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/r/Piracy FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

• Will I get in trouble for participating in x activity? How to avoid getting in trouble -- All about copyright infringement complaints and what to do if you've received one.

• How do I download and activate windows 10 (including LTSC/LTSB)? How do I upgrade to windows 10 from a prior pirated windows version?

  Can I receive updates on my now-activated windows 10 PC as normal? Yes. Will it break the activation? No.

  I want to disable updates just in case, how do I do this? Don't do this. You need security updates.

• I have Win 10 Home. How do I upgrade to the Pro version?

  Simply use hwidgen's license switch function: https://i.imgur.com/lmjLOtq.jpg

• What is a private tracker and how do I get started? Benefits of private trackers, etc.

• What is usenet and how do I get started? - /r/usenet wiki

• What is "The Scene" and where do they upload their releases? e.g. Groups such as (Movies & TV) SPARKS, AMIABLE, PSYCHD, ROVERS, GECKOS, VENUE, LOST, SHORTBREHD, etc. (Games) CODEX, SKIDROW, CPY, RELOADED, etc.

  They upload to private FTPs. You will never have access to them.

  Short, concise, and simplistic explanation of what "The Scene" is - Reddit thread

  What is the difference between "The Scene" and p2p? - Reddit thread. Outdated, but the idea is the same.

  Warez Scene - Wikipedia

• What are services like All-Debrid, premiumizeMe, real-debrid used for?

  As a standalone service, they will download things for you for you to later download from them at full speed. They are useful for file hosts which limit your download speeds unless you subscribe to their service. It can be used with torrents too, so their servers will do the downloading to prevent your IP from ever hitting the torrent swarm (which is the cause of copyright infringement complaints). You then download the content from their servers directly.

  They keep the downloads in their servers for a while, for as long as people are trying to grab content from a particular link. So in conjunction with streaming apps that support real debrid, it works as a caching service, so that you can stream the popular links at full speed from real debrid as opposed to streaming directly from the slow file hosts.

Downloading from websites

• How do I download audio/video from streaming websites like youtube?

  With Youtube-DL (open-source command-line tool). Alternatively, you can use Youtube-DLG., which is a GUI for Youtube-DL

  JDownloader2 also works well.

  Internet Download Manager will do the job as well, though it is a premium application. Use the free trial, then when the trial is nearing its end, simply reset the trial with this.

  You may also try out Video Download Helper extensions for your browser.

• How do I download from spotify?

  You can't. There aren't any tools that can download the unencrypted spotify streams. The best method is to convert your Spotify playlist to a Deezer playlist, then download that via Deezloader. More sites/tools for music available in the megathread.

• How the heck do I use or install Youtube-DL?

  Guide on how to install it.

  List of commands available with Youtube-DL.

  Example of use: type cmd into the navigation bar of windows explorer to open a terminal. If you have a video that needs a login to access, youtube-dl supports adding your credentials and uses your login to grab the video stream. Example usage: youtube-dl -u username -p password "video_url"

• How Do I download from streaming sites such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc?

  You don't. The methods detailed above won't work on paid streaming sites such as netflix, hulu, disney+, etc. due to their implementation of the Widevine DRM to encrypt the video stream. Scene groups and p2p groups have obtained methods to crack Widevine-protected streams, but they are kept internal to these groups, due to the fact that public disclosure of these methods would cause the exploits to be patched.

• How do I download video from pan baidu?

  https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/auhyxk/how_do_i_download_from_panbaidu/eovyg8g/?context=33

Movies & TV

• Breakdown of video naming conventions, bitrate and quality. Also covered: converting mkv to mp4

  Related questions:

  Why do file sizes of videos with the same resolution vary so much?

  Which release do I get? Which is better?

• Why do some of my downloads have dull/darkened/washed out colors?

  You downloaded a video with HDR metadata. You need an HDR-capable display to play it back properly, else you'll have to use a tone-mapping software such as madVR with a video player such as MPC. MPV and PotPlayer include tone-mapping by default.

• How long does it take for new movies to release on torrent sites in HD?

  About 3 months following the theater date. Check https://www.dvdsreleasedates.com/ for the digital release. The blu-ray/DVD follows 2 weeks later, but is usually leaked up to 2 weeks early from somewhere in the production chain, coinciding with the digital release. It is extremely rare for the digital to get leaked, so for all intents and purposes, the official digital release date is the pirate release date.

  Some movies get an official early release in South Korea (typically 1-1.5 months following the theater release), offered as pay-per-view in hotels in mini personal theaters where they get screencapped. These are referred to as "Korsubs", due to the hardcoded korean subtitles, though the quality can be pretty bad. Further reading: [Reddit Thread] Where do KorSubbed rips come from?

  During the holiday season (Nov/Dec), Screeners get sent out to a select jury, which will be comprised of Academy members/critics, who are expected to review them and vote on the films that excel at specific categories. The recipients of these screeners will typically rip and send their copy of the screener to select pirate groups who will take charge in removing any and all embedded invisible watermarks in the video and release it publicly. These releases are also not very high quality.

  Other forms of early releases come in the shape of CAM or TELESYNC releases. These are not high quality at all -- the telesync releases usually appearing on torrent sites are mislabeled and are simply cams. These are simply theater screens recorded with a mobile camera and are of terrible quality. These types of recordings come with a good deal of risk, however, so people only bother with movies that are in high demand, such that they can make money selling access or by plastering advertisements on the recording. New cam releases are typically found on general trackers, such as 1337x.to.

Games

• Will I get banned from steam/origin/uplay/epic if i play a pirated game? No.

  Related: Will I get banned from steam if I use the "Add a non-steam game to my library" function to add a pirated game? No.

• Are the game sites linked in the megathread safe?

  If you use general trackers that allow user uploading, you'll have to be careful, especially more so if you use a torrent search engine which will list every single publicly distributed torrent. Otherwise, if you use the dedicated game websites listed under Games, then yes, they're safe. ^{But that's exactly what a malware distributor would say...}

• My game downloads are being flagged as malware/trojans by my antivirus.

  That is the nature of cracked files. Not to say that you should trust every loon in a youtube video that says "it's a false positive, go ahead and install", but the sites listed in the megathread listed under the Games section are safe to use. If you have an adblocker and used the proper download link, you should be good to go. Browsing pirate sites without an adblocker will just yield adverts posing as download buttons, which will yield virus-infected downloads, so make sure you're not just clicking on the most vibrant-looking link.

• Fitgirl is packed with ViRuSes!?

  Read above, fitgirl's site is safe to use.

• Fitgirl's repacks are taking a hecking long time to install. Why?

  Fitgirl's repacks are extremely compressed, so they'll take a long time to decompress and will take several hours to install, even on a beefy system. They are intended for people with very slow or data-capped internet, in order to give them a chance to download a game in a timely manner or without blowing through their data cap. If you have a strong internet connection, you should be opting to download the original scene releases rather than her repacks.

• How do I install a "cracked" game/software? I installed it but when I run it, the store page just pops up.

  If your download yielded a set of rar files in parts (in a sequence of .r00, .r01, .r02, etc.), then simply find the non-numbered .rar file, right click on it, and click extract here. Example image: https://i.imgur.com/WhaFCSu.jpg. It will automatically extract and combine the data from all the other parts and yield a .iso file.

  Installing from the.iso file requires you to "mount" it onto your system as a virtual disc. Windows 10 has this functionality build-in. Just right click on the .iso file, select properties, then choose to change the program that handles .iso files. Choose Windows Explorer, then just click OK.

  After setting Windows Explorer as the default program for .iso files, simply double click on the .iso file to mount it. It will take you to the folder structure contained inside the .iso file, then just run the setup .exe file to install the game.

  Default installations are usually for the base game without a crack, so you'll need to take steps to patch the game files with the crack files. Read below.

  Codex installers will tend to be one-click installs and will have a checkbox that says move patch files to installation directory, so make sure that box is checked - that's all there is to it, the game will be cracked once the installation finishes (if you checked the aforementioned checkbox). Otherwise, read the readme file included in your download. It's usually an .nfo file, but they are just text files, just right click on it and choose edit to open it.

  If for some strange reason there is no readme file, the common method for games is to just copy and paste the patch/crack files included with your download, to your game's installation folder under C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86). The crack files may sometimes be contained in a non-descript folder, usually just named after the release group, eg. CODEX.

• Can I transfer the save files from my cracked game install to my soon-to-be-purchased game install?

  In some cases, save files that are sourced from an older version of a game may not work on a newer version, and since pirated games tend to be running on the version that the game originally released on, this may be the case for you. Otherwise, you just need to google what the save location is for your game. Naturally, you will find answers regarding the purchased version of the game, but you only need to find the save file's name and file extension. Afterwards, just install Everything, a file indexer and browser program, to instantly search through your entire filesystem (upon install, you may have to wait a bit for it to index all your files). Then just search for the file extension to see where the save file might be in your system (since pirated game installs may store save files elsewhere than the legitimate version). To search for a file extension, type this: *.extension, depending on what the extension is for your game's save files.