this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
134 points (97.2% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

70401 readers
496 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

We heartily recommend visiting the free port of freemediaheckyeah (aka FMHY) while you sail the high seas, for all the freshest links the ocean has to offer.

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):

🏴‍☠️ Other communities

FUCK ADOBE!

Torrenting/P2P:

Gaming:


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Souvenir@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It was also called piracy back then too. It was incredibly common on the Commodore 64 starting in the 80s . They'd often call themselves crackers, because you needed to crack the piracy protection to be able to copy disks.

Those disks and even cassettes would then be shared from person to person or sold in shops or on second hand markets. AFAIK this is also when 1337/leet became popularised, to avoid censorship on BBSes, where file sharing was also possible.

For example, a magazine from 1991:

Note the group is called Elite productions and they call themselves pirates. There's also mention of crackers, specific events, and I especially enjoy that a piracy/cracking group felt it necessary to add a copyright logo next to the name of their piracy group which was called Elite Productions.