this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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My good ol 2+ year Plex server host has been banned again. I have given up on this, I do not have access to an obscure server with few customers that will avoid future bans.

What's the platform of choice moving forward? Need wife-approval factor. Emby and Jellyfin? Where can I source servers? Reddit has made these hard to find and I haven't found a good community here.

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[–] cooopsspace@infosec.pub 82 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just run your own Jellyfin

[–] zacher_glachl@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agreed, as long as you handle the HTTPS or VPN setup, and set up any automatic media downloading ( jellyseer, sonarr and radarr and jackett) the end product is certifiably wife approved and works nicely out of the box

[–] Bye@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How do you get it on the tv? Like is there an interface she can use?

[–] _TK@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 12 points 1 year ago

Enemy and Jellyfin both have Android TV and Roku apps. I don't have an apple TV, but I imagine apps exist there too.

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[–] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 63 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wait, people get on to strangers plex accounts? Like for money or something?

Bro, pirate your own movies and provide your Plex access only to your friends, friends friends, friends friends friends, coworkers, and family, as god intended.

[–] variants@possumpat.io 12 points 1 year ago

Especially if you're friends have servers then you can cross share to have more coverage and backup

[–] sanzky@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

I also was not aware that people would pay strangers to use their plex servers. Im not surprised plex is going after them. They are threading a very fine line already.

[–] Alk@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago

Host your own. Plex wasn't designed to be a mass distribution. It is designed for home theater/personal use in or out of network.

[–] pelletbucket@lemm.ee 54 points 1 year ago

lol host your own Plex. jesus

[–] TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Host the shit yourself. The monthly costs of paying a hoster will be far greater than just getting the equipment yourself. Imagine you pay for example $50 a month for a half way decent server. That's $600 a year. That alone is a decent plex server with decent storage. Times that by 5-10 years and you are paying out the ass for the same server and the same storage vs using that same money to spend on HDD space and the plus side is it's actually YOUR equipment in the end. Now i get some guys have shit internet and those people I'm not talking about. Some will try and say they don't have space. I call BS. An intel NUC is extremely tiny and power efficient and can be hooked up to an external enclosure tucked away. I myself have the space for a rack with multiple JBODs but i know not everyone has that luxury.

I tried jellyfin but for the life of me I can't figure out why my search takes 1-2 mins to load when searching something. Multiple people have this issue but none of the fixes work for me. So sadly it's still plex for me.

[–] TSUTiger@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most people aren’t paying anywhere near $50/mo, and the headache from hosting and time $avings from letting someone else do it is worth it.

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I’m paying $5/mo and love self hosting but i have cable internet and expensive electricity so it makes more sense to outsource.

[–] EyesEyesBaby@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (18 children)

Why don't you host your own server? You need as much as NUC or Raspberry Pi even combined with a couple of harddisks or SSD'S.

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[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] Sylocule@lemmy.one 30 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Plex are banning Hetzner IPs because libraries are hosted there and shared with thousands. I see people are moving to Emby/JellyFin because Plex is trying to become the next Netflix app OS trying to clean up what they see as pirated content

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thats not being banned from Plex tho. Maybe just host your server elsewhere.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah just host the server elsewhere. You don't need all the media files to reside on the actual server either, you can just mount the external data using FUSE/rClone or something and cache the most requested data.

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[–] luca@lemmy.eic.lu 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AFAIK it's not about pirated content, but about giving people paid access to one's server, which is against Plex's TOS

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago

And literally how you get yourself in hot water with copyright cops. They're willing to turn a blind eye to pirates who don't profit from their ventures, but the second you get money involved, you're boned.

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Sorry for this maybe very naive question, but how can you possibly use Plex with only legal content? Can you actually purchase content within Plex? I always thought its just to play the content you provide, which almost always means its illegal since ripping your own discs is mostly piracy too, legally speaking.

[–] istdaslol@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

depending on where you live. in some places its legal to make copies of disk for personal use or as "backups". Same with music, or do you think apple would include a "cd ripping feature" in itunes if the usage would be illegal ?

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, I know thats the case, but at least in the case of Germany where you are allowed a private copy, its still illegal to break DRM to do so. So most stuff you could rip for private use is made illegal, since it comes with DRM.

[–] istdaslol@feddit.de 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But you can always use the DVR, you dont violate any DRM-Laws. As its included in many settop-boxes or even TVs. Plex even has a feature to automatically record for you based on EPG data

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thanks, you are the first person to actually provide a real argument. I did not know Plex can connect to a DVR.

[–] istdaslol@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

plex can be a dvr. I have my cableTV directly pluged into my server and use plex for recording, as well as watching tv

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[–] stonedemoman@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I don't disagree with your definitions of legality, but I do disagree fundamentally that ripping a movie should be under the same umbrella of piracy if the intent is not to distribute.

Even blurays that offer a bonus "digital copy" are redeemed through a third-party that packs it with DRM so you can't use it for your own media server. How are they even supposed to enforce this absolute assanine law that I can't watch the damn movie that I bought on my own terms?

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[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Plex got in bed with the devil when they started moving to hosting content with their free stuff. Now content creators have leverage over them.

[–] cobra89@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah content creators have leverage over them because they give Plex money. I would wager the vast majority of Plex users don't have Plex pass. Also the fact that they have a lifetime subscription means there are people who could be paying but aren't anymore. So they need some sort of way to get more recurring revenue.

I'd much rather they include some free programming I can ignore than do something like take away my lifetime pass and make me start paying monthly again like a lot of places have done.

[–] scottmeme@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

I'm assuming the blanket hetzner ban

[–] brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago

You can try !mediashare@lemmy.world

Or install Jellyfin and host your own media yourself.

[–] Koog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago

Found a few options here plexshares.github.io

[–] MoshBit@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

Try stremio with the torrentio plugin and a debris service, its like your own Netflix with anything you've ever wanted

[–] No_Huckleberry_2023@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Plex has been dead for years now. They have been trying to distance themselves from "piracy" for years.... throw in some telemetry behind the scenes.. and I have no clue why people still run Plex.

https://cordcuttersnews.com/plex-is-coming-under-fire-for-piracy/

https://torrentfreak.com/courts-sentence-men-for-pirating-thousands-of-movies-tv-shows-including-via-plex-210325/

"Earlier this month the conclusion of another file-sharing case was reported by SØIK. Following a process at the Copenhagen City Court, a 35-year-old man was convicted of downloading and sharing 9,440 movies.

According to SØIK, the movies were made available “to at least 21 users via a server” and for this offense, he was sentenced to 30 days probation. TorrentFreak requested additional information from anti-piracy group Rights Alliance which has now revealed a completely different type of case.

In December 2019, Rights Alliance filed a criminal complaint against a Denmark resident after discovering he was running a Plex server containing copyrighted content.

“It was a Plex server running on a NAS-server and operated from a Mac Mini. The owner and operator of the Plex server shared the content with friends and family. They were sent a password by mail,” the group explains.

While the Plex software is entirely legal, like other media software it can be put to illegal uses. Prosecutions are extremely rare, especially when people only share their libraries with close friends and family, but in this case Rights Alliance felt a criminal case was warranted.

TF asked Rights Alliance if those who accessed the server face any action but the group would only confirm that they were users of the server. Meanwhile, the convicted operator must pay for the legal proceedings and abide by a settlement agreement with rightsholders, the terms of which remain confidential."

[–] evansp@leminal.space 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Get yourself an old pc and host your own Plex/jellyfin with radarr,sonarr

[–] cnnrduncan@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Kodi with a debrid service works great for me, the one I use has had maybe 2-3 days worth of downtime in the 3 and a half years that I've been using it!

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