Poll: Do you stream content online illegally like for example TV series or sport events?

[noname223]

I am so scared of poverty and TV series are so expensive. I would like to watch Dragonball GT again. It is one of the few Dragonball series I never watched fully. The German version is heavily censored. I had to watch some Episodes on English. A friend of mine pays for Crunchyroll maybe I can get access to his account.
I pay for a VPN. A sometimes I read mangas not legally...and sometimes I watch animes not legally. I think streaming content from Japan is often not prosecuted in the West. Instead watching US TV series illegally is prosecuted. I read that from a lawyer Youtube channel but don't trust me at all.
I think the fine for streaming is around 150 Euros in my country. A completely different thing is filesharing. I would never do that.

I think the risk is pretty low with my VPN and some browser extensions. Otherwise I would not do it. It saved me so much money. I hope I will never be caught. But I do it rather seldomly. I would never watch champions league illegally way too risky even with VPN. But I circumvent geoblocking in order to watch soccer.

What is your personal policy on it? How much do you risk? How risky is my behavior in your opinion?

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Eh, I often do watch cartoons and anime on illegal sites when I can't find them on a streaming service. It's a lot harder to find live action shows or movies though.

 

[-Link-]

I have no idea what either of you are talking about.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

If you only watch I don't see how you could stream it and over which platform. You don't broadcast the content. I wouldn't be worried about watching stuff online and you also use a VPN.

 

[notwhereIbelong]

Arr matey
I'm lucky enough to live in a country where downloading/streaming for personal use won't get you prosecuted (ESL, no clue if it's the right word), so I sail the high seas pretty frequently, mainly due to a lack of personal funds. A lot of stuff also either isn't available in my country, or it's so niche that finding a legitimate way to get it is impossible.

My father actually taught me how to look for torrents at a young age, I've just gotten better at it with the years, that plus finding out about the community made it almost routine for me

 

[noname223]

If you only watch I don't see how you could stream it and over which platform. I wouldn't be worried about watching stuff online and you also use a VPN.

No, streaming means you are watching something. Not you yourself are streaming it to others. Technically, streaming involves downloading it for a very short time on your device.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

That's an interesting definition. I wouldn't be worried anyway bc if the platform isn't located in the EU it'd be very difficult for German investigators to acquire IPs from their logs. Imo a VPN is safe to use.

 

[amnesia999]

[Edit] "Streaming" content usually means content like you would see on TV or cable. For example, watching a football match live on ESPN. It's illegal when you're supposed to pay for the content but you don't. There's plenty of free and low-cost streaming services. For example, Al Jazeera's live news stream is free. My wife pays for something called BritBox, which lets her watch British police procedurals on her tablet.

When some event (such as the aforementioned football match) has already ended, someone downloaded it as it streamed, and then posted it online for you to download via bittorrent, it ends up as a file on your computer (often a very large file), it's not live, you can watch it as many times as you like. I have a lot of experience downloading those. I use a VPN that doesn't keep usage logs, and also have the (usually free) bittorrent software you need to get the content. It's not hard to use.

Any digital content, from books to software to music to movies, can be shared via bittorrent. It is useful if you can't afford to buy media. But you need to use a VPN in order not to have your IP address exposed, due to the way bittorrent works. (You can download what I call a "copyright-challenged" copy of the DSM V over bittorrent if you like. That sucker is expensive. :-)

There's a well-known app named Popcorn Time that lets you watch streaming video. It uses bittorrent as a backend, just to make things confusing. If you use it you should use a VPN, otherwise you might get into trouble with the copyright police. I haven't ever tried it.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Some things I've only ever been able to find on say YouTube. Or, I've looked and DVD's are so rare, they are charging enormous amounts for them.

I'm creative myself so, I do actually believe in copyright law and do see the need to try and support our film, music and TV industries. If there's something I want to see, I'll most likely try to do it legally first but, if I can't find it anywhere else- I will use sites like YouTube and Vimeo. Not my fault if the creators won't take my money! I wouldn't download or upload stuff though. Far too cowardly for that.

I imagine it's the people who put the stuff on the site and the site itself that would get in the most trouble though.

 

[canijo]

Im guessing it depends on the country. ~10 years ago i stayed some time on my uncles house at Germany and a fine arrived for a movie we downloaded, which i didnt expect AT ALL like i've never had to worry about this, i live in Spain.

I hope a VPN does the trick for you, i personally dont take any precautions and i've been downloading literally everything since forever.

I now mainly directly download things, but scheduled&automated through the combo of "Sonarr" (tv shows) + "Radarr" (movies) + "Bazarr" (subtitles) + "Prowlarr" (sources indexing). If you setup all those you get to the point where everything you want gets downloaded, organized for you, with the specified quality&language requirements on a daily basis (i just regularly delete what i've already watched as i dont have too much storage anymore). You even get a nice calendar display for every episode you are watching. Adding new shows is ridiculously easy, and if you also setup "Kodi" as a media center, you just wont bother with subscriptions anymore in you life. The only thing you dont get as easy as before is movies. Long ago you could normally find them good quality while they were on cinema (not screener or filmed on site, but from leaked tapes i guess), but now you dont get non-screener until they publish to a streaming platform or dvd. But TVshows are normally available directly when it airs

 

[3/4Dead]

Sometimes its the only way for me to find some stuff, especially if its older or more obscure.

 

[pilotviolin]

i like to keep my ratios up but yeah nah piracy has saved me a bit of grief, otherwise i buy physical

 

[ijustwishtodie]

Yeah, I use free steaming sites to watch anime and movies (though I haven't watched a movie in ages). I don't see why I should give billionaire corporations my money when a free alternative exists anyway

 

[Downdraft]

My PFP used to be Charles Vane so yeah, that tells you everything you need to know xd.

 

[ham and potatoes]

Bootleg streams on sporting events? yup

 

[Nlis2244]

I usually torrent movies to watch it in higher quality, and also videogames. I know that in some countries like Germany and South Korea they send you a massive fine if you torrent something, which is crazy. I my country i never had any problem torrenting even when i didn't use a VPN.