you should pirate shit

you should download files. it's fun, free, and better for the world than streaming services. "but it's hard" this is a guide. i promise you don't need to be a computerhead. i believe in you.

why should i pirate shit?

streaming services suck. in every industry, they make their money by financially ruining the people who make the art they profit off of. their algorithms, instead of helping you "discover new art", funnel you into what they want you to watch/listen/play. they're janky & inconsistent & are all missing things. fuck em.
having your collection of files rules. remember how dads would get excited about their cd or dvd collections? they were right. that shit rules. trust me: knowing your collection represents your tastes, and you're in control of what's in it feels sick as hell.
it's free! spend your 10 bucks a month buying music from a broke artist on bandcamp instead. easy.
using media library server software, you can stream your own files to your tv/phone/etc, like streaming services.
pirate streaming sites also exist but tbh they also suck and I'm not trying to sit through "try not to cum" ads to watch a show in questionable quality with no subtitle options.

read on to Learn....

how to torrent shit

now we're cooking. first, let's get a torrent program ready!

download qbittorrent. this is a program that lets you download torrents. look it up if you wanna learn how it works. other ones probably also work fine but this is my favorite. utorrent is the only one I've heard Bad things about (has ads, sus ownership).
you can poke around settings if you want. you can do fun things like customize download locations, make categories of torrents, the world's your oyster
understand how they work this much: "leeching" means downloading, and "seeding" means uploading to other people. the more seeders a torrent has, the faster it downloads. more leechers = more people downloading it = slower. when you finish downloading a torrent, you can leave it seeding to upload it to other people (if you wanna help a homie out), or pause/delete the torrent (not the files) to prevent it from seeding (if you want to save bandwidth). when you search torrent sites, you probably wanna sort by seeders. more seeders = faster and more likely to be legit/high quality (more people have downloaded it)
install ublock origin. you should have this shit anyway, it's great. but especially if you're looking at torrent sites, you'll want an adblocker.
now you are ready for files

how to pirate music

big "general" torrent sites usually have less music, so you'll want to use specific options to find newer music/from smaller artists. I recommend either soulseek or rutracker. they're both easy but need 2 minutes of setup.

soulseek

soulseek is imo the best way to get music. how it works is you download directly from other users who choose to share their files. download it, make a username/password, and choose a folder to share. (you can choose an empty folder if you don't want people to potentially download your music, but it's nice to help out.)
search for a song/album/etc, then right click on the result you want and hit "download". you can also download whole folders, if for instance a guy has a folder with a discography you want.
feel free to futz around with the settings to customize your download location (this can be really handy to make it download directly to your music folder!), change ui colors, stuff like that
if you wanna get fancy you can enable port forwarding for soulseek in your modem settings, which some users require. for 99.99% of music this won't matter, but if a user who requires port forwarding has a niche song you want, go for it. it's a bit complicated but don't worry about it.

rutracker

rutracker is one the biggest Russian combination forums/torrent sites. it's very large, up to date, and trustworthy virus-wise. it honestly has everything, but sometimes only in Russian - but music can't get translated to Russian.
two setup steps needed here. first, install a browser plugin to translate all text on a page from Russian to English. then, make a rutracker account (they require an account to search). I've had an account since 2011 and I've never gotten an associated spam email or had to think about it at all.
then, search for whatever album you want, and download the torrent. bada boom.

listening to music files

you now have beautiful files. there are a couple music player programs around. there's a bunch of fun featured they can have, but I strongly recommend one that has a feature to auto sort music by artist/album. this means you can just download music into your music folder and it automatically sorts it cleanly. here are some:

i use musicbee, which has a clean layout while also letting you get finnicky with settings if you want to.
iTunes works, and does sort files for you. it doesn't support flac, which is the audio file format where it's at max quality all the time. yoh definitely don't need your audio in flac, but it can be annoying if you download something in flac and iTunes doesn't allow it.
if you're a sicko you can use foobar2k, which is the most "looks basic as hell is kinda janky but lets you customize everything" option. tbh if you're a foobarhead you probably don't need this guide lol.

sorting your music library with musicbee

open preferences, then check "auto-organize media files"
make sure it's monitoring your music folder, and check "continuously monitor"
it should look like this
this means that whenever you download music into this folder, it will automatically sort it so it's nice and organized :)

a note on audio quality

speaking of sicko shit, a quick rundown on audio quality: the kbps is a number of how high quality a song is. flac is the most it can be. 320kbps is the quality where usually human ears can't tell if it's any higher. sometimes you can get "v0" quality, which means variable, which means they compressed the quality more on quiet parts of the song to save space without making it sound worse.

how to pirate movies/tv

find a torrent site: 1337x.to or torrentgalaxy are my go-tos. good old the pirate bay is probably fine but I don't use it as much cuz it's the big one which means more unmoderated & likely to be watched by media companies.
nyaa.si is your go-to for anything anime (as well as manga and some Japanese non-animated movies, games, etc)
search for the movie/show you want. note naming conventions: for shows, ppl format by season/episode, so "season 4 episode 3" becomes S04E03. if you want a specific episode, use that format, or if you want a whole season or show, try "s01" or "complete" or just the name of the show.
some other notes: if you see things like x264/265, those are just encoding formats people use to compress video files. there might also be info on audio format, subtitles, or the uploader name. don't sweat it.
a minor petty note: YIFY torrents are popular cuz they're really small, but usually at the expense of shitty audio quality. and they often don't come with subtitles. I recommend against them.

watching video files

use VLC. it's the best program for that.
good torrents come with subtitles, but if one doesn't, go into the VLC "view" and hit "vlsub". this auto searches for subtitles for you. it's great :) (edit: this is an addon, not in base VLC)
if subtitles are out of sync with the audio, use this guide

how to pirate ebooks

good news: only one site and it's easy. anna's archive. It's got it all.
calibre is a good program for managing ebooks and easily sending them to ebook readers. it can also convert formats!
you can read them using apple books, upload them to google play books (these sync with your phone), or whatever really. I use thorium on PC and apple books on my phone.
if you want manga, nyaa.si is probably your best bet. it's "the anime site". you can use a .cbz reader to read manga files -- google around for whichever one is best for your OS :~)
- i hear tachiyomi is a good android app for manga
- https://mangafire.to/ i also hear good things about
https://theaudiobookbay.se/ for audiobooks (thanks rhiannon)
https://getcomics.org/ or https://github.com/fireshaper/Omnibus for "big 2" comics (thanks goldenflitz)

how to pirate games/software

this category doesn't often need you to find any specialized site, but it is the category that involves downloading and running .exe files, and as a result is the type of shit to pirate that it is the easiest to get a virus from. here are some general safety tips

check comments, especially on big torrents.
generally speaking, the bigger the torrent, the more likely it is that if it had a virus, someone would have noticed. but not always!
the guys putting viruses in stuff often target release day highly hyped game releases. for instance, the only time i've seen a bitcoin miner hidden in a torrent on 1337x.to was a release day torrent of baldur's gate 3. for this type of thing, be particularly careful.
if you're downloading like, a visual novel from 2008, it's pretty unlikely someone would go to the trouble of putting a virus in there.
use your head and run antivirus scans. note that some crack keygens (aka ways to get around anti-piracy measures) can trigger antivirus scans despite being safe. use your head

some good game-specific sites

fitgirl repacks is the internet's #1 trans woman who compresses games to smaller filesizes for efficient, accessible downloading. she's a real one.
gog-games.to for direct downloading any game that is on gog
https://dodi-repacks.site/ is another repacks site
https://r-roms.github.io/ ROMs to emulate basically any console game (except switch for legal reasons)
https://cs.rin.ru/ is a site for cracking & running steam games. you need to make an account first and look through forum posts. i haven't used it myself but i hear it's reliable

a special bonus: setting up a media server

a "media server" is basically a program you run on your computer that lets you stream (or even download) the video or music files you want from your computer to other devices. this lets you use your phone to listen to music you've downloaded, watch downloaded videos on your smart TV, or even use "watch together" features to sync up watching a movie with your friends.

setting up a media server is easier than it sounds, and once it's up you basically have all the functionality of streaming services. i use two at the moment: plex and jellyfin.

plex

plex is the most popular media server program, and the easiest to set up. just download their "plex media server" program and follow its setup. notably, you can share your plex library with whoever you want, so your friends can watch movies you have, and its "watch together" feature lets you watch the same show/movie...together! i've used this like 10 billion times over the pandemic.

the only bad things about plex are:

because it's the popular one, it has a bit too many stupid features that no one wants, and are technically trying to launch their own streaming service, but you can just ignore them
they want you to pay for "plex plus" or whatever to be able to download music onto your phone, which is the main thing I used spotify for, so i could listen to an album on a walk without using data. so that's why i set up jellyfin!

jellyfin

jellyfin is the plucky, open-source, hackier/nerdier media server program that i use. it requires a bit more tech literacy to set up. i use it because some guy made an ios app called "finamp" that lets me download music from my computer to my phone. expect to have to know a bit more about computer bullshit to set this one up, but with some googling it's not too bad.

"the scaries"

what if I get in trouble?/I got a scary email

probably you won't. media companies basically only ever prosecute the guys who run torrent sites.
- edit: as danielg in the comments points out, depending on where you live, there might be more risk. up to you whether you wanna pay for a vpn pre-emptively or wait till you get a warning email
what they DO sometimes do is:
1. sit in popular torrents for shows/etc they own and look at the IP addresses of other ppl downloading those specific torrents. IP address shows which internet service provider it belongs to and which country it's from.
2. if an IP belongs to an internet company they have a deal with, they tell that internet company to email the people with that IP address to say hey why were you downloading that. knock it off.
3. this only works if they have a deal with your internet company and you use the specific torrent they were watching.
basically, what this means is: if you get a scary email and want to keep downloading the specific show/etc you got the email about, you might want to get a VPN. a VPN hides your real IP address and shows the torrent a generic one. look it up if you wanna know how it works. I recommend mullvad VPN.
- ppl in the comments also recommending proton vpn or Riseup VPN
if you haven't gotten an email, or are downloading other unrelated things, you're probably fine. use your head.

what about viruses?

again, you're probably fine, but use your head. if you're downloading audio/video you're probably safe, but if there's an .exe in the torrent for a new movie, that's sus. check comments on torrents to see if people say it's sus. run antivirus scans.

ok! all that out of the way, let's get some fuckin files!

other handy resources

r/piracy reddit megathread - big list of a bunch of piracy information. thank you reddit
if people want i can make an avanced "how to get on private trackers/setting up automated stuff like sonarr/radarr/etc" followup (edit: cohost user nys made one for -arrs)
freemediaheckyea -- general big resource w/ lists of places to check out, beginner's guides. seems like there's a ton of great shit on there
feel free to suggest more in the comments and i will add....

sadie avery lake

@lake-scum

skee ba pa bada bo