• daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    I do have the feel that gaming piracy is on a all time low. At the moment there isn’t even a single active denuvo cracker while there used to be like 3-4. Probably because stores like steam and gog, which are consumer friendly with fair prices for most products and not linked with stupid subscriptions.

    On the other hand movie and shows piracy is rising for the anti-consumer platforms, who can pay $200 a month for seeing all decent shows and movies without ads? Very few people, and even then you own nothing.

    I have a feel that music piracy will rise soon too. As Spotify already have started the anti consumer route. I’m pretty sure in a few years it’s subscription won’t be as worth it as it used to be, and a lot of people will find out that they have been paying for years and still own nothing.

    • Darren@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      Music piracy, while still a thing, is basically nil at this point, because the record industry didn’t fuck up streaming (for the consumer). The artists don’t get paid enough, but from a consumer perspective you don’t have to sub to all the services to get all of the music.

      We were so close to that with Netflix back in the beginning. Then the studios got greedy, and here we are.

      • Brutticus@midwest.social
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        1 day ago

        I found the easiest way to pirate music was to just grab stuff from youtube. Maybe in the future Freetube will have an option to download whole playlists, but in my middle age I am way less likely to download the whole album for “context.”

        • Darren@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          YouTube (via yt-dlp) is my fallback for if I can’t find what I need on Soulseek.

          The quality is fine, but I likes my FLACs.

          • Brutticus@midwest.social
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            1 day ago

            DLP is pretty good and has a lot of non youtube utility. For those at home, I like Stacher7 for interfacing with yt.dlp without using a command line.

      • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        Music piracy’s still alive here and there. The torrents I usually find are massive FLAC files that have very little advantage over much smaller MP3s though. I might need to buy some really fancy gear to appreciate it maybe.

        • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          Music piracy basically amounts to not using sponsored AI playlists
          Listening to the music you like instead of the music you are told to like
          that’s what music piracy has become today !

        • Darren@sopuli.xyz
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, music piracy is kinda niche these days: mostly just people who want a local library and who have a modded iPod or similar. I use Soulseek to get flacs of the music I play on my radio show, just so I can be sure I’m offering the best possible quality.

          But to be honest, I straddle both camps. I have a modded iPod full of music, but I also have Apple Music mostly for convenience.

    • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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      2 days ago

      How exactly is Steam consumer friendly? Or is the bar so low that companies that don’t shoot themselves in their feet by mistake because they were actually aiming for the customer are considered “consumer friendly”?

    • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      I do have the feel that gaming piracy is on a all time low. At the moment there isn’t even a single active denuvo cracker while there used to be like 3-4. Probably because stores like steam and gog, which are consumer friendly with fair prices for most products and not linked with stupid subscriptions.

      I don’t know the numbers so I can’t comment on that, but you do realise the vast majority of games don’t launch with Denuvo right? And plenty of games that do only have it for the first 6-12 months because it’s a subscription for them, before taking it out…

      I’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3 and Avowed recently, pirated, right at launch, because they didn’t have DRM. Isn’t it still true that nothing on GOG has DRM at all?

      • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        And plenty of games that do only have it for the first 6-12 months because it’s a subscription for them, before taking it out…

        Sega, Ubisoft, and Atlus being notable exceptions. They just leave that shit in forever.

        • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 days ago

          If they can afford then yeah I guess. I just don’t play those games, and we should all endeavour to boycott such anti-consumer DRM. It reminds me of the Sony Music rootkit controversy.

          • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Baldur’s Gate 3 deserved your money, but pirating Avowed was a good choice. I did as well and don’t regret it.

            • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              2 days ago

              You’re right, it absolutely did, that’s why I bought it 12 months after it came out and replayed it finally just recently. To me pirating games is just an extended demo, and if I like them a lot I buy them.

    • CumBroth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      There’s a workaround for Denuvo: buying a copy of the game with pooled funds and sharing the game with all the participants using online activation. It’s not exactly cracking, but it is one way around it. The issue is knowing where to find such groups, or starting one yourself. I can get you into one, If anyone is interested. Just send me a PM asking to join.

      You can get older stuff for free as well. Practically everything is free, but you’ll have to wait longer with the newer titles because people who donated funds take priority.

      Note: Unfortunately, this takes place in a Discord group. You’ll have to use Discord and you’ll have to have an account that is at least one-month old to be able to participate.

        • CumBroth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          2 days ago

          Sure, that’s always an option. But we’re not talking about buying here. To be precise, yes, a copy of the game is still being bought, but then it gets distributed among 100s of people. It’s pretty much like old-school piracy: VHS tapes and burning copies of games you own onto CDs.

          That being said, you aren’t missing that much if you’re completely avoiding Denuvo games. Out of all the uncracked ones that I’ve tried using this method, only two games out of the last decade or so were worth the trouble (Wukong and Hi-Fi Rush).

          • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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            2 days ago

            True, if there’s a game I really, really want I buy on Steam/Epic. Found out there are very few games I really want to play that much, can think of only 2 I bought like that.