this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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My gf and I have had discussions about teaching morals to kids. In that vein, I asked myself, would I teach piracy to my kids? Yes, it’s technically illegal and carries inherent risks. But so does teenage sex carry the risks of teenage pregnancy, and so we have an obligation to children to teach them how to practice safe sex. So, is it necessary to teach them how to stay safe in the sea? How to install adblockers, how to detect fake download sites that give you computer aids? Show them how to use a VPN and choosing the right one (a true pirate must always choose a VPN with port forwarding capabilities, so you can still seed) I feel like this is all valuable info we all learned as pirates the hard way, and valuable information to pass on to our kids.

I definitely want my kids to know about libgen. Want a book you want to read about? Wanna learn about dinosaurs from a college level textbook for whatever reason? Just go to libgen, son!

And I attribute most of my computer literacy and education to piracy, trying to install cracks to various games, trying to make games work, and modding the fuck out of skyrim as a young teenager. That, and also jailbreaking android phones. All the interesting things i’ve ever done with computers was probably against some BS terms of service.

So, is piracy something you would actively teach your kids? Sit them down and teach them how to install a Fallout 3 FitGirl repack? Or is this something you’d want them to figure out themselves?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Comment that I'm adding on a couple of friends'. One lives in Norway, one lived in India. They told me that both of these places have an issue with accessing media and other digital goods legitimately, often finding themselves willing but unable to pay for something (I was surprised to hear this about Norway — my friend speculates that Norway is small enough that it might simply be forgotten about when big media companies negotiate rights). They both said that VPNs and piracy are way more normalised in their home countries, because it was either that, or miss out on loads of stuff.

Feel it's useful and important to highlight that the degree to which piracy is normalised depends on where you are.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

ANY DAY NOW

We pay for subs to damn near every streaming service. I am constantly having to send them the passwords or even reset the passwords(to the same password), so they can login devices they've logged on a hundred times.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I hit my limit years ago when Netflix removed the (then) very good rating system in favour of their algorithmically gamed thumbs up/down. Then they started auto playing content when one hovered over it. Then they started cutting third party movies and shows in favour of their own… content. I was paying a lot for the privilege of an inferior experience. Now I have a Plex server with everything I like in one place, no ads, and real ratings on the content. Sonarr and Radarr are my favourite apps ever.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I use ... Plex ... as a gap-filler, but I don't become aware of the gaps(in what-I-thought-I-had-subbed-and-actually-had-paid-access-to-for-years versus what-is-actually-still-available) anywhere near as quickly as each of my children.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

i would teach my kids that piracy is the natural market force to push corpos and companies into ethically (or at least more ethically) distributing content.

I would also teach my kids that if one were to pirate media, they should also find a way to support whoever it came from directly, assuming it's a band or small artist, rather than something like a TV show, where it'll make no difference.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I’m a capitalist but even I think visual media needs a come to Jesus. If they had adopted the Spotify model everyone would be a lot happier. I would be paying for content still. Instead they broke up into a dozen different services with walled content. This is so stupid. I have no qualms keeping my own collection when this is the paid offering.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that an argument of monopoly by Netflix would be better?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No. See Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Tidal. They all contain something like 99% content overlap. You can subscribe to any of them and access almost all music. The difference is price, performance, UX, and features.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I'm not sure that's true of TV series. I'm not arguing for monopoly by the way. Exclusives are anticompetitive and that's bad!

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

They'll learn on their own when asked to pay hundreds of dollars for a single textbook.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I would if I had them.

It’s always advisable that you teach people how to use anything safely.

This really seems like a non-question. What is there to debate?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Sonarr/Radarr etc make it very easy and safe for media, but apps and games would be more of a serious sit down and talk kind of situation as more can go wrong there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure. I don't plan on having kids, so this is a purely theoretical question that I won't have to answer in practice, but I think I probably would, at least to some degree.

I had a pretty iconically millennial childhood when it comes to tech; I remember my mum being on the phone to the internet people and asked "he's offering me an unlimited packaged for [money] extra. Is that good, do we need that?", to which my brother and and I vigorously nodded. We were young enough we didn't know shit, but unlimited sounded good and we weren't paying the bills. My mum probably realised we didn't know what unlimited Vs metered internet meant in practice, and opted for unlimited as the safe option, because if she felt the need to ask her children for advice, she wouldn't be great at managing a metred connection. That's the context in which I grew up and is why I'm as techy as I am today.

I learned the hard way, and whilst I don't think that's necessarily the best way to learn, I don't know how one might teach people how to recognise which "download" button to press, and when a dodgy looking site is actually dodgy. It's like internet street smarts, but what that means has changed since I was a kid, and I don't necessarily know how I'd teach that beyond the basics, like installing adblockers and other common sense things.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

set them up with something disposable (or at lewst that you can reinstall the OS on every couple weeks) that runs on an architecture other than x86 to avoid viruses; pi is perfect for this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's a really cool idea actually. I knew a guy who used to install viruses for fun on a separate machine that wasn't networked. I bet a more creative person than I could probably figure out a fun learning activity for kids using a "disposable" system

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

sure. you create a parental control firewall, and tell them they're not allowed to see anything fun until they can get past it, and if they do, tipping off the programmeans youll look for countermeasures after a few days. here's some good leads on the right white papers for a temporary fix. good luck!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Speaking personally I don't know if its something I'd bring up to them, but if the topic comes up naturally I'd be honest about doing it and my moral reasoning for doing so. If the kid shows an interest or a curiosity about it then we can sit down and I'd teach them my ways. I took some stupid risks while I was still learning that I'd like to spare them from taking. Besides as you said it is technically illegal and if they are going to do it then it's best that they be doing it safe. Especially seeing as they would likely be doing it in your home.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Children playing on a computer unsupervised has to have rules and boundaries (and physical backups). No, I'm not going to teach children, who are not even in their teens, to download or install anything, ever, unless I want them to learn about ransomware specifically.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Preventing teenage pregnancy by obfuscating sex has the same idea.

I agree with the boundaries part. The second part though: they will figure it out either way... At least my brother did when he was young and our parentsgot a nice lawyer in voice for that (fucked up laws, I know, I know).

Personally I want them to learn about ransomware! If that cost me a PC... My fault.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Sorry I was unclear, I meant to say I'm not teaching children who are not yet in their teens. I can see how it could be misconstrued as not teaching them even when they are teens. I'll make an edit to clarify.

I would teach teens how to torrent, about cyber-security and VMs, and how to know if something can or cannot be trusted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Thanks for the clarification! A wish you an awesome start into the week :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Wise men say true words

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

It lead me to learn so much about servers and automation as well as everything I've learnt from material I've acquired

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