question about streaming(and what was put in a spending bill on it)

[feralfreak]

i like to watch shows that arent available in my country(usa), for example:sea patrol, mrs browns boys (its hilarious, i wish it would come to the states), and older shows(the live action superboy from the 80s and 90s), 80s and 90s cartoons, things like that, a friend told me with the omnibus spending bill having something attached that does something streaming that i might end up arrested for watching shows, i think i only applies to those who upload the content, i dont understand a lot of legalese, i dont understand anything that isnt simple anyway, can someone help me out and tell if im gonna get in trouble for just watching an old show? its not like im watching new movies that way, i use to maybe a decade ago but not anymore, id rather catch those on tv

[kasarberang]

What you are doing is technically illegal. Will you get in trouble for it? probably not, it's a fairly low priority. Your ISP may yell at you about it though, especially if you're torrenting these shows. But it is technically illegal.

 

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

The question you has relates to government so who can know?

[feralfreak]

2 hours ago, kasarberang said:

What you are doing is technically illegal. Will you get in trouble for it? probably not, it's a fairly low priority. Your ISP may yell at you about it though, especially if you're torrenting these shows. But it is technically illegal.

 

i never use torrents, just youtube, dailymotion, 123movies(they got that superboy show), wcostream.com(that is for cartoons), videos in bing.com, things like that

[kasarberang]

8 hours ago, feralfreak said:

i never use torrents, just youtube, dailymotion, -snip, things like that

I'd look into a good cheap VPN (free ones are bad and will get you in more trouble than had you not got one) personally I use Mullvad. That'd eliminate any issue with your ISP nagging at you and possibly suspending your service.

As far as if the government is going to come knocking on your door, probably not, I know many people who do similar things with no protection and no one has gotten in trouble. People who watch shows through websites like that aren't exactly high priority. That of course is just my opinion based on my experiences, I'm not a lawyer and you shouldn't take what I say as any form of legal advice.

Every time you watch content like this you are taking a risk (especially from sites that aren't YouTube and Dailymotion), most likely situation is your ISP will send you some nasty letters before suspending your service (which happens to many people in the U.S depending on their ISP and how lenient they are with such content).

In the end I'd do some research of your own, maybe look into a decent VPN and make your own decision.

[~Brian~]

13 hours ago, kasarberang said:

What you are doing is technically illegal. Will you get in trouble for it? probably not, it's a fairly low priority. Your ISP may yell at you about it though, especially if you're torrenting these shows. But it is technically illegal.

 

@feralfreak@kasarberang

It is technically illegal, yes, and while you may NOT get into trouble doing whatever it is you are doing, the likelihood that you could is NOT zero - I Figure that if your provider notices a lot of bandwidth being used, they may decide to investigate what is going on, and they may decide to warn you, or throttle you, or they may decide to send you a letter.  I have heard of this happening, but in order to get that far they would have to suspect something is amiss.

I must point out, that PTP (Peer to Peer) clients, such as BitTorrent and others, are NOT illegal in and of themselves.  They may become that way, depending on the way they they are used.  I use that PTP client if I need something that would take HOURS to download, especially CD/ISO images for windows/mac/linux, or if what I need is quite large in size to FTP/SFTP to my machines. Using PTP clients like this is not illegal, because many programs in the Linux architecture are free to download.

However, you STILL have to be careful, as some a-hole may decide to upload things that are NOT what they really are, and name a file something it is not:  Then, you may download GOD KNOWS what, and infect your machine:  You should always be "on guard" for this.  Is it necessary to get what you are looking for?  Is it SAFE to get the file you need from the sources you are searching?  That will be up to you, but I advise CAUTION!

3 hours ago, kasarberang said:

In the end I'd do some research of your own, maybe look into a decent VPN and make your own decision.

@kasarberang

Well Said sir

Brian

[PoPoDiaperFetish]

As Brian said, if you are downloading anything beware.  People will upload items under one name and it be something completely different when you download it.  (Those who used Limewire back in the day will know.)

[~Brian~]

4 hours ago, PoPoDiaperFetish said:

As Brian said, if you are downloading anything beware.  People will upload items under one name and it be something completely different when you download it.  (Those who used Limewire back in the day will know.)

@PoPoDiaperFetish

This is correct:  You NEVER know what the hell you have downloaded unless you are able to see a file index, and even that could be suspect.  In the days when Napster was popular in the late 90's we used to search for and download music tracks from the internet on college IP Addresses.  People walked away with TONS of music, and there really was no oversight, only that we may get in trouble for doing it.  For the most part, I didn't worry, because they would have to assign fault to someone, and in a college environment in those days, it would be hard to do.

So, the RIAA decided to SUE suspected downloaders.  They would assign a value and sue for like $1,000 TIMES the number of songs you have in your collections.  They tried to say that 8-12 year olds were breaking the law, so they would be held liable, even if they were MINORS:  Could you imagine having 100,000 songs, and being SUED $1,000 PER song:  That's 100 MILLION DOLLARS:  when they did that, I vowed to only keep what I had already amassed, and NEVER use Napster or any of these apps again.  They have literally made it hard for those who buy music, because you are paying for the music on a CD or a cassette or record, and because of the ease of dealing with electronic media exchange, there was NOT very many choices to download MP3's legally, and this was when the craze was popular.

Nowadays you have Itunes, and Spotify and Apple Music:  There is NO REASON to covertly download music: You can do it legally.  This way, you are tracked, you PAY reasonable rates for the rights to stream/view/listen to content, and there is no fear of the RIAA suing my nephews or nieces because they have a wicked collection.   

There is also something else:  They CAN TRACK you if they so choose, so just because they CAN track you, they may not be watching you do it, but you should always be on guard that they CAN do it.  The Napster and Kazaa and other clients we use and the services may be dead, but as I said, your use of the client may NOT be illegal, because it depends on what you DO with it

Brian

[feralfreak]

i dont use file sharing programs, too easy to get hooked looking for naughy stuff, was not easy to get away from that, i just use sites like the ones i mentioned, mainly youtube, IF anything is actually downloaded its rare, and if i get a box asking if i want to i say "no", ran into a bunch trying to find reliable streams to get caught up on missed episodes, they kept wanting to say "your java is out of date" which is a big red flag for me