I am shut out on AB and Jpopsuki for different reasons.
For AB I stopped logging on enough, and for Jpop it’s because I only ever wanted to download one thing so I did but nobody ever wanted it besides me so now I am restricted and I thought I could just buy some music to upload but I can’t while restricted so I never uploaded several bounties I could fill, and then that was when I had the epiphany that I rarely want things, but if I do, I could just buy them anyways.
They are very self serving and I don’t care about them or tracker culture much anymore.

Ah right, I was also on Bakabt from when they were an open tracker, but again, I didn’t care so I lost access years ago.

I have an AB account and I appreciate it a lot. Most of the stuff I download is from there.

>>120408
It isn't hard to get into "private" trackers or the real scene for that matter. So the "you're just jealous" excuse is bullshit from the state. If anything private trackers are easier to get into that other forms of piracy. Why? Because people act like they're exclusive then turn right around and post about them in public spaces. They have general threads on 4/g/ and reddit. This is not an exclusive club. You've never seen someone running a real topsite posting about it in a public forum like that. In fact if they did they'd have their access revoked.

So who are they for? They aren't for anime fans in English speaking countries. Since no one has ever been taken to court for sharing Japanese media in an English speaking country. In fact, sharing anime was entry level low-risk p2p for as long as it has been a thing. Even back in the VHS days they were openly traded.

Let's talk about the torrent protocol itself. Anime was a big part of why it got popular initially. What problem were we trying to solve? We were trying to solve the old problem of distro. Where people were hoarding certain series on private ftp servers and DCC bots. We were trying to solve the problem of access to. Since torrents made everyone share at least a little bit of the file they were downloading with others while they were downloading it at least. It also allowed people to be helpful and seed after they'd finished downloading the file. Suddenly, now you to can run a DCC bot without knowing how to use IRC or setting up servers. The size of the community exploded thanks to sites like animesuki.

What about the torrent protocol itself? It's impossible to make it truly "private" because it's a public protocol by its very design. So any attempt to make it "private" is pretty stupid.

What about the law? Well VPNs and such are mostly a scam. Been downloading warez for decades now using my real IP. Never had a problem. It's almost like no one cares if you're sharing a raw or a fansub isn't it? The only people that give love letters are idiots that download western music and movies from bait torrents and seeds on p2p networks. Even those titles are easy to download without any worries of getting caught. All you have to do is not be stupid about it and do the minimal research.

So VPNs and private torrents are basically a big scam that take advantage of people that don't know any better and don't know how the underlying technology works. They pay $5-$10 monthly for something they do not need. Then they sign up for some "private club" that basically doxes them and logs everything they're doing. Which can kick them out at any time for no reason. But they think it's "exclusive" and they can brag about it on social media. So they do just that. They brag about having access then act shocked when the place gets taken down. Which it always does. Or the owner gets spooked and takes it down themselves. Happens every time given enough time going all the way back to the first "private trackers".

Do private trackers protect the users? No. The admins keep extensive logs about every user. So the moment someone gets mod tools access they can dox everyone using the place. Are they exclusive? No. Due to the nature of the protocol if I know the IP address of one person in the swarm I can download the data. The admins can do nothing about it.

Data is data. It's 1s and 0s. It should be free to anyone that wants it. There should be no such thing as "illegal data". It's impossible to hoard it away and keep it from others. In fact, it's your duty as a good internet user to make any "private" data available to the public. It's just like speech in that respect. The moment you restrict it you've censored it. The moment you censor one thing you might as well censor everything.

I for one am pissed off about the whole "private tracker" situation and the people that promote it. I very often need access to some obscure DVD or BD rip that hasn't been translated into English. I want to do the work and make it available to everyone. But it's always locked up behind some paywall or more likely some stupid-club wall. So instead of spending my time doing real work I'm forced to search around the internet for days/weeks to locate that data. Then some loser gets angry that I shared it with more people. All because they won't get more useless points and status in some stupid club.

Let's talk about public trackers. Are you aware that the most popular public tracker is controlled by the same people that promote all this private tracker nonsense? Are you aware that they ddos and send take down notices/snitch on any up and coming public tracker that is attempting to do a better job? Are you aware that they're lazy and the only reason they closed registration is to make the place feel more "exclusive"? Are you aware that they provide no support what-so-ever to anyone that isn't "in the club"? They claim it's too much work to do moderation while they lord their mod titles over others. They claim they don't have time but then turn right away and kick anyone that asks a question in their "support channels". God forbid you ask via email or IRC. You'll be told to "join the discord" where they're going to dig through any posting history they can find and attempt to dox you for access. All because you _might_ be the copyright police or something. As if any gives a damn about you sharing some old 80s anime anyway.

>>120411
Let's say you manage to get through all of that and get a release listed on the most popular public tracker. What do you think happens? If your answer is something like
>They'll show up in the comments to talk trash about your release where they know you can reply then spread rumors about it everywhere they can like on 4/a/
you'd be correct.

Ask yourself this; If they really wanted a secure, private and safe place to share data how come none of them have bothered to make something better than torrents? Why do they use 20+ year old protocol that leaks the IP address of everyone connecting to the swarm? Why don't they use ipfs or i2p or any of the better encrypted, private and "safer" protocols?

The answer is simple: They don't have the ability to make anything better and they aren't concerned about being "safe". Their only concern is status and having the ability to lord it over other people. It's why the same people promoting this dumb shit love platforms like discord so much. They know it isn't safe but it allows them to flex their access to moderator tools and create "servers" without any technical skill or real investment.

If you have access to any "private" tracker with real "exclusive" content it's your duty to leak it to the public. If the description says something like
>DO NOT SHARE THIS ON PUBLIC TRACKER!
then you should be sharing it on a public tracker. You should share it on IRC to. And FTP. And topsites. And anywhere else you can think of. Hell upload it to MEGA while you're at it.

The real "scene" doesn't have these problems. They have real rules and real people moving the data around out of the goodness of their hearts. They don't have 1,000 different bad releases for the same content either. They have 1 good release. Maybe a handful in different standards. But never 10 copies of the same kuso x264 10-bit garbage that doesn't run on anything but a weeb's PC with mpv installed.

The fansub scene used to be an amazing place to be. People were friendly. Standards were pushed. Technology was moving forward with tons of amazing folks building it for free. Now it's a bunch of idiots using 20+ year old tools to flex status over others. Hell they even defend the "official" garbage translations and actively chase away anyone attempting to provide something better. All while they claim to pine for the "good old days". The people that were around in the "good old days" can no longer obtain access to even the public trackers with more than 10 people using them. Hence why they no longer bother. Since they can likely watch anime in raw form. So any of these people taking the time to translate something for the new generation is already giving up their free time to do it. When they encounter what the modern fansub "scene" is like they pretty quickly grow disgusted with the whole thing and decide not the bother.

>>120411
Holy WPM man you build walls fast

I think I hate how TWITTER WONT FUCKING DIE even though microblogging addicts wont shut up about its dying and its terrible etc in other places.

Private trackers are eh, it depends on the one, I have a BakaBT but the things uploaded on it are weird but sometimes obscure stuff you cant find elsewhere or the best releases that have been lost to the sands of time. The main issue is the client whitelist, they're very slow to add updated ones for people who don't have an older client just running somewhere.

Also if you're concerned about privacy or security, you can torrent over i2p and there are newer protocols like IPFS if you want to try them but with that its more about whats there and you likely dont need it for anime. IPFS for example is likely somewhat popular because it can be used with Library Genesis.

I do seed public torrents, and have thought about trying to get into animebytes around the holidays when /a/-related site users tend to be more free with their invites but a 'join the discord' would be a hard no for any tracker. There's nothing I havent been able to find publicly but I generally don't look for raws.

And also OP, I doubt the Japanese ever will get zealous about copyright overseas, with how they are domestically it probably already costs them a lot. If anything, Japanese media has likely already reached its zenith and South Korean media will be the hot new thing next

afterthought: I keep forgetting to check in on HikarinoAkari’s day/time where they drop their discord invite. Gonna have to put it on whiteboard for April.

>>120415
Oh nice, you have a whiteboard too? I have one and I even use it. Annoyingly the glue behind the surface has come unstuck over the years, I assume because of temperature changes.

>>120412
>Hence why they no longer bother. Since they can likely watch anime in raw form. So any of these people taking the time to translate something for the new generation is already giving up their free time to do it. When they encounter what the modern fansub "scene" is like they pretty quickly grow disgusted with the whole thing and decide not the bother.

Not only that, but people often seem to lose interest often once they actually learn Japanese and tend to stick to LNs and manga, it's weird.

subtitling is harder than learning Japanese

>>120417
Its not really weird. Far more LNs and manga get published yearly than anime. By the time something gets an anime it has usually been around for a long time. My favorite anime for a year or two ago was around as a manga for 5-6 years before it got an animated series.

Another point; Manga and LNs can be translated by one person working in their free time as a sane pace. Anime is much harder to translate and release. It requires a huge skill set and/or the work of multiple people.

I only continue to translate and release anime because I originally got into it to learn video editing/encoding. I try to give back to the "community" by translating and releasing stuff that isn't getting enough love. But the problem I run into over and over again is not being able to publish my work on places where people will notice it. I can't even get access to nyaa anymore despite having decades of prior work to my name(s). Mostly because I want to release it as anonymous.

What I should be able to do;
1) Make a new account
2) Upload a torrent
3) wait for a mod to approve it

Has turned into a huge pain in the ass. To the point where I don't even bother to release it myself anymore. I publish to IRC XDCC bot and upload it to a MEGA archive. I announce it on a couple of imageboards and similar places. Usually, within a couple of weeks it might make it to a public tracker and eventually nyaa. Only to get shit talked left and right by people that didn't even watch it because there isn't a name they know attached to it.

Last time I released something I got accused or hiding viruses in the mkv files. I usually hide extra files in the attachments along with a simple/fun game to unlock them. No one got a chance to discover it the last time because someone with an axe to grind was searching for anything to shit talk the release.

Next release I'm going to hide things better where it'll take someone at least several hours to go through the process of unlocking the content.

>>120411
>We were trying to solve the old problem of distro.
The earliest thing I can remember downloading big files from, like entire shows, from was usenet. I think it could have easily become the premiere way of doing this stuff if not for ISPs dropping support for them over time. Then there's the infamous file trimming that would destroy files for popular media by removing part of it. Thinking back on that, it was especially cruel since you would download something that was 2gb but part of it would be missing, rendering your download nothing but wasted time and energy. (and 2gb was a LOT back then). So then "premium" usenet services came about where you needed a paid subscription to access usenet as it actually was. Pretty terrible situation.
Well, and usenet was quite awkward. I remember that you would download thousands and thousands of files to combine the end result on your own computer. (the trimming thing ISPs did to break stuff was to delete a couple of those files).
One of my fondest (in hindsight) memories of life back then is downloading text files from usenet and pasting them into a program to turn them into video game ROMS. Ah, those were the days.
So then "premium" usenet services came about where you needed a paid subscription to access usenet as it actually was. Pretty terrible situation.

>>120423
>I usually hide extra files in the attachments
That sounds like it might make people paranoid if they don't know you.

>>120423
Things like trackers are too autismal for Easter eggs unfortunately
, maybe they weren’t so much when ‘fan’ was still the main keyword in fansubs.

>>120417
I think it's obvious. They want to keep reading subtitles. What is a LN if not one big subtitle?

>>120425
Remember on the onimai release the hidden illegal loli in the NFO files?

>>120429
Those words placed next to each other concern me gravely...

>>120440
It was a reference to a dumb nyaa commenter who was afraid of the easter eggs in the onimai release

>>120419
If that were true, I would be fluent in moonrunes.

>>120466
If it weren't true then I would understand how to do subtitling better than Japanese!

>>120467
Everything you're likely to use has visual tools in Aegisub. Everything you're not likely to use has macro plugins in Aegisub.

I totally agree that torrents from private trackers should be trickled down to public ones (and vice versa), in fact, I tried to upload a raw VN from AB for an anon in /jp/'s untranslated VNs general only to discover that I can neither upload a torrent anonymously nor create an account required to upload a torrent. (I ended up uploading it to some file sharing site and some other anon uploaded it on nyaa afterwards)
Unfortunately, I think that private trackers are a necessity. Not so much about being an exclusive club, but mostly because you need an incentive to seed. I genuinely doubt I'd ever have access to even a tenth of the visual novels that I download if I had to rely on public trackers. When it comes to popular stuff then you're usually pretty safe, but the more niche the content you're looking for the less likely you are to find even a regular direct download, much less a torrent that's being seeded. There's also a general attitude of people pausing seeding upon reaching 100% as some sort of "look at me i'm a chad" statement.
I almost never stop seeding even when I get something off of nyaa or other public trackers, but I can easily see that I'm a rarity when looking at the seeder count. I'm at like 142 positive ratio for DmC5 and there's only one poor sap in bolivia downloading it exclusively from me at 200 KiB/s. There's only like 4 peers total for the Custom Maid Ultimate collection torrent I fetched off of nyaa.
In a pretty world, private trackers would just be a circlejerk sekret klub, but here it's just the only reliable way to torrent things.

>>120479
BitTorrent is one of those flawed technologies that we're just kind of stuck with for the time being. It does the job reasonably well, and the ecosystem is strong enough that it wouldn't make sense to start all over with something else, but the lack of built-in incentives (and anonymity, but that's a separate issue) really does suck.

>>120479
I seed exclusively on public trackers. I gotta get in private ones when I get a NAS

>>120479
I tend to delete western stuff pretty soon after I finish downloading because they tend to send warnings if I seed for too long. I also delete pretty much anything that comes in a zip after a certain ratio so it's not cluttering up my HDD after I've already extracted it, this is mostly true for music. Anything else I seed until my client shits itself in an upgrade and forgets everything. I do end up the sole seeder sometimes and get huge ratios from people who never return the favor.

Everything I seed on AB I also seed on Nyaa/Anidex.

>>120412
>Why don't they use ipfs or i2p or any of the better encrypted, private and "safer" protocols?
Hypothetically, how would this work? I've heard about IPFS for years now but never really figured out what it is or how people could use it.

>>120493
Yeah, the few times I download something Western it's with a free (slow) VPN and I shamefully close the connection when I'm done. A decade ago when I was on a bare connection My ISP did the annoying thing where they actually deactivated my connection until I called to reactivate it. Media conglomerates and ISP monopolies pair together quite well when it comes to establishing dominance.

>>120504
There is probably nothing you cant find elsewhere on i2p if you don't live in country with heavy censorship.
IPFS is fairly straight-forward if you're just a user.
https://docs.ipfs.tech/
https://docs.ipfs.tech/concepts/ipfs-implementations/#popular-or-actively-maintained

>>120505
>free VPN
No. Just no.

As >>120479 said, they're sadly unavoidable if you want a reliable download for niche stuff because of the incentives they provide. AB for example requires you to seed for at least 3 days (more if it's a large torrent) and there's reasons to do so, like buying upload with the currency you get from it. Ideally this wouldn't be necessary, but the lack of availability on Nyaa of certain older series and stuff that lots of people don't have a use for (think BDMVs & DVDISOs) pretty clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of people don't bother seeding at all unless they're forced to. There are some people that seed long-term regardless, don't get me wrong, but they are an absolute minority.

As an example, I uploaded a series to Nyaa a few weeks ago that wasn't ever uploaded there other than some kuso Portuguese version. Maybe it was & just got deleted somehow along the way, but regardless it was only on XDCC & private trackers at the time from what I could find. 200+ people snatched it with 15 at most regularly seeding, which seems like a fair bit (actually only ~7.5%..) until you realize my ratio was around 50 despite my upload speed being absolutely atrocious. The low amount of seeders, let alone those with higher than 10kbps speeds, just erodes your will to upload and spend time seeding where so few other people bother to, *especially* if you have data caps where you live.
I uploaded an even more niche series a few days ago, and it has 3 seeders with 50+ snatches now. The download speed is abysmal even though it's under a GB large.

It's unfortunate that places like AB are so closed now, but it does enforce quality whatever your opinion on it may be. People upload & people seed for long periods precisely because the site itself motivates them to. Outside of relatively more popular, recently uploaded, or just semi-known stuff on Nyaa, it's rare to find even 5+ seeders for something. XDCC is slowly fading into obscurity and lots of the bots are owned by the same few people, at least on Rizon, so when they go so do the bots. Usenet exists but outside of animetosho, which just mirrors shit, the outlook is grim, and even Usenet has (always has, actually) private indexes now like .in. DDL sites are unreliable as I'm sure everybody on /qa/ knows and stuff like HikariNoAkari or Chinese forums like TSDM or ASTOST are either fully sekrit or partially.

I think that the points-faggotry or people trying to force exclusivity of private tracker contents is dumb and antithetical towards the sharing nature of piracy. But like has been said above, private trackers are really useful for keeping their contents well seeded and readily available and in some ways these points systems incentivize that. Though I'd probably seed forever even if it didn't give me anything in return. In an ideal world I think we'd have yearly registration drives for these trackers so that more fresh users could gain access to them and potentially benefit the community either through seeding or feeling a drive to upload themselves, but there's always the fear that you drag in somebody that has malice towards the community in that case which can be a bit of a point of fear for the staff for user security so I do understand the reasons why staff keep them private. However, that still is no excuse for trying to hoard all the torrents to themselves. The public trackers should have just as much access to them as private ones do, in case some catastrophic event like what almost happened recently does happen.

>>120409 again
Just realized I'm the only seed left for the thing on jpopsuki I got penalized for downloading, and nobody wants it anyways.
So in the event someone really does ever want it, good luck.
Availability my ass.

>>120632
What was that thing anyways?

What frustrates me about the current anime tracker situation the most. Is that people claim others won't seed if you don't enforce ratio. But the public trackers don't allow new accounts/comments. Which would allow people to request a seed. 9 times out of 10 if you used to request in the comments and wait someone would come along soon and seed it just for you. But now this option is gone for most people.

Another thing is the web interface for trackers could be improved. There should be a list on the home page of the 10-20 more recent requests for re-seeds. With some kind of stupid reward for people to chase to encourage it. The reward doesn't have to mean anything really. It could be as simple as a stupid icon next to your username. I assure you lots of people would chase it (and try to prevent others from getting it by seeding first).

Enforcing ratios was always the worst way to go about it. A better way is build so-called "social features" based around sharing/seeding.

How hard is it these days to join Animebyte?

>>121795
I remember trying to fill out their application several times and getting stuck every time. I think they were asking what my favorite anime are, or something of the sort, and I just didn't know how to answer that.
It's been years though.

>>121798
Have you never seen an anime before? How is that a roadblock for you?

>>121795
Wait until Christmas /a/ festivities

>>121803
>>121803
This is why making a 3x3 is important and not just something to be used in e-peen contests. When you have watched hundreds of different shows you can easily get stumped on trying to choose between them. If you have something handy like a 3x3 this gets easier. Take your time trying to choose between them and make one here, it's what I'd advise: https://bighugelabs.com Or I guess a top 10 list saved in some document could work too, but I just like having a visual representation saved. I have watched enough shows to have a top 100 list.

>>121827
Meant to quote: >>121798 too

>>121827
Do you have dementia? It's not a question you should need to check your notes for. Treat it like a conversation and just write down whatever comes to mind.

Might shock you but most people just watch anime because it's exciting and not because they're looking for masterpieces

>>121834
Again, it gets complicated when you've watched hundreds of shows (700+ in my case). Trying to pick favorites between them can take time and isn't something that can properly be answered on the spot unless you have a clear list of favorites in mind.

>>121803
I'm just not good with feelings and opinions.
If you ask me how I am, or what I want to eat, or how I liked the thing I just watched/read/heard... I don't don't know how to answer that. For the latter, I often come up with arguments why that thing might be (un)likeable, and people are usually happy with that. But that doesn't work when you ask me to pick something that I liked.

>>121795
Outside of getting an invite from a friend or somebody you trust, the fastest way would be getting into redacted.ch through their interview and then working your way up the userclasses by uploading random shit. Eventually you'll unlock the invite forum & can join AB from there.
It's a pain, but it's better than waiting for applications which will probably never open again since the site's constantly near its user cap.

If there was a free VPN that didn't block p2p I would seed everything I download on nyaa. I use MultiUp as a free torrent leech service which doesn't allow seeding.

>>123277
Why do you need a VPN for nyaa?

>>123283
I don't want loli hentai associated with my family's static home IP address, also you never know what company is going to suddenly start sending copyright letters

>>123291
have you considered shelling out $5 a month for a good VPN?

>>123295
I'd rather torrent through Whonix