Dominus wrote:

Getting TV series or movies in original English language was one of the few reasons I went to PB. It's still not easy to get them close to release if you ever get to see them in original language (without waiting ages for DVD release and pay more for importing the UK or US version - not to mention region lock hell). Most online shops suck (or are not avilable) when you are from Europe and want original versions. If you then also want subtitles... Hell....

+1, 99% of times I go to tpb is to get a series or a movie in original English language. Those things are otherwise hardly available in Russia. I'm always the first to watch the new series among my friends, who wait a week for a Russian translation and the next day after release I am a big bag of spoilers.

5u3 wrote:

Pirate Bay shutdown has had virtually no effect on digital piracy levels

TPB does have literally hundreds of mirror sites scattered all around the world and when one is taken down, more pop up to replace it. It's like the mythical hydra.

TPB also made it's master file available to download several years ago that contained links to every file accessible by the TPB so anyone who now has that file can restore a working copy of TPB because it contains all the pointers to every piece of every file no matter where they may be. As long as there is someone anywhere in the world who has that file, TPB can be revived.

TPB was also run as a virtual machine and not directly on the servers that were hosting it. That would make it a simple matter to just terminate the VM session with a single mouse click and then the authorities have no evidence to prosecute with because nothing was ever on the hard drives of the servers, it was all in the cloud.

What I really worry about are future updates of this.

Somewhat related:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/12/netfl … oing-to-happen/

Well when I mean messed up discs I mean really nasty scratchs as a result of my stupid younger self stacking the CD's ontop of each other rather than carefully put them back into the jewel case. Everytime I try to install Unreal Gold or UT99 I get CRC32 errors in their setup, and attempting to copy the files manually results in explorer locking up for a good few minutes before saying "There is nothing in the CD drive".

Actually. One could argue, that messing up the original media is one's own fault.
You could argue too, that if you have payed once for an original, then it is okay to download a copy.
I feel that this is somewhat in the grey and shadowy (il)/legal side of the road.

For me... It does not matter if you choose to download or not, just keep you'r local legislation in par, with what you are doing.
Or... What you are about to do. It's one's own choice to break the law or not.
The best way to do stuff, is to rip the legally purchased media, right after it is brought home to the collection.

Even if you take care of the media, it will eventually oxidide and be rentered unreadable.
Then it is ok to download a copy, by my standards, if there is no other way at all to get the original disc. (shops etc.)

DracoNihil wrote:

Well when I mean messed up discs I mean really nasty scratchs as a result of my stupid younger self stacking the CD's ontop of each other rather than carefully put them back into the jewel case. Everytime I try to install Unreal Gold or UT99 I get CRC32 errors in their setup, and attempting to copy the files manually results in explorer locking up for a good few minutes before saying "There is nothing in the CD drive".

Have you tried using a Disc Doctor on it?

Dominus wrote:

Getting TV series or movies in original English language was one of the few reasons I went to PB. It's still not easy to get them close to release if you ever get to see them in original language (without waiting ages for DVD release and pay more for importing the UK or US version - not to mention region lock hell). Most online shops suck (or are not avilable) when you are from Europe and want original versions. If you then also want subtitles... Hell....

This is exactly what I do, using amazon.co.uk and sometimes amazon.com. Original language and English subtitles. Apart from the "waiting for DVD release" part, it just works. you can even buy some of them extremely cheap from amazon marketplace (0.01 GBP per piece is not uncommon for some older and obscure titles - like B sci-fi). Even with the original prices and "waiting" bit, I can't rationalize downloading pirated copies. When I just can't find a DVD release (not because its too early for that but because that title never released in DVD) I regularly check youtube (yes) and generally find what I'm looking for with 70-80% success rate.

(I have 2500+ titles in DVD/VCD/BD, all original, in addition to about 100 obscure titles that I downloaded from youtube)

sliderider wrote:

Have you tried using a Disc Doctor on it?

Dunno' what that is. I'd be amazed if anything can make my old CD's readable again given the surface damage done to it.

I use TPB for downloading working versions of games I own.

Sometimes I just cant be bothered with installing 4 CDs, then download the latest update just to realize that the no CD crack I just downloaded from "Viruses Inc" dosnt work with the latest version of the game... when at the same time a nice 100% working, fully updated "unzip and play" version without malware exists on the TPB.

I got my copy of windows 7 off of there 🙁

Kickass torrents is a great alternative.

The only time I download from "pirate" sites are:

To download something I legally own but I lost or damaged the disk of
To try a game or program with the intent of buying it if I end up liking it and deleting it if I don't.
To download a TV show that I missed but intended to watch on broadcast TV and I am not expecting to be repeated soon.

I realize for some people this is not sufficient justification -- but for me it is. Since in most cases it is either something I already own or something I plan to buy.

DracoNihil wrote:

sliderider wrote:

Have you tried using a Disc Doctor on it?

Dunno' what that is. I'd be amazed if anything can make my old CD's readable again given the surface damage done to it.

It's a disc repair tool - IME it won't fix all discs, but most of the time does a good enough job. It's usually worth a try if the disc already isn't reading - worst case it doesn't help, best case it fixes the disc. 😀

DracoNihil wrote:

sliderider wrote:

Have you tried using a Disc Doctor on it?

Dunno' what that is. I'd be amazed if anything can make my old CD's readable again given the surface damage done to it.

A Disc Doctor polishes the surface of the disc to make the scratches smooth again so it can be read. You put the CD in it and turn a crank and that rotates the disc and polishes the bottom at the same time.

If this happened in 2009 I would have had a massive hissy fit, but as an adult that can actually go out and get media from there with a paycheck, it doesn't really bother me too terribly. If I do pirate any goods, it is usually older DOS or Windows games that are near impossible to acquire legally or certain music albums that I can't find for a decent price either. Commander Keen Aliens Ate My Babysitter, most of Epic's pre Unreal catalogue, and the Toonami: Deep Space Bass album come to mind in that regard.

SpooferJahk wrote:

most of Epic's pre Unreal catalogue

I still have hope that someone out there will be able to offer Epic's classic games catalogue once again. There used to be a site called Epic Classics that did this, but they suddenly vanished between late 2012 and early 2013; it used to look like this, but now only a blank page is there. And Epic themselves haven't even tried to do this so far (their Games Store is really a joke 🙁 ).

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

SpooferJahk wrote:

most of Epic's pre Unreal catalogue

I still have hope that someone out there will be able to offer Epic's classic games catalogue once again. There used to be a site called Epic Classics that did this, but they suddenly vanished between late 2012 and early 2013; it used to look like this, but now only a blank page is there. And Epic themselves haven't even tried to do this so far (their Games Store is really a joke 🙁 ).

Makes me sad because I would love to get my hands on Jill of the Jungle without downloading it through abandonware rings, really do enjoy that game and would pay a good price for it.

So there is this new TV Show http://www.syfy.com/ascension

Foxtel seems to have the rights on SyFy content. I checked the schedule of Foxtel Play and the show is nowhere to be found.

That's the dilemma in Australia. There are lots of content you can't legally watch.

SpooferJahk wrote:

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

SpooferJahk wrote:

most of Epic's pre Unreal catalogue

I still have hope that someone out there will be able to offer Epic's classic games catalogue once again. There used to be a site called Epic Classics that did this, but they suddenly vanished between late 2012 and early 2013; it used to look like this, but now only a blank page is there. And Epic themselves haven't even tried to do this so far (their Games Store is really a joke 🙁 ).

Makes me sad because I would love to get my hands on Jill of the Jungle without downloading it through abandonware rings, really do enjoy that game and would pay a good price for it.

If you can't find it for purchase, what is wrong with going through abandonware sites?

smeezekitty wrote:

If you can't find it for purchase, what is wrong with going through abandonware sites?

Oh boy, now you've done it.