Slashdot Mirror
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.
*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"?
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
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.
:)
If thats sucessful, they will just move to an IRC server that doesnt support finger/dns. I know a few irc servers that you cant get other peoples ip, you can dns/finger them all you want (get your mind out of the gutter!) but it will still return YOUR ip. With that said the MPAA/RIAA might try and force the server to release the ips of certain people, but the server has every right to deny that request do to 'security' reasons.
"I want the list of ips for all these people!"
Sorry, that poses a security threat not only to our servers, but to our many faithful users
*sigh* Please dont flame me for what I have just said...Im only stating what will most likely happen.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
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.