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.
Fun story: I was in my teens and my aunts came to visit from abroad. They had gone to the local video store and asked the clerk to give them something for their nephews. The clerk asked a few questions about my brothers and me, and told my aunts to come back the next day.
They came to visit and proudly handed us the video tape. We put it into the machine and it played and incredibly horribly terrible sci-fi. It was so B-movie quality, the laser rays zapped off in a totally different direction than the guns were pointing.
Aunts leave a few days later, disappointed that the movie was so bad. A week later, my mother says, the tape was bidirectional (Video 2000, the German standard of the time), we should see if there was something on the other side. We put it back in and, lo and behold, there was a movie.
It started odd. A mansion, a lady entering an expensive car. She hands her little Maltese on a leash to the butler and drives off. As soon as she’s gone, the butler kicks the dog into the giant fountain in front of the mansion and goes inside. There, he and the maids get naked and into bed.
At this point, even 15-year-old me knows what’s going on, and the entire family starts staring at my mother, who started the whole thing. She was intently looking at the screen, saying things like, “Oh, it must be so relaxing when your boss is gone and you can just rest in bed!” or “Well, staff in this mansion, they are really friendly with each other!”
Then there was silence. Then she said, “Turn off this filth!”
And we never spoke of that Sunday afternoon again.