awhile now. Now it’s official just the DJT/MAGA party.

Whatever. Republicans, “the moderates” as we call them these days crazily enough, have no one to blame but themselves. They didn’t have to sign a pact with the devil, but they did. What’s that thing they like saying about unplanned pregnancies? “Actions have consequences”? There they go. They decided to get fucked, and now they’re paying for it.

I have a lifetime subscription for Windscribe, so I’ve just been using that with no issues for years. I’ve recommended it to some other friends and they’ve been fine.

I also pay for Proton services, so I have ProtonVPN, but I’ve yet to try it for torrenting.

We’ll never get rid of these bigots. They’ve always existed. But at least they stayed away from library and school boards and other governance positions back then. Let’s hope they keep doing that going forward.

You’re on Beehaw right now. Be(e) nice and civil: https://docs.beehaw.org/docs/core-principles/beeple-code-of-conduct/

Gotcha, apologies for the misread!

Honestly, I was surprised too. I guess given how ubiquitous movies and television are, it never really occurred to me that it could be a hobby. And I bet most people don’t think of it as a hobby, either. When I think of a hobby related to TV/Movies, I think more like “film snobs” (for lack of a better term). Maybe people who watch the AFI 100 or whatever and know all about film and cinematography. But not people just watching TV like anyone else. But by definition, it’s a hobby. It’s “a pursuit outside one’s regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.”

For my coworker, she’s single and childless. So she has tons of time to watch movies and shows outside of work. I’m the same, but I devote it mainly towards gaming. Though I could certainly stand to devote less time to my hobby. Or pick up some new ones at least!

Hope you’ll be able to find some more time to watch the movies and show you want!

Movies and TV are some peoples’ hobbies. I have a co-worker who used to spend $300/mo on a cable bill because she had all the movie channels and stuff. She watched tons of movies and shows. At first I thought she was weird for watching so much TV, but then I thought about how much gaming I do, and realized “Oh, that’s just her hobby like gaming is mine.” Granted, I’m not spending $300/mo on gaming, but people do tend to spend money on hobbies. Sometimes even more than $300/mo.

Anyway, I’ve been letting her use my Netflix account – surprisingly neither of us have seen anything from Netflix about it – for the last several years. She recently (finally) got a Smart TV so she cancelled her crazy-ass cable package and I think pays for YouTube TV now. I’m sure she’s watching just as much as TV and movies as ever, but at least she’s saving some money.

Already donated to the group. And won’t be the last time. They have a great name, by the way: Missourians for Constitutional Freedom. It’s a very Republican-esque name that hides what they’re doing. Likes Moms for Liberty or Freedom Caucus or Lincoln Project. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the right, it’s that sometimes you gotta play like they do.

As a Missourian, I hope I’ll be able to sign the petition in my district. If we successfully get this onto the November ballot, I’m confident it’ll pass. Missouri may be deep red, but that’s only when it comes to electing politicians. When the people are able to vote on initiatives and referenda, the more “liberal” issues tend to win out. Recreational marijuana. Medicinal Marijuana. Lobbying/campaigning/redistricting reform (unfortunately this one got repealed, but just barely). Minimum wage increase. Idk if that’s because of the power of the cities, but then you’d think that our US senator and high state office elections would be more competitive, but they’re not.

Either way, let’s get this on this ballot!

This is the third time I’ve seen this referenced. I looked this up and now I feed stupider for having read anything about it.