this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
160 points (94.9% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

54746 readers
231 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

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

It’s not that I don’t trust, but I want to understand. What is actually happening and how do these Repack thingies work?

And why are they called that 😂

Thanks in advance.

Edit: thanks so much for the replies all, I think I got it! :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] sadbehr 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why don't the crackers just repackage it? Or is repackaging an art unto itself?

[–] LanyrdSkynrd@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Crackers mostly post the cracks to IRC sites, cs.rin.ru, and private torrent sites. Repackers are the main way releases make it to the mainstream torrent sites.

Repacking isn't that complicated anymore, it's more about reputation. There was a time when games were big and internet speed was slow so saving every MB of size was important. Repackers would reencode video files and find other ways of dramatically reducing the file size. Nowadays they don't do a lot of that, but repackers are still important for casual pirates who just want to easily play pirated games and not worry about malware.

[–] sadbehr 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks. So would an appropriate anaolgy be that of a video game software developer vs a publisher, eg publisher takes care of all of the public fronting, advertising, being the 'name' etc etc while the devs (crackers) are the ones doing the actual work on the product?

[–] zsnell02@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago

Late to the party here, but where are some of these IRC sites?