this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Torrenting is a technology where a network of ordinary people share a file in tiny pieces all together. There's no central server, you connect to one, ten, or a hundred other computers who each give you part of the file.
Torrenting only works if people are uploading the file as well as downloading it. Giving a file to others is called seeding, and taking a file from others without giving back is called leeching. Most people are peers, who take the same amount they give. Ideally, everyone would be a peer, but since some people are leeches, we also need seeders.
I'm not familiar with this stremio app, but if it does what I think it does, then it takes from the network without giving back and it can now pretend to be a different client to sneak onto the network. If enough stremio users watch a show, it'll become unavailable to other pirates.
Not 100%, stremio is a front end for a debrid service and the debrid service will download the torrent and add it to their cache and stremio users will access the downloaded file directly from the debrid services' servers.
Only the initially download may cause a slow down of torrents. Idk exactly how they distribute the file to their cdn. If all the servers in their cdn download the same file at 1 time it may cause a temporary slow down of torrents but i would assume they don't download directly on each server and instead download on some close to the requesting user and then use some kind of file synchronization technique to propogate the file through the network.
Their cache is pretty huge and for most shows they already have tons of links cached and wouldn't need to keep downloading very often.
Stremio isn't the first front end for these services and like all the rest of them it will eventually get shutdown too and this will continue long after stremio.
The real.issuein my opinion isnt bandwidth hogging by debrid services its that if everyone migrates to them that the majority of the network will be leechers. With less seeders the remaining seeders will need more powerful computers to support the torrents and if they cant afford the upgrade them the whole system could collapse
A lot of the shows I watch aren't popular to torrent. Infinity Train got taken down by Cartoon Network, and now it only exists for pirates. So pirates need to seed it so it can continue to exist in any form. Same for Generator Rex. I wanted to watch The Flying Nun, but it ran out of seeds and can't be watched anymore. If a single leech downloads a show on the brink like Generator Rex, it could end up like The Flying Nun. Gone forever. I'm not worried about these popular new releases like Invincible or Loki, I'm worried about media preservation.
I'm not so sure that this would hurt those tho. These services would require their to be at least 1 seeder to be able to stream it, so they arent really taking the seeder away. Most likely the seeder dropped.
If anything this would help the seeder by offloading downloading of the show else where and providing a second place for the file. Typically if you see a low seeded content that you like, it would be courteous to seed it after downloading it
Stremio doesn't seed after you download. It downloads, puts on the screen, and throws away.
Yes, i get that the best option would be for stremio to seed it but i don't see how it would be feasible considering the low storage capacities of tvs.
The reality is i dont think this will kill torturing because leechers have always existed piracy is about providing things for free to others, can we really expect all the people who can't afford to buy the media to suddenly be able to afford a vpn, seedbox, storage?
Piracy is like tor network, volunteers are the backbone but most users are leechers. The network has been going strong for years with leechers and it wont die now
Just use real-debrid. It acts as a cache for you for $3/month. Leech off someone you pay to leech off.
Not 100% on the terminology. Peers are everyone connected. Seeders have 100% of the file, and leechers don't. Leechers can be someone who stopped halfway and uploads the half they have, or someone who is still downloading, or someone who actually leeches.