this post was submitted on 23 May 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Have you encountered VHS or Cassette piracy in the 80s? (piefed.social)
submitted 14 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) by Shadow79@piefed.social to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Like that infamous "ET" torrent in 1982 where it involved a "pirate" sneaking a huge JVC camcorder (with a VHS reel) recording the entire movie in theaters, given this was before DVD's existed (don't even ask about pirate bay, those weren't available yet). The same applies to "torrented" music, one would have a spare tape cassette recording the song played via the radio, that's how they torrented content back then if they can't afford an official copy.

Only millennials or Gen X who were kids back then would've encountered or witnessed VHS or Cassette "torrents" from either friends or family and often or not, piracy in the pre internet days was rife even before torrent sites were a thing. There are VHS "torrents" of TV shows or series (placing a camcorder which faces the TV screen with a spare reel recording the entire show (ads included), then used to fast forward upon replay.

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[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Late '80s. We would coordinate who would buy which cassette album and then go to the person's house with the best "dub" deck and make copies. There was 2x and maybe even 4x copy speed but the quality would suffer. Usually good enough for our shitty car stereos though. 90 minute tapes could normally get an album on each side. IIRC the high quality blanks were about $1.50 each if you bought a 10 pack. $8 for a tape of a regular band or something older like Led Zeppelin, $12 for a brand new hit album.

Making mix tapes for your crush was HUGE at the time. Hey, if I can't write poetry at least I can make her a cassette of love songs, right?