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?
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.
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.
Is this a real concern? I guess I have never thought it was a possibility.
I use jellyfin on local network because I do not trust my abilities to set it up and keep it secure for a remote connection.
Echoing what others have said, use a solid VPN to actually download anything, and only make it accessible outside your network with reasonable protections. For really solid security you can use tailscale to only expose your server to your personal devices
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.