I recently got a 4k TV and so I’m really wanting to watch movies in 4k. They take up so much space that I can’t really put them on a flashdrive to watch, and as there aren’t any piracy streaming sites with 4k content I was thinking about using an old PC to make a media server on either plex or jellyfin.
My parents, who are okay with piracy streaming (fmovies.to) and even downloading are convinced that if I upload to a personal plex server, that it would be the same as someone uploading to a torrent website somewhere and that I will get swatted and sent to prison.
Is this a valid concern, or is it perfectly fine to upload pirated stuff to plex? Is there any chance at all that you could get into legal trouble for uploading your pirated media on plex?
Plex content resides on your PC. You’re not uploading it anywhere. I use Plex for old TV shows. Hosted on my laptop, it streams over Wifi to my Firestick.
oh nice, that makes loads of sense, thanks. So it is only usable on your home network and can’t be accessed anywhere outside of it?
You can turn on/off remote access. I have mine on and have for years, haven’t been swatted yet lol
It can be if you set it up for it, and pay for a Plex Pass. And it would be encrypted and password protected. Randoms wouldn’t be able to access it unless you gave them your login.
Jellyfin runs locally unless you manually expose it to the internet. Use a reputable VPN when you download content and you’ll probably be fine.
one more quick question- if I were to expose it to the internet, would that then open me up for legal issues, or would I still be okay?
My understanding is that using Plex/Jellyfin is perfectly fine. The only real concern would be the actual way that the media was obtained, but you can host whatever you want on Plex.
Echoing what others have already said… The movies you already have downloaded are there for you and your parents to use. Now, it’s a matter of how you transfer and watch the pirated content.
Instead of manually throwing it onto a USB drive and having to delete, upload and wait for file transfer each time you want to switch the movies out, plex acts as a private portal to access your personal media library that exists only on your computer. No external party will be able to access or view what is in this portal.
Plex only cares about very large servers that break ToS (providing paid services to thousands of people). Even in that instance, plex only bans the account. No one cares if it’s a small personal server. It’s not worth the time, energy, or money to “swat” you.
Maybe try old man terms? This box (PC/server) is a disk switcher for tv and movies (like old radios). I load it with disks and we can watch the movies and TV on those disks anywhere in the house.
this may be the way to do it, I will try this tactic and hopefully it will work!
