► FAQ
The following FAQ is not meant to be an in-depth explanation of the logistics involved in relationships between internet service providers and copyright parties, but rather an oversimplification of answers to common inquiries regarding piracy and the importance of privacy.
ISP/Copyright notices
I just got a letter/email from my ISP about copyright infringement, what now?
Often these letters/emails serve as an educational reminder to not further pirate anymore. Depending on the country you reside in, this may mean the notices are just that, meaningless with no repercussions. ISPS in other countries however may suspend or terminate your service, and/or hand over your personal information to copyright holders. As an example, ISPs Sky and Virgin based in the UK, deliver educational emails to copyright violators. Virgin is ambiguous about repurcissions whereas Sky has explicitly mentioned that violations will not result in service suspension. For more information regarding repercussions, your letter/email most likely states it, if not, refer to your ISPs ToS.
Protect yourself, take action so it does not happen again by investing in a VPN or seedbox. A VPN creates a secure network connection over a public network such as the internet and encrypts your traffic. Your ISP will continue to know that you are consuming bandwidth, but to their eyes, your traffic will be encrypted.
A seedbox is a remote server where you download your torrents to. Then you download them back through FTP. It is extremely unlikely for your ISP to monitor your FTP transfers.
Using a private tracker in conjunction with either solution is also advised. Copyright trolls go after low hanging fruit such as public trackers [thepiratebay, extratorrent, rarbg]. By using a private tracker you are diminishing the likelihood of receiving an infringement letter however it is still not impossible.
For more information on both services and private trackers, check out:
How does my ISP know what I am downloading?
The blame does not lie solely with your ISP but rather with copyright trolls. Copyright trolls are parties that monitor the distribution of copyrighted material and use “mass copyright litigation to extract settlements from individuals”[1]. These parties actively partake in the downloading of new releases and copyrighted content and enter the torrent swarm (the entire network of people connected to a single torrent).[2] Once in the swarm, they are able to view all the peer’s IP addresses and forward them to their respective ISP. Your ISP then acts as the intermediary and must forward the warnings to each user to comply with copyright law.
What VPN should I get?
You should seek a VPN that does not store connection and usage logs. Within this subreddit and Reddit as a whole, you will find aggressive VPN marketing tactics by nearly all top popular VPN services. Do your own research. You will often encounter the suggestion to visit That One Privacy Site. Do not rely blindly on the chart and look up each individual VPN’s ToS. Many VPNs offer trials and refunds, use these to your benefit when determining which VPN best suits your needs. Below are some good research material to start with:
Also check out the community guides posted below to stay safe/avoid legal troubles while pirating
Windows
Upgrading to Windows 10 (from a pirated OS)
Upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 7/8.1 is still available through Microsoft's accessibility portal (for people who use assistive technologies) which can be found here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade
If your Windows 7 OS was activated with a SLIC loader (i.e. Daz's loader), or your Windows 8.1 OS was activated with a KMS activator, after upgrading to Windows 10, your OS wil be genuine thanks to digital entitlement. Digital entitlement provides your Windows 10 copy a genuine digital license since "you upgraded to Windows 10 for free from an eligible device running a genuine copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1."
This digital license is tied to your hardware. Therefore if you would prefer to "clean install" Windows 10 after the upgrade, you can reset Windows 10 and it will activate automatically after the clean installation. You may also sign in with your Microsoft account to have the key tied to your account.
Listed below are some relevant links to the upgrade process and digital entitlement:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12440/windows-10-activation
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/55398-link-microsoft-account-windows-10-digital-license.html
On Bitrate and Codecs
/r/Piracy receives many questions on the subjects of bitrate, codecs, and the like. This article is meant both as a reference on these subjects, and a ‘quick answer’ for many of the most common questions.
Resolution
Resolution refers to the number of pixels in an image or a single frame of a video file. It is usually expressed in the form WxH, where W is the width of the frame and H is the height. Most televisions are ‘Full HD’, which means 1920x1080. ‘UHD’, on the other hand, is twice the width and height to make 3840x2160. Most individuals and companies call this specific resolution ‘4K’.
(Historically, the term ‘4K’ referred to a slightly wider 4096x2160, but for the sake of simplicity, this article takes the most commonplace definition.)
Additionally, resolution can be expressed as the height of the image followed by a ‘p’. 1920x1080 becomes 1080p, 4K becomes 2160p.
Bitrate
The term ‘bitrate’ refers to the number of bits (ones and zeros) per second for a video or audio file. This number directly affects both quality and filesize. A video file with a high bitrate is larger than one with a low bitrate, but has more details.
For a more visual description, consider the image comparision linked below. [Image has been cropped to show detail.]
![https://i.imgur.com/O64htN7.png](%%compression%%)
At 95%, the image is visually ‘perfect’, only with direct comparison with the source image can any differences be spotted.
At 50%, some quality is sacrificed (note the slight blockiness in the hair, and the lost detail in the sky and forehead). This version isn’t as good as the previous one, but the file is almost a fifth of the size!
At 15%, the quality of the image is severely degraded. Detail is lost everywhere, and blockiness is prevalent. This version is only good for viewing on small screens or when you’re extremely tight on storage space: this file is one-fifteenth the size of the 95% quality version.
Bitrate in video is very similar. A higher bitrate yields better quality at the cost of filesize. Conversely, a lower bitrate takes up less space, but hurts image quality.
Bitrate is usually measured in megabits per second, abbreviated to Mbps (note the lowercase ‘b’). One byte is 8 bits, so one megabyte is 8 megabits.
You can calculate bitrate by finding the file’s size in megabits, and then dividing by the length of the file in seconds.
You can also go backwards: a 12 Mbps movie with a runtime of 2 hours is 12 * 2 (* 60 * 60) = 86400 megabits, or about 10 GB.
So what’s the best bitrate?
There isn’t a ‘best’ bitrate for everybody. Some people are watching on their 65” TVs and want the best (or at least, better) quality. Some people are watching on their phones in the car; there’s no need for the highest quality. It all depends on what you’re after (and how nitpicky you are).
With that being said, we can compare bitrates from different sources. YouTube’s 1080p video varies between 4 Mbps and 8 Mbps. 1080p Blu-Ray discs use 36 Mbps. If you’re watching on a phone, tablet, or small laptop screen you might want to find files somewhere in between these ranges. If you’re watching on a larger screen or TV you’ll probably want the original video files copied straight off the Blu-Ray. (This is called a ‘remux’, and downloads are usually labeled as such.)
Watch your filesizes: dual-layer Blu-Ray discs hold 50 GB. When a remux is done properly, unwanted data (like director commentary, extras) is thrown away, but you are still left with about 30 GB of movie data, sometimes more. If you see a ‘remux’ that’s 1.4 GB, don’t be surprised if it’s not up to par.
Containers
Just a note before we go into codecs: a ‘container’ is the name for the small wrapper that contains video data and codec data. It can be identified by its file extension. MP4, MKV, AVI, FLV, and WEBM are examples.
Extra note: An MKV can hold any kind of video, audio, and subtitles, including all the ones listed below.
Codecs
A ‘codec’ is a specification on how to convert from raw data to images on a screen. When a video file is stored, there is a specific codec that converts that data into what you see.
Video files that use a specific codec are said to be ‘encoded’ using that codec.
Some codecs are better than others in the sense that they can get more quality using fewer bits (smaller filesizes) than others. We describe these codecs as ‘more efficient’.
Here is a small list of popular codecs:
Xvid
Xvid isn’t actually a codec, it’s a program that encodes videos. The name for the codec it uses is MPEG-4 ASP, but that never stuck. Quality-wise, it was OK for it’s time (2001!), but doesn’t hold a candle to modern codecs. Usually contained in AVI.
H.264
Also called MPEG-4 AVC, this codec is used everywhere, basically. Usually contained in MP4.
VP9
Developed by Google and used in YouTube and WEBM, this codec usually beats out H.264 by a small margin. Since no media standard uses it (Blu-Rays use H.264 or H.265), you won’t see this one very often. Usually contained in WEBM
H.265
Also called HEVC. The current champion, replacing H.264. Some 1080p Blu-Rays and all 4K Blu-Rays use this one. Usually contained in MP4, if not MKV.
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