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NYTimes Looks at Warez
Flamerule writes "The New York Times has a new article up that relates the end result of the DrinkorDie copyright infringement case (the "ringleader" and 5 other guys are in prison), and talks about warez in general. They at least tried to get a story from both software companies and denizens of the warez scene. Pretty interesting stuff, even if you haven't been following the case closely."
This is like the chicken and the egg story. Only with warez, what came first, extremely high prices for software or software pirates? Software developers always whine about how pirates drive costs through the roof, and pirates always whine about how they dont but their software because its too overpriced.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Oh yeah, downloading on the OC-192 at work (ISP) sucks compared to the 14.4 modem I used to have. gimme a break. Stuff moves WAY easier now across the state/country/world without all those pesky LD charges or blue boxen.
To me, an interesting aspect of the fight against piracy is the teaming-up of companies/divisions.
Right now, the MPAA is trolling IRC for servers, and reporting infringing IPs back to Time Warner, who promptly warns customers against their usage. I've seen some of the letters.
There may or may not be antitrust concerns, but it's certainly schizophrenic... In cases like these, whose profit is considered to be more important?
*snip*
"It's cool to release something that costs $18,000," said Mr. Grimes, the DrinkorDie member from Arlington, Tex. "Basically, if it wasn't for us, you would never see this piece of software."
*snip*
I understand how they figure that companies "lose money" whenever they're software is pirated. But do they figure into those billions of lost dollars statements like the one above? Seems to me it's hard to find out just how much money the software companies are really losing because not all people who pirate their software are people who would ever pay for it.
Still, the worst part is that because software piracy is so rampant, it enables people who would (can?) pay for proper licensing for software to obtain illegal licenses.
I certainly feel bad that small businesses that rely on software licensing for revenue are having their stuff pirated, but another company like Blizzard who sold something like (correct me if I'm wrong) 1 millions copies of Warcraft III on pre-sell alone... how are we supposed to feel sorry that their "losing" money, when we can't be sure that people who pirated that software would never have bought it because they don't have the money or whatever? Maybe that's a lame example, but you get my point. Replace Warcraft III with some $500 publishing software, like Photoshop or CorelDraw. Is everyone who pirates those someone who would pay for them if they couldn't obtain them illegally?
Now here's a good hypothetical question: Suppose someone illegally downloads a copy of Warcraft III just to "try it out", with the intention of buying it if they like it. They play it and don't like it because of the 90 food limit, or something like that. They delete the game and never play it again. Do they owe Blizzard $55 because they should have bought the game in the first place to "try it out"?
Don't be too quick to label these people as warez kiddies or people who are somehow different from you.
Warez can become an addiction, just like mp3's. It starts out with you downloading the newest Dreamweaver for your new flashy website; then you get the latest Photoshop to doctor your home pics. Then three months later, you have a 60g hard drive on your cable modem server, running a cracked version of XP, that is full of the latest and greatest graphics and rendering software. It's very, very easy to become immersed in the scene.
However, most people eventually leave the scene, because they realize they never use any of the cool programs. And the new people in the scene are just greedy and selfish. Then they move on to loftier anti-establishment movements.
Peace.
Al.
This article shows just how out of control our government is, when 40 armed agents "bust" a guy who's pirating software.
First off, let me point out that I'm a software developer, and I'm in the process of creating a shrink wrapped application which I intend to charge for and which I expect a number of people are going to try to pirate. Since I am a one man startup in this situation, if piracy affects anyone, it affects me directly in my pocket book.
But this situation is absurd. Teh government should not be wasting time going after people who are pirating software who aren't profiting from it.
If someone steals my software, then they are liable to me under the law-- not to the feds. The feds have no rights to my code and no rights to lock people up for violating my rights in this way.
If someone pirates my software, then I should be able to take them to civil court and sue them for damages-- possibly twice actual damages, but I have to show damages to recover the money.
The Feds are busting people, claiming that "millions of dollars" have been stolen when this is a bald faced lie-- millions of dollars have NOT been stolen.
The only way a pirated piece of software is "theft" is if the person who uses it would have OTHERWISE bought the product. IF someone tries it out and then discards it and never would have bought the product, then the software company has not experienced damage-- they got some free advertising and didn't happen to pick up a customer.
IF someone pirates your software and then sells it, well then that would be theft. But those who give it away a guilty of mischief, but do not belong in a federal prison.
As for the guy who claims his software costs $9,500 but lost out because it was pirated-- make your software not work without authentication with the mothership. This is really easy these days-- get the MAC address, and send it in, and return a cryptographically signed authorization code that the program needs to run-- if the MAC address changes too much, or you['re getting identical requests from dozens of IP addresses, then don't return the key. Hell, make it such that a key set of code for the App is stored in an external runtime-loaded framework, and encrypt that bit with the key so that it never exists on the CD or hard drive in decrypted form... and of course keys have an expiry so that the program has to check in every 90 days or so. Or whatever less draconian version of this works for you, hell dongles are cheap enough.
Yes this can be defeated, but my experience with warez sites is that they just have CD images, the programs security hasn't been defeated, and people just share license keys-- in this case reporting the key to a central server and the ability to turn it off when it becomes obviously shared is easy.
This seems to be working for ambrosia and idsoftware.
But sending the feds in is NOT the solution-- we cannot tolerate this. MS has sent teams of armed men into small offices where they suspect the people are not licensing all their copies of windows. This is unacceptable.
As long as we accept government stormtroopers doing the bidding of private companies we will not be free-- it will just get worse and worse.
What's next- 40 armed marshalls bust some 13 year old for sharing MP3s?
All the while real crimes are going on and are ignored.
These are civil issues and belong in the civil courts. And anyone who doesn't protect their IP is just asking for it.
This is the equivalent of cops busting down dorm room doors because 20 kids in the same class photocopied pages from a library book to study from.
But because its computers they're "pirates" and the idiot press and public go along. Who's to stand up to the invasion of police in what should be civil matters? If anyone- US. Don't tolerate your company using stormtroopers-- protest loudly if they do. And protest to anyone who has the ability to affect change in this area-- such as your congressman (though I don't hold out much hope that they will listen, idiots that they are.)
Civil disobedience is going to be what this comes down to eventually-- sooner or later, they will be tightening the noose. who here doesn't have an MP3 that they can't prove legal ownership of?
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
And I remember an article I read a while ago where the releasing group for audio software (I forgot the name) only released programs that could not be afforded by the ordinary person. Things like SoundForge run a couple hundred dollars, and therefore only businesses or professionals could use it. What about the little guy who wanted to consider entering the profession, but didn't have the money (yet) to buy it. -- Generally, business -do- get legitimate copies pecause of audits and support.
Anyways, back to point, this same group -refused- to release any programs that were under a hundred dollars, because these are generally writting by individuals or extremely small companies, and are generally affordable by the common man.
It's technical software... the market is limited, yes, but it's not just about the support. We sell a $16,000 piece of software and there are 3 PhD theses worth of research behind the algorithms. It's a point and click program and most of our users get along with no tech support. A lot of our buyers are universities, in some cases graduate students. If these guys could download our software on WinMX, they would. This kind of thing could put a small company like us out of business.
Has anyone seen the site? Why would anyone want to pirate *their* software? Not that it probably isn't good software, but other than the value of collecting it? It's all pretty high-level engineering stuff. I can't imagine any use for it outside of specialized fields, and those people would probably purchase anyway, as stated previously, for the support, training, documentation, etc. Strange...
If the software developer community have raised their prices to make-up for the sales lost to piracy they should in theory be making just as much money as if their software weren't pirated (because the price would be lower then). So the reason why software developers are chasing pirates is so that they can lower prices?
Thanks for browsing at -1
Please vistit my blog: www.framtiden.nu
Yep. I had a brief stint in the warez-scene in high school. Ran a hidden ftp-server on a computer connected to the school network. I thought I was really cool until I realised that I was throwing so much time away. It's really easy to get hooked into the warez-scene and all th "l33t" stuff that comes with it. Like using stolen ISP-accounts for "free" (this was in Sweden without flatrate) dialup access or using creditmaster 4000 to make your own compuserve account.
God I don't miss that period of my life...
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
From the article:
"It's the same reason that people join gangs," said Allan Doody, the Customs Service investigator who led the DrinkorDie investigation, part of a broader anti-piracy campaign called Operation Buccaneer. "They're hanging out on the cyber-street corner."
But in contrast to petty criminals and warring gangs, Internet piracy groups have a worldwide impact of at least tens of millions of dollars, if not more. Such groups secure their reputations by releasing thousands of free movies, games, music and software programs on the Internet each year.
So, distributing copyrighted materials is worse than such "petty criminal activity" as drive-by shootings, drug sales, and car theft? I'm glad our law enforcement dollars are being invested wisely to get this vicious criminals off the street.
(And yes, they are criminals, I just object to the implied severity of their crimes.)
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
hehe i actually work at one of the four companies you mentioned, building demos for the products that i learned to use from pirated copies.
not that i still pirate of course. i stopped pirating software (x + 1 days : x = statute of limitations on piracy in days) days ago.
go get it
Actually, I believe this is perfectly legal, as long as they do not then turn around and put pateneted parts or technologies into their own automobiles. If you buy a car, you can do with it what you will, take it appart and put it back together again as many times as you want. You may not be allowed to dreive it on the highway if you change it, but you can tear it appart and learn all you can quite legally.
OSS should want to stop traditional software piracy. When people can't get those expensive programs for free anymore(ms office anyone?) they will either pay the price, find an alternative, or do without. I would bet that most of the time a free OSS alternative will do just fine for the average user. This could actually cause a increase in the usage of OSS.
I ask myself if the customs officials sending 40 men over to arrest a 29 year old juvenile delinquent and getting the poor fool sentenced to 4 years while fucking bastards like Ebbers and lay get away with a little embarrassment isn't pornography? It seems that it always amounts to the haves whipping out their shlongs and urinating in the faces of the have-nots, and having a good laugh about it while the have-nots grovel about in the dirt, choking.
I wonder when normal people in this century will finally have had enough of being treated like fucking peasants in medieval Europe with agencies, big corporations and governments acting like feudal barons and start to say "Kill the RIAA, Kill the MPAA, Kill Microsoft, Kill the BSA"?