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A former film-pirate reveals how the murky world of torrents actually works

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DailyBiteJan 23, 2017 | 22:41

A former film-pirate reveals how the murky world of torrents actually works

In this day and age, finding someone who hasn’t watched a pirated movie is like finding a unicorn. While some can claim to be sanctimonious about the legalities of film piracy, it rarely stops one from downloading them off torrents. Sure, we now have the option to pay for movies and shows and watch them at the comfort of our homes, thanks to services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar, but their libraries are never big enough to fulfil anyone’s appetite for consuming videos.

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Hence, torrents.

But even as you, jump at joy at the sight of 5000+ seeders, or get angry at the poor quality of the movie you just downloaded, do you ever stop to think about those who take the pains to make these movies and shows just a couple of clicks away from us?

A former member of a Peer-to-peer group called DDR (Digital Desi Releasers) that pirated Bollywood movies held an AMA (ask me anything) session on Reddit. Using an anonymous ID, this man talks about how he has been doing 11 underground peer-to-peer sharing for 11 years. Reddit users, between thanking him for his services, asked him a lot of interesting questions, which provide an insight into the world of film piracy as we know it today.

They may be doing something illegal, but they believe that they are doing something that is right. Here are a few of the more insightful answers from the AMA:

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Do you ever stop to think about those who take the pains to make movies and shows just a couple of clicks away from us? [Photo: Bluesnap.com]

How does one make money from this? Or is it strictly not for profit?

DDR has never earned nor will ever a single penny through this. DDR's motto is Live Free, Share Free

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Instead lakhs (yes literally) of rupees are spent on yearly basis for servers, software, retails and other resources. It's all just for one single reason: Studio earns hundreds of crores through public, to say precisely by looting them. DDR believes in sharing that stuff for free by delivering it to your home. 

Though, I won't deny the fact that there are groups who utilise this platform to earn. But, the only satisfaction that DDR gets out of it is what an artist gets after his work is displayed.

The base/leadership of DDR is quite established in personal life and can hence afford it for the passion.

So do you release cam prints of movies? If yes how do you procure them on Day 0? Do you have some arrangement with some cinema hall?

Basically, DDR prefers quality over 0-day for pre-releases. So DDR avoids regular CAMs. But when there are big movies, yes, DDR does work on CAMs if nothing is available.

At times CAMs are available before the release date of the movie if the movie has screened outside India; if not, DDR gets the CAM source by Friday evening latest for most of the movies.

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And no, DDR doesn't have any kind of affiliation with any cinema. DDR gets its sources through [various] channels. But those sources are very prompt and secure.

In the earlier days, various groups had arrangements with various cinemas; but now, the screening is done digitally and it's much more secure. Long story short, every cinema receives the movie + encrypted key, that encrypted key is decrypted just before the show and there are many identifiers displayed on the screen while the movie is on. So, cinemas can get into big trouble if they try to get into any kind of foul activity. Then how does this happen? There are freelancers and agencies who have the courage to go inside the cinema and record the movie on their devices and sell it to suppliers all around the world.

P.S. 95 out of 100 pre-releases are cam. They're tagged with various naming conventions such as CAM, HDCAM, DesiSCR, SCR etc depending on their quality. Sounds weird, right? It is. Thre are big fights on regular basis for tagging the sources as well.

I find DVD-SCR most misleading. SCR means screening copies and the source is basically CAM

I totally agree. That pisses me off too.

That's what I hated on personal level. Desi p2p works in this way, they say we don't follow Hollywood p2p/scene, we make our own rules. So there's a meeting of all major Bollywood p2p group heads and they finalize the naming convention.

The last such meeting took place around 15 months ago where this was decided. CAM - Where the device is shaking/tilting etc. HDCAM - Where the device is shaky/tilting but the video resolution is high. Pre-DVD - Where the device is stable in most of the places. DesiScr - PreDVD video + better audio. DVDScr - Best quality pre-release/ (Don't confuse this with real screener).

These are the current naming convention. I hate them because they're misguiding but you'll have to live with it at the end of the day.

How did you balance your personal and virtual life? How much time did you spend weekly ripping through movies? How did you manage your live hood? Pretty sure you don’t get stipend doing all this.

We get nothing but satisfaction. That too is ruined nowadays by 1-click encoders. Balancing personal & virtual life is the biggest struggle. I disposed 11 years of my work after realising that I let my virtual life destroy my personal life for 11 years. It takes lots of discipline to balance the two worlds; 9 out of 10 people can't. Because it's all about releasing, and that too before the competitor. We've no fixed timings. At times, you get a message at 2AM stating that source has arrived and you need to rip and release by next morning. This is how we work. I won't exaggerate it but the torrents/stuff that you enjoy is hard work of someone else (given that the person who is releasing doesn't earn; like DDR).  

Has anyone from your group ever been compromised or been contacted by some studio?

A bit opposite. There were some ex-members of DDR who learned and mastered video encoding in DDR and then put their resumes in big studios and got accepted. Hence, left DDR for their safety as well as for teams.

Last updated: January 23, 2017 | 22:41
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