As I get more and more invites to private trackers, I’m finding that I find myself spending more and more time on public tracker websites.

I’ll only use private trackers if I can’t find what I’m looking for on a public tracker. Private tracker rules can get pretty onerous and I prefer to just avoid the whole scene if possible.

If I’m honest, this opinion surprises me. I didn’t expect to prefer public trackers. I always thought that private trackers were so cool and exclusive. I don’t think that way anymore.

  • @GingeyBook@lemm.ee
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    357 months ago

    How do you go about getting invited to a private tracker?

    I seed all my Linux isos on public trackers but I’m not active in any communities

    Will an owl show up someday with a letter?

    • @Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      157 months ago

      Yes. you just need to visit an open invite forum/thread like on reddit or on the interwebz.
      Keyword: Open Signup

    • @SEND_NOODLES_PLS@lemmy.world
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      47 months ago

      I’ve been having difficulty joining private trackers as well, but mostly I’ve just been trying to apply to a few that I think I’d like to join. Don’t quite understand why I don’t get an invite though. I maintain a perma up seedbox, and wouldve thought that was mostly what’s important for private trackers.

    • jrbaconcheese
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      27 months ago

      You get an invite from a member. Or you can trade if you have an invite to spare, but I think it’s frowned upon by some.

      • @boooooboo@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        There are much easier trackers to get into that doesn’t require this much prereading prior.

        Private trackers (not the biggest ones though) do open signups from time to time too (ie no interview no vetting, just sign up), so look out for those.

        The most important thing is if you’re into the content offered on the site - RED’s only attractive if you’re an audiophile for instance, it doesn’t have movies/games etc. Get a name, then find out from there how to get into it. Read the rules on how not to get into leecher status almost immediately once you get in. Once you get your foot into an easier tracker that at least has some content you’re into, then make your way up if you want more.

        • neo (he/him)
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          17 months ago

          On the other hand, if you can interview for and get into RED, that’s a strong signal that you can make in in the realm of private trackers.

  • @splendoruranium
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    267 months ago

    I strongly disapprove of private trackers. I’m forced to take part in some only because the content isn’t available anywhere else. And the private trackers generally forbid re-sharing their content on public trackers, which unnecessarily gatekeeps the content and perpetuates the problem.
    If it doen’t help to make everything accessible to everybody then it’s not a valuable part of the sharing ecosystem.

    • athos77
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      77 months ago

      Do they forbid sharing the content, or do they forbid sharing the torrents? If it’s just the torrents, you can just create a public torrent with a different piece size and cross seed.

      • @splendoruranium
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        37 months ago

        It’s the content, presumably in order to maintain exclusivity of the little private club. That’s part of the problem, I suppose. Private trackers aren’t just an anonymous one-stop supermarket like some public trackers, they’re often small personal hangouts, actual communities. In of itself that sounds great, but it always carries the danger of content being held hostage for what - at least in my eyes - amounts to pointless, snobby elitism.

      • @WarmApplePieShrek@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        17 months ago

        The torrents, because they mess up tracker stats. Just change the source parameter so the infohash changes, and remove private=1 if you’re going to post on a public tracker.

    • @ANIMATEK@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Most trackers are fine with you sharing their content. Heck, most trackers don’t even produce most of their content.

      But let’s suppose they do. If you wanna share it, they cannot ever trace it back to your account, unless you are dumb and use the same username or something, but even then you can argue that it wasn’t you.

    • neo (he/him)
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      27 months ago

      No, they forbid you sharing their TORRENTS, not their CONTENT.

  • @GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world
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    237 months ago

    Private is so much better, availability and speed wise. For most, as long as you build ratio with freeleech torrents, you’re fine.

    • @Knuk@lemmy.world
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      37 months ago

      I haven’t had to get a torrent out of freeleech except for an ebook and now I’ve got a ratio in the millions

  • @CriticalMiss@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’m the occasional pirate, I don’t download more media than I watch and therefore never saw the appeal of private trackers. They have their perks, no doubt, but most of what I need can be found on the internet.

    • @SchizoDenji@lemm.ee
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      27 months ago

      If you only watch English content, 100%. But if you are into foreign language stuff then private trackers do have some scene releases that aren’t available on public ones.

      • @CriticalMiss@lemmy.world
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        47 months ago

        I rarely watch anything in my native languages, the content we produce is bad, so I never needed anything beyond what public trackers offer and very rarely subtitles.

  • @skele_tron@feddit.de
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    107 months ago

    I used to want to get in on some private trackers, esp cult movie related ( karagarga ) but was always put off by elitism of those rules and systems.

    Instead i opted to upload to pirate bay and like a trve pirate - no questions asked, download what you will - seeded some very obscure movies that i collected. Had to pull the plug after more than 10 yrs because i was emigrating, was a good time.

  • Type 1 [Missouri]
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    97 months ago

    I’ve applied for half-a-dozen private trackers, but they’ve all turned me down. Definitely seems counter to the entire idea of piracy IMO.

  • smoothbrain coldtakes
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    87 months ago

    I am on a few private trackers but they don’t offer anything that the public trackers don’t already have covered for my use case, outside of porn.

    I am more of a DDL pirate anyways. I have a seedbox for torrents but I tend to stick to mega links, even if there is a slight delay in getting the media. Typically what I find is that all the re-encoded high resolution h265 content comes later and is more abundant on the mega link forums than on trackers; most trackers will have h264 copies at 720/1080, but they’re often larger than the h265 high resolution re-encodes.

    • @SchizoDenji@lemm.ee
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      27 months ago

      Unless the h264 files extra audio tracks, you’re downloading lower quality (bitrate) stuff.

      • smoothbrain coldtakes
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        67 months ago

        The lower bitrate is fine because I’m usually streaming off the local network, so keeping the file sizes down is pretty beneficial.

  • ѕєχυαℓ ρσℓутσρє
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    87 months ago

    I’m kinda in the same boat, except for a specific private tracker. It’s a local private tracker which has a ton of exclusive stuff in my native language, and most of the users also speak it so there’s a communal aspect to it. But otherwise, yeah. I also tend to prefer public trackers, especially for more mainstream stuff.

  • @Crow@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I actually can’t find the stuff I want that’s missing on public trackers on private ones, so they’re pointless to me.

    Edit: Looking for HD middle seasons of Reno911.

  • athos77
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    67 months ago

    The newbie blues for each private tracker are a definite thing, but once you get past that it’s great. It also depends on which trackers you’re on: the general trackers tend to have similar content as publics, but it’s the specialty and niche trackers where privates really shine.

  • @Imprint9816@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    Doesn’t matter, my happiness is solely based on fulfilling my needs. This ends up requiring a mix of private and public trackers.

    In this day and age its easy to automate fulfilling whatever obligations a private tracker requires once invited, so they are a relatively small hassle most of the time.

  • @java@beehaw.org
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    7 months ago

    I can’t bother joining a private tracker. Of course, they might be useful for niche content. For instance, 15 years ago there was a special tracker, where people shared races of virtually all racing series. But mainstream stuff is available on public trackers.

    There one tracker where I download lossless music. But anyone can join it, I guess you could define it as semi-private or semi-public.

  • @dudemanbro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    My home-base is a private forum (DDL). I think of it as a place where people gather the best media from around the internet. We may not get it first but it eventually makes its way there. There are also many exclusive uploads (mostly encodes) but people do some fantastic work with upscales of movies and/or TV series. The user base is also part of the many private trackers the world has to offer. I am part of like 2 private trackers and they are phenomenal as well. I also use public trackers extensively as well as there is actually a lot of stuff out there. I will always try and seed for public trackers but I definitely don’t go as long as I would for private ones (just cause I don’t want to get dinged) (Yeah I could use a VPN but too lazy, even though I am in a place that don’t give many fucks about media piracy). I prefer DDL because I don’t have to maintain ratio, but I do understand that with private trackers there can be some more longevity (but isn’t really guaranteed). There are also other private trackers of the index variety that aren’t built around ratio which can be nice.

    There can be a lot of rules with private trackers, and yes some of them are really annoying, not gonna lie. The rules are there for a reason, for the most part. For some it’s about building a community, while for others it’s about making sure stuff survives for as long as possible. There are so many tools for a fellow seafarer to have and private trackers are just one of them and they serve a purpose. I am of the belief that all information should be available to everyone forever, but the world don’t work like that and the long dick of the law can really fuck you life up. I think a valuable lesson from private trackers is that it makes one not just be a leech and makes one give back. There is nothing wrong with leeching, but I always like to think that piracy is about sharing the wealth. (not trying to moralize piracy, to each their own)

    But as you said, public trackers have A LOT of stuff. So much media can be found on them. Private trackers help if you want the best of the best with regards to certain media or for hard to find stuff. Each have their place and it all about using the tools available to you