How are we stealing shit?

[assorted]

Oh! oopsie! sorry mr. spratts i mean sharing. :P

me? i'm using:

soulseek - there are many things that suck about soulseek. it's memory usage for example (according to luv it's memory hoggishness persists after you close it until reboot - BAD SOULSEEK! BAD). and currently the server is crashing more often then drunk drivers on new years eve.

but with this kind of community and file base; who gives a fuck? soulseek is the only option if yer interests drift toward indie, college, or back catalogue alternative. and that's not to mention electronic/techno/dance/etc, which is why it exists after all.

unixpunx - thanks to fantom for turning me on to these guys. GIGS of punk on there ftp. whoohooo! they request you keep to only an album a day. thaz cool. i can only listen to 1 new album a day anyways. to get a ftp u/p just go there and sign up. your signup name and pass is then your ftp u/p. i'm not direct linking cuz i got a feeling the admin here is a pussy (giggle), but mr. google certainly knows where it is if your common sense fails.

as for goody-goody warez,etc... well, i happily own everything i want right now. but naz has turned me on to...

bittorrent - bittorrent is just really cool. i get excited using it, like when i first started using IRC. suprnova .org is a pretty cool place to get links to torrent. and http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/ is a good place to get the proggie itself.

this is pretty much new release only due to its inherent setup; but with new releases like these, who needs old shit? though i just said its new release, i'm actually grabbing tony hawk pro skater 2 for dreamcast right now on it at a lovely 80k with no initial wait. viva la torrent! (oh; it's also pretty neat for television and movies; in fact; it seems to be a tv movie app specialty thingie - pity my welfare computers can't do video, eh?)

for older stuff i'm still using kazaa and direct connect. but i haven't needed anything in ages. if i did direct connect again i'd probably have to dig around for a while to find the best program to be running; and then i gotta find a server (sigh!). that's too much work for somethin for nuthin! hehe.

[Dawn]

A certain recent event put a temporary damper on my downloading.

But when I get back in the swing, I'm sure I'll be right back to using emule. Slow as hell, but I love the verified hotlinks for albums and movies. Never a question of file quality, or whether it is a fake or not.

Recently I tried alt.binaries newgroups. Man oh man, are those fast. But just as fast as they download, the file listings change, so it seems you have to time it just right to get the file you are after.

[Ðiego]

How are we stealing shit?

"The common motive behind many crimes (that appear senseless) is kicks -- the thrill of doing the forbidden. There is excitement in thinking about crime, bragging about crime, executing the crime, making the getaway, and celebrating the triumph. Even if the offender is caught, there is excitement in dealing with the police, in trying to beat the rap, in receiving notoriety, and, if it gets that far, in the trial proceedings."

I share with others and others share with me


Ð

[assorted]

Originally posted by Dawn
But when I get back in the swing, I'm sure I'll be right back to using emule. Slow as hell, but I love the verified hotlinks for albums and movies. Never a question of file quality, or whether it is a fake or not.

i suggest you check out this bittorrent business and that suprnova site. its quite fast and all new shit. movies and tv; like i said; seem to be their specialty. i think you will abandon ze mule

as for 'stealing'/'sharing'... yeah whatever. i was just curious as to what programs people were using right now as i'm always willing to embrace new stuff that works.

[napho]

Check out how your isp handles newsgroups. If they do it well you'll get lots of music at maximum speed. Also if Soulseek hogs memory even after it's closed use a program like FreeRam XP to reclaim some. http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/



http://www.newzbin.com/browse/cat/p/music/

http://www.nfonews.com/Cat.asp?c_id=11

[Dawn]

Originally posted by assorted
i suggest you check out this bittorrent business and that suprnova site. its quite fast and all new shit. movies and tv; like i said; seem to be their specialty. i think you will abandon ze mule

Thanks. I shall check that out.

[JackSpratts]

i buy a watermellon at the store. i enjoy it and spit out the seeds. i plant them. they grow. i enjoy it again and give some away. the process repeats.

am i a thief?

- js.

[Ðiego]

No, no..bad analogy.. Hmm..

Try this, why is it that buying a Picasso and making copies and selling them is business while buying a poster and making copies and giving them away is theft?


Ð

[JackSpratts]

Originally posted by Ðiego
No, no..bad analogy.. Hmm..

on the contrary - it's a great analogy. copying = reproducing which can equal farming. that it happens in nature makes it no less apt.

- js.

[Ðiego]

erm..well, okay..but I still like mine better..


Ð

[naz]

I have downloaded tens of thousands of mp3s. I just leeched 100 movies off usenet since christmas. I get complete svcd quality rips of 24 and the sopranos on bittorrent the day they are broadcast on HBO. I used to buy an album a week. Prior to usenetserver.com (the best place to get movies at 1-2mbps) i bought a dvd a week. I'm getting my playstation chipped, then its goodbye to paying 50 bucks for a game. Hail to the Thief.

P.S I still occasionally go to gigs and the cinema. So I'm not a complete crook.

[assorted]

ok; so clearly this thread has been derailed into the 'is it stealing' discussion instead of the 'what are you using to get shit' thread i intended. so here i go:

i think there is 2 ways of viewing this issue; morality and the the law. i think that what i do is entirely moral. but when i call it stealing, i am referring to the law. so far, in america and almost every other country, what is being done on kazzaa and all the other p2p networks, and ftps, and everwhere else, is considered illegal. not only is it considered illegal, it is considered theft.

if the cops burst down many of our doors (in america), they would over $5,000 of goods with no hard copy (be that software, games, music, or video). that would be considered a felony in the eyes of a judge.

if the judge and the police and the politicians think i'm a thief, then i'm a thief. you can absolutely feel that this is an incorrect word to describe you or me. but it is still the word society is using to describe you. in england in the eighties, a member of the IRA was a terrorist. in ireland, he was a freedom fighter.

note that whenever a p2p proggie tried to defend itself, it says they have no control over what their users do... they do not defend the process of users downloading and uploading goods in and of itself.

you could even say i'm doing a service by calling it stealing when i reference filetrading. with the word sharing being thrown around so much, i imagine it would be easy for people to think this business isn't illegal. i think it's important for us all to keep in mind that some of us have a potential felony conviction sitting in our bedrooms and living rooms and should behave cautiously because of that.

as for morality, i'll repeat that i don't feel that what i do is wrong. and maybe when you take offense at my calling it stealing you are thinking of morality. because your certainly not thinking of the law, which so far is rather clear on this issue.

[Dawn]

I pay for my cable TV service, and off that, I can watch or record any movie, show, or music segment I want.

What's so different with the ISP? I pay them (more than the TV service I may add), and from that service, I can watch or record any movie, show or music segment I want.

Give that a thought or 2.

[naz]

My cable company havent sent a bill in months, I guess I'm stealing that too. I take the point about how you can capture anything that's broadcast but that argument fades a bit when I consider the giddy thrill i get when i got the spring and summer big albums of the year two or three months before they are released legally. And that special feeling of looting a dvd screener svcd the week the day they see an american release. Those content producers are missing out on money from me. Hence, I consider myself a thief. But I don't care.

[Haole]

Hi naz

I've been using the latest Kazaa Lite, and while it's certainly not as tidy as using Slsk, I've found a multitude of esoteric files and found some good buddies to share with. At this point in time, I'm really only interested in music from the 20s, 30s and 40s, so I haven't got much choice.

[naz]

secret museum of mankind vol. 1

on slsk
old and pretty esoteric

[Haole]

That's for sure--it's great shit, too. Still want me to do a mix? I'll blow your mind old, old, old school.

[naz]

yeah mix!! you should check out umbotos stuff too - oldies but goldies

[assorted]

Originally posted by Dawn
I pay for my cable TV service, and off that, I can watch or record any movie, show, or music segment I want.

you're making a moral arguement, not a legal arguement.

legally, believe it or not, that's illegal. i'm not sure HOW illegal, and they'd never dare sue you over it. but by letter fo the law, it's illegal. they had a tv executive on the stand a while ago saying with a straight face that avoiding commercials by getting up and going to the bathroom was illegal. he may or may not be right, but taping movies from HBO certainly is.

and that's my point. your politicians, judges, cops and friendly corporations all call it theft. sure, you can say its not theft. but law is decided by the former, not by you. your just making a moral decision in reference to your own personal behavior.

ps: is it just me or is kazaa starting to suck? the last 4-5 times i've tried to grab something fast i've gotten 'more sources needed' or 'remotely queued'... it used to be a lot better for me; i'd just get whatever app i needed fast and be outta there. now i'm failing more then succeeding.

[Fantom]

Stuff I use

Soulseek: Ranks as number 1. I think Jack once said "It's the folders", and I agree that's what makes this client so cool for me. Browse User, Download by folder. Too easy. There are lots of folks with similar tastes in punk music to mine, and I've made some good friends with this client. The server just came back up, hopefully it will stay stable for a bit.

Kazaa Lite: With multiple searches I can usually find just about anything if I leave it continually searching for 10 minutes. But it sucks for albums - Soulseek users are more reluctant to cut you off, and "Browse user" is more effective with Soulseek. Kazaa is very good for movies if you are careful about fakes.

Smaller communities: Like this one. Using any transfer methods available, usually FTP & Mirc. Even ICQ

I'm still capped to a few GB per month so I gotta be pretty selective. But I can switch to dialup overnight which adds up. I usually grab 2 albums per night from unixpunx with dialup.

There are still some cool HTTP sites out there too. South Park episodes are why I got online a few years back, and there are still some really good sites for those.

I also like to save streaming content, stuff that you're only meant to be able to view when streaming. Including flash content (games etc), there is Windows Media, Real Media, Shoutcast etc. When you only get a few GB per month from the ISP, it seems a waste not to save the files whilst viewing them. So I have an assortment of ripping programs like asf recorder, streambox ripper, streamripper etc.

I like ROMS and have collected most of 'em. Purely academic purposes of course. For the uninitiated, a quick explanation is in order. ROMs are the binary information transferred from a game cartridge or arcade machine to a PC. The game can then be played on a PC using an emulator. The files are very small, but the game is exactly the same as the arcade or console version. It's amazing how many games are available. Literally tens of thousands. So a complete ROMSET for C64 would be all the games that were ever released for the old Commodore 64. All the handheld games are being emulated too, Gameboy Advance is particularly popular. You can even buy a flashcard and cable to play the downloaded roms on the actual Gameboy. Too cool. I find it much easier, more fun, and better value for bandwidth to collect thousands of ROMS instead of downloading one big commercial game.

There are lots of good sites for ROMS but there are ever more bad sites, so it's frustrating. The best place is forums that provide reliable links, IRC & FTP.

There are also other sources I use for all kindsa files, but they kinda fall into the communities category too