I’ve been on 1337x, ABC, torrentquest, eztvx, msearch, and pretty much all of the other sites on the megathread, both for “greatest treasures” (the general purpose section) and the movies & TV section specifically. Yet, the show that my wife and I want to watch is nowhere to be found in any of these. We’re confused why, as it’s not exactly an unpopular show.

Despite it not seeming to exist in a torrent format anywhere, among many other shows, it is forbidden both here and elsewhere to ask for help on finding a specific title. I was just hoping to learn the reasoning why. Is it just because the forum would be flooded with people asking for titles instead of taking the time to dig through the resources? What are people supposed to do when they do dig through the resources then?

  • Draconic NEO
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    131 day ago

    Is the Piracy room on Matrix an acceptable place to ask for that kind of stuff? I mean it is End-to-End Encrypted. Even if it isn’t allowed there you could always ask someone else via DM on Matrix, is why I highly recommend people make and link their matrix accounts to their Lemmy profiles. You do have to know who to ask of course but these types of vague posts are great for that.

    Note: Can’t use Lemmy’s built-in DMs you need to use Matrix or some other E2EE service, especially if they’re going to share direct links to you. Don’t use a corporate one like Facebook messenger or Whatsapp which is advertised as E2EE, those are a scam and they break their own encryption.

      • Draconic NEO
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        18 hours ago

        Huh, could’ve sworn when I joined it the first time it was encrypted since it said I can’t see the history of encrptypted messages and I got “can’t decrypt message” errors a few times on my Android client.

          • Draconic NEO
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            16 minutes ago

            Sure it does, it makes it so newcomers can’t view the chat history, it makes less sense to encrypt a room anyone can join but it doesn’t make no sense at all.

    • @easily3667@lemmus.org
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      8 hours ago

      There’s no proof of them actually breaking their own encryption.

      Further, if that piracy room on matrix is public, it obviously doesn’t matter that the communication on it is private. It’s still a public place.

      Lol, lots of downs with no comments indicating why I’m supposedly wrong about either claim. Amazing what weak bottom feeders some people are.

      • @zeca@lemmy.eco.br
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        8 hours ago

        the matrix room may be public, but when you choose someone to talk to via dm, at that point encryption matters. Of course, you shouldnt really trust that random person from the matrix room, but it being an encrypted chat reduces the risk somewhat.

  • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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    1102 days ago

    Is it just because the forum would be flooded with people asking for titles

    This, and it risks the community getting shut down.

    If it’s really that hard to find, you could give back to the community by purchasing, ripping, and sharing it.

    • @rabber@lemmy.ca
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      162 days ago

      Shouldn’t the instance where piracy community is hosted be in a country where piracy is legal then?

      • @xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        31 day ago

        then you can get countries blocking it by dns….
        there’s other, less censorable forums out there.

        • Chewy
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          111 day ago

          Yeah. Piracy being legal or Piracy not being sanctioned are two entirely different things. Idk about the former, but the latter is the case in many countries.

          E.g. downloading and streaming is legal in Switzerland, while it’s illegal in the EU. But it’s not sanctioned, so nobody cares.

          Uploading/seeding is illegal in both regions, thus torrenting copyrighted material is illegal. But Switzerland doesn’t really prosecute torrenting, so nobody cares.

        • Ricky Rigatoni
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          81 day ago

          We could purchase an oil rig and host the site in international waters. It worked for that one guy in the 80’s.

  • @ElectricAirship@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    542 days ago

    If you use qbittorrent, they have a search function built in so you don’t have to manually search every site. I have found many shows that were impossible to find on sites because they have odd names.

    • I Cast Fist
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      710 hours ago

      Oh my fucking god, I’ve been using qbit and never went beyond setting up the barebones basic. Thanks a lot for talking about this feature!

      For anyone interested, it’s in the View menu -> Search Engine (should be 5th option). It’ll ask to install Python if you don’t have it already.

      After that, you should see a new tab on the upper left: Transfers / Search. On the bottom right, click the “Search plugins” to let it download/install some. Presto!

        • @Geodad@lemm.ee
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          16 hours ago

          I’m a Gnome guy. I might put it on a spare laptop to try it out. I try to avoid contaminating my main system with qt code. 🤣

          • ferret
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            2 hours ago

            Bizarre behavior, you know people use Qt and GTK on windows and mac too, right?

    • @SilentObserver@lemm.ee
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      132 days ago

      I have literally never thought to try that. 😂 Thanks for sharing this! Next time I’m struggling, I’ll give it a try.

  • @wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    101 day ago

    You can always try 4chan’s /r/ board. It’s specifically for requesting shit, usually links to pirated content.

    Haven’t teied using it in almost a decade though, so can’t vouch too well for it.

  • @Ilandar@lemm.ee
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    392 days ago

    If I really couldn’t find something and I was really that desperate, I’d just try to buy it somewhere. Assuming it’s also difficult to buy, I’d be looking at online marketplaces and op shops. If pirates are going to keep hiding behind the “piracy is a service problem” line then at some point they do need to admit that paying for the product is actually the more sensible and straightforward option if they have reached a deadend elsewhere.

    • Lka1988
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      182 days ago

      If pirates are going to keep hiding behind the “piracy is a service problem” line then at some point they do need to admit that paying for the product is actually the more sensible and straightforward option if they have reached a deadend elsewhere.

      Uh, yeah, that’s why “piracy is a service problem” was even a thing in the first place. Music is a great example, because you can get nearly every artist on every streaming service.

      This is a widely-known fact often acknowledged by most pirate types.

      • @Ilandar@lemm.ee
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        42 days ago

        What is a widely-known fact? From the “uH yEaH” you sound like you’re trying to argue with me but I’m not really sure what your point is. I never said piracy can’t be a service issue, what I said is that people who trot this line out literally every single time to defend their pirating should follow through when piracy becomes more convoluted and time consuming than the legal alternative. Many don’t, the line has become a convenient catch-all cop out that people hide behind so they can pretend acquiring everything for free makes them some kind of morally superior consumer activist. I wasn’t having a go at OP specifically, but the logical conclusion when you get to their point should be to give up and pay or rent through a library or something.

  • Dem Bosain
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    252 days ago

    Sorry, you’re not going to find The Duck Factory anywhere. Despite being Jim Carrey’s first starring roll, it’s just a formulaic 80s sitcom with limited production value and typical period writing.

  • A Wild Mimic appears!
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    2 days ago

    If it’s hard to find, first i try searching via jackett integration into qbittorrent. if unsuccessful, i go over to xrel.to and search for it there (its a pure information site, don’t ask for downloads there pls). You can verify if there has ever been a release of the specific title, and if, you can see the exact name of the release. if you can’t find it there too, you can be pretty sure that there never was a release, neither p2p nor scene. if it’s newer content, you can try to search later; if its older content, go buy it and upload it yourself (safely!) so the next person doesn’t have the same issue.

    • J-Bone
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      6 hours ago

      if you can’t find it there too, you can be pretty sure that there never was a release, neither p2p nor scene.

      This is not really true. I tried a few searches of more obscure movies and they don’t have releases that are available on multiple private trackers.

      That being said, if you can’t find a release, the best option is to buy a DVD or BlueRay version of it.

      • A Wild Mimic appears!
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        114 hours ago

        yeah, i didn’t want to get into the private tracker stuff, since i never used one before; i described pretty much the ressources you have as a “commoner”. I am aware that there are many specialized sources out there, where a lot more obscure material is available, but most of those take special effort to gain access to.

        • J-Bone
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          6 hours ago

          There are also non-english language public trackers that don’t leverage western style filename rules.

          E.g. mazepa.to (Ukrainian) and rutracker.org (russian). The sites require registration (open to all), but the torrents are public (no ratio requirements and torrents do not have the private flag).

          The search functions support English language titles with no issues at all. You can find any mainstream movie/show on both trackers. Rutracker has some niche content that I’ve not been able to find on specialized private trackers.

          One drawback is that the trackers require local language dubs/VO, so some some content is never released on them.

      • @kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        51 day ago

        That being said, if you can’t find a release, the best option is it just to buy a DVD or BlueRay version of it.

        And then rip it and upload so that the next person doesn’t have to.

  • exu
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    152 days ago

    Get on a few private trackers and make a request

    • Bayesian
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      51 day ago

      That first part is where I’m stuck lol. I am fine with maintaining a good ratio but have limited bandwidth to pass a big exam or get in with the right crowd socially…

      • Drew
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        16 hours ago

        Someone just gave me an invite to torrentleech.org when I asked here. I don’t have enough points yet otherwise I’d have sent you one lol

        • @daq@lemmy.sdf.org
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          13 hours ago

          You’re technically not supposed to invite people you don’t know because you’re responsible for your invitees to some degree.

  • @BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    After I check the usual torrent sites, if I can’t find it on Usenet then I try finding random sketchy streaming sites (just by duckduckgoing title + year + stream) because usually you can youtube-dl them with a little fiddling, then my last resort is a DHT indexer like btdig. That’s more risk with viruses but if you’re paying attention it’s not that hard to avoid, but DHT indexes have lots of ancient stuff so be prepared to wait for seeds if you find it.

    Sometimes I also find what I’m looking for on like page 7 of duckduckgo results at archive.org

    Edit: also check soulseek - it’s primarily for music but you can share any file. I share my entire movies collection and get a constant stream of people downloading from me daily so it seems people search for and seem to also share TV and movies so it’s worth a check.

    • plinky [he/him]
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      92 days ago

      also searching for “title_name” “magnet” is productive as well, either on ddg/ecosia/yandex (using torrent keyword instead brings results as well, but also sketch looking websites. also magnet links don’t require registration)

  • Dave.
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    2 days ago

    Have you tried…

    you know,

    (cough)

    maybe just, ah …

    (air quotes) “heavily implying”

    the , ah, you know …

    particular

    (taps side of nose)

    ah, torrent

    in

    (eyebrow waggle)

    ahem,

    QUESTION?

    Eh?

    Ehhhhh?