With the resurgence of pirating, do you think there will be a “response” from the powers that be?

In general, what would that look like?

Specifically, do you think VPN companies based in the US or friendly countries will start to feel legal or corporate pressure to stop letting people use their services to download copyrighted material?

I just feel like these things always ebb and flow.

  • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Yes they will, and anyone confident in saying no doesn’t understand that laws will be changed if they need to. If VPN usage is significant enough of a factor in piracy or any other illegal activity laws will be changed to find providers responsible. They could mandate data be logged. There’s so many other more nefarious things that these VPNs could be sheltering more important that governments would like to be able to have information on that I just can’t see them shrugging their shoulders and ignoring it. That time will come.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Go for it. I have a Digital Ocean droplet in Amsterdam. Took an evening to spin up, and I can do it again. $6/mo.

      You are aware that there are 1,000 uses for a VPN other than pirating? I work for a software dev, we’re dependent on half a dozen for secure access. Hell, even the accounting guy needs a VPN to upload to the bank.

      The powers that be depend on VPNs to do business. Mandate logging? OK. We’ll roll our own. This is old, proven and simple tech.

      • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Digital Ocean collects this data already. Some of these Vpn providers claim to collect nothing, sometimes not even payment information. If you’re doing something illegal on that Digital Ocean droplet and law enforcement tracks it down to that IP, Digital Ocean will comply with any lawful order for the data they have on you.

        • setVeryLoud(true);@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          You could theoretically set up a logless VPN server where everything resides in RAM… Unless DO can export RAM at an exact moment in time or catch you in the act and take a snapshot of the RAM at that moment.

          They could theoretically sniff your outgoing connections though, but that’s difficult to trace with DNS-over-HTTPS.

          • nabladabla
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            1 year ago

            They know which IP address belongs to which customer at the time and anybody can download a torrent of some copyrighted content and see which IP addresses are down or uploading it at any given moment. No need to inspect RAM, no need for DO to monitor traffic. They (the copyright holders) will send a cease and desist through DO already, and could change to send a lawsuit instead.

            • setVeryLoud(true);@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              For torrents, that is correct. For everything else, it’s less concerning.

              I’ve gotten letters from my ISP before about it lol