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Former DrinkOrDie Member Chris Tresco Answers
1) How clueful are they?
by jeffy124
In your opinion, how did the each party (prosecution, your lawyer, and
most important - the judge) look when it came to their understanding of
technology? Did they know every nook and cranny, or seem lost in a maze
of confusion? Do you think an understanding of the issues in question
was a significant factor in court proceedings?
Chris:
That is a tough question to answer considering the organizational structure
of the government's side of things. The prosecution works very closely with
other units of law enforcement when it comes to technically challenging
cases like mine. In my situation, the government prosecutors were very well
briefed about how the technical aspect of the warez scene work. They are
briefed by law enforcement agents who are very technically savvy and able to
sift through all of the data that they are presented with at the time a
warrant is carried out. With this data, the agents build a packet of
evidence that the procecutors can look through and easily understand. They
had a plethora of evidence on which to build a case against me and it boiled
down that all the ones and zeros that the agents were able to pick through
added up to copyright infringement in the prosecution's eyes.
The judge doesn't really see the technical aspect of the case. He sees a report of the evidence, which is written in clean English, and makes his decision based on that.
My lawyer isn't very technically adept, but lawyers are pretty bright. He was able to grasp the concepts of everything, if he wasn't able to, he wouldn't be my lawyer. :) Besides, I was able to coach him through most of it.
2) "The Bust", WarGames or Matrix?
by msheppard
What was "The Bust" like? Was it like _WarGames_ where they showed up in
black vans and confiscated your computers and rifled through your
trash? Or was it more like _Matrix_ where they called you in and
presented all sorts of evidence they collected online etc.?
Chris:
I would say that it was a cross between the two. I will lay out exactly
what happened to me:
I was sitting at my computer chatting with a fellow DOD member on IRC. All of a sudden I noticed my net connection died. When I went to walk out the door, a U.S. Customs agent met me. "Mr. Tresco, My name is XXXXX, I am with the U.S. Customs Department. Would you mind coming with me?" As I turned the corner, there were about 20 law enforcement officials combing the halls of my workplace. We proceeded to a conference room where I answered questions for the better part of the day while the agents proceeded to carry out their warrant. They were looking for specific systems that were on the warrant. They had IP addresses. Technically, they had the authority to take everything on the network that the computers identified on the warrant were on, however they followed the warrant pretty strictly, taking only the stuff on it. It was really the hardest day of my life. I had no idea what was going on most of the time. I felt like I was in a dream.
3) Was there a feeling that DoD was too big?
by crunnluadh
The incredibly large volume of warez DoD was trading must have been
staggering. At any point in time did you or anyone else in DoD ever
think that the whole ring was getting way out of hand? If so, what ever
came from that or those discussions?
Chris:
In terms of percentages of releases put out by DOD in relation to the scene,
we weren't doing all that many. We did, however, have quite a large number
of ftp sites that were being heavily utilized. One of our private leech
sites was larger than a terrabyte of games and movies. It was constantly
being uploaded to and downloaded from. This should give you an idea of the
amount of trading that was going on.
To answer your other question... I felt on a daily basis that things were getting out of control. There were times that I did actually quit, but only for a day or so. IRC always brought me back online. That was my biggest mistake. DOD was a warez group, yes... but imagine a bunch of guys/gals sitting around talking all day and suddenly you stop showing up... You start to miss that type of interaction.
4) Feelings?
by Sebastopol
Are you scared about going to prison? Do they prepare you in any way
before you enter the facility, or do they just throw you in and that's it?
Just typing these questions make me uncomfortable.
Chris:
I am very scared to go to prison. I have never been in any sort of jail in
my life. They prepare you in the sense that they tell you where and when to
go, what you can bring, and what type of facility it is. The rest is done
through books and my lawyer, who has been really great through this whole
ordeal. I am fortunate enough to be assigned to a minimum security facility
close to my home.
5) If it wasn't about the money, what was it about?
by wackybrit
You were a sysadmin at MIT, so were probably pulling in a pretty good
wage.. at least, probably better than 50% of the Slashdot readership anyway.
So if it wasn't about the money, what was it about? Prestige is one option, but people in these groups need to keep hidden, so that doesn't fit. Was it for the ideals? If so, what ideals are there in ripping off software?
I can understand why people who can't afford software rip it off.. they have stuff to do, and can't afford $500 for Photoshop or whatever.. but tell me why someone with a decent salary will work in secret to beat the software companies.. what is the motivation?
Chris:
My motivation had absolutely nothing to do with the software, the prestige,
the civil disobedience, or the mysteriousness of it all. My motivation was
purely and simply putting technology to work. I have always been a curious
cat, like most of you that read Slashdot. I was basically the Sysadmin of
DrinkOrDie. I love to make computers work together, build up networks,
install services, lockdown boxes... you guys know the drill. I got very
carried away with what I was doing and forgot to confide in my moral self.
I knew I was doing wrong, and yes... to clear anything up... it is
absolutely wrong to steal software from a company. Whether it is ones or
zeros or bags of money, it is stealing. If for no other reason, it is wrong
because of the license agreement. If you don't agree with the license,
don't use the software.
6) questions from a fellow cracker
by Anonymous Coward
I am a cracker from a fairly well known group, living in the US. We take
normal precautions (encrypted email/irc), but there are clear
vulnerabilities that cant easily be eliminated (topsite accounts and the
possibility of trojaned supplied software, etc.). The dod bust stunned
all of us with the lengths of the sentences, which seem out of
proproportion to the crime. I find myself asking more and more whether
the risk is worth the fun. We are all in it for the commaraderie and the
friends (and the access to files); of course none of us are making any
money from it. My question is, if you had it to do over again, would you
stay out of a group, and of the scene? Were there risks you took that
you sholdn't have? What were they? Any advice to someone still in the
scene who wants to stay but worries about being caught?
Chris:
If I had to do it over again, I would absolutely not get involved with the
scene. The scene is technically organized crime... that is it. Mobsters
have friends too, but would you want to go to prison for what you and your
fellow comrades are doing on the net? Isn't it better to pay for the
occasional piece of software you might want than to pay with 33 months in
federal prison? I think so... And you say here:
"I find myself asking more and more whether the risk is worth the fun."
That is the wrong way to think about it. You are asking yourself if it is worth something to commit a crime. What you should be asking yourself is, if what you are doing is fundamentally wrong. If it is (and I would say that it is) then stop doing it.
To answer the rest of your question... The only pertinent risk was getting involved with the scene in the first place. You will get caught sooner or later if you continue doing what you are doing. My advice to you is to get out while you still can. Any precautions you take are easily circumvented. For example, email encrypted via PGP is only as strong as the people who get the email. If the government busts 20 people in your group, the odds of one of the people giving up their passphrase is pretty good. from that point, all the mail is readable. Encrypted IRC is not going to do it either. What if one of the people you are chatting with is an informant? Encryption becomes meaningless.
My advice: get out of the scene.
7) Plans for your stay?
by zbuffered
One of the things about jail is that you have nothing but free time. So
what do you plan to do? Study for a new career? Work out constantly?
Plan your escape? Learn to speak Sanskrit?
When you get out, you will have had 33 months of basically no real responsibilities. If you find a nice, cushy prison, you can get some real work done. Are you going to use this time to make your life when you get out of jail better?
Also, when you get out, what do you plan to do? Something in the computer field, or do you plan to change your path when you get out? If I were in your place, I think I'd just get fed up with computers and become a florist or something.
Chris:
During the time I am in prison, I will educate myself. I will hopefully be
able to take some classes towards a degree. Since I love working with
systems, I will hopefully be able to school myself in the art of business
and compliment my technical skills. My passion lies with IT, I would love
to take the education I get from prison (formal or not) and use it to better
my career and make me a better person.
8) Rise of P2P?
by Rayonic
How do you feel about the rise of P2P and its affects on the Warez
community? Do you think it makes it safer (safety in numbers?) or do you
think that it'll bring down the fist of the law even harder?
Which P2P networks did you prefer, if any?
Chris:
In the context of the warez scene, P2P networks don't play any part. They
are essentially mutually exclusive members. I think that people in the
warez scene used P2P networks just as frequently and for the same purposes
as the majority of P2P users. P2P and the warez scene do, however, relate
in one fashion. Both networks utilize the internet as a means to illegally
distribute copyrighted works. This will affect both entities in that the
more illegal activity that goes on in general, the more law enforcement will
be trying to put an end to it. This puts more heat on both services.
Technology crimes are also a hot topic as of late. So popular that there
are many organizations, like the Software and Information Industry
Association (SIIA) at www.siia.net and the Computer Crime and Intellectual
Property Section (CCIPS) of the Department of Justice at www.cybercrime.gov,
whose sole purpose is to stop them from happening. Software companies
really do lose money from piracy, why else would they support these types of
organizations?
Oh. and I preferred ftp.
9) What is your opinion of free software?
by Billly Gates
If you plan not to pirate software again would you chose to pay for
commercial apps or would you use free software?
Has your opinion changed about free software vs commercial software because of your unfortunate experience?
Do you think strong armed tactics by the BSA and upcoming drm will actually help spread free software?
Chris:
I generally try to run linux on the desktop where ever possible. That being
said, I love free software, I used it when I was pirating and I use it now.
I am composing this in OpenOffice btw. :)
I think both free and commercial software have their place in the industry. I also think that DRM and the BSA won't really have any effect on free software. People and businesses who pay for software don't have to worry about these features because what they are doing is legitimate. In my mind, I would think that companies who are completely compliant who are targeted by the BSA would be happy about it. They would clear their name and be finally exonerated. With respect to DRM, I think this technology is mainly targeted at media right now. That being said, I don't think it will help spread free software. except for maybe free Ogg codecs and players. and a lot more Ogg-files.
10) Prove me wrong.
by _xeno_
I want you to explain if you disagree with the following and if so, why.
My understanding of this is that you were involved with the illegal distribution of copyrighted works, depriving the potential owners of money for the works (possibly - the reality may be "probably not," but...). You then received 33 months of jail time (or just under 3 years) which seems to me to be rather fair.
Based on the Operation Buccaneer information, you received counts of felony (criminal copyright infringement, probably), and conspiracy (to commit criminal copyright infringement, probably). (Both probablies are guesses based on the document.) This seems to be in line with what one would expect for charges against a ring of people whose sole goal is to steal massive quantities of software and redistribute them to as many people as want them at no charge. (The fact that there was no charge probably reduces the sentence to a degree, but the fact that it required specialized skills and involved a large collective of people acting together to commit criminal copyright infringement probably both outweigh that.)
So... why should I feel sorry for you? You got what you deserved. You stole from people and gave copies to as many people as you could. Based on the MIT press release, you illegal utilized systems you were supposed to be administrating for the purposes of illegally distributing software. As far as I can see, you got exactly what you deserved.
So - prove me wrong. Demonstrate that my understanding is flawed or that I am misunderstanding the crime. Demonstrate that it should not be a crime. Or - accept my view. Explain if you feel sorry for your actions and believe that you did indeed commit the crimes. Or come up with another response that does not fall directly between agree and disagree.
Chris:
Is this flamebait for the interviewee or what? :) I won't bite. Your
question seems to start halfway through your rant, so I will start there.
You shouldn't feel sorry for me. I committed crimes that I shouldn't have committed. I stole from innocent companies and now I am feeling the repercussions. I am not asking for pity nor am I looking to be put up on a pedestal for what I have done. I am simply here to tell people what happened and that it can happen to anyone who takes part in this type of thing.
Addendum:
My nickname wasn't mentioned when the call for questions was posted, I guess I forgot to tell Robin. I was known as bigrar, BiGrAr on irc. If anyone wants to ask any questions besides the ones I have answered, you can send me email at nospam@rarcom.com. Actually you can take a look at my website as well, at www.rarcom.com (my hosting company is going to kill me). I am setting up a service there called the "Free Software Mirror Project". Through this site, I hope to start a huge mirror system for free software. When these questions are posted to slashdot, I am going to make the URL all text, so as to not completely slashdot my hosters. The mirror system is unique because it will work the same way the warez scene works. with couriers, suppliers, etc. Drop me a line if you possibly want to help me out with this.
Thanks,
- Chris
Required so that he doesn't get a stiffer sentence. I don't buy it--I don't believe you really think warez is theft, but I understand why you're parroting the party line.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
That totally ignores the disruption, effort, and other impact that such an "audit" (sometimes just a jackbooted search without any warrant) has on the company. When you come down to all the commercially licensed software that is used at the "average" company, it becomes an enormous hassle for the IT staff to:
- Figure out who is using what
- Produce the proofs of purchase or whatever else is necessary
- Convince the auditors that there is no additional commercial software being used
The payware mafia are proud of saying that most audits are based on tipoffs from disgrunted ex-employees -- which scares most companies because, no matter how hard they try, they will have some disgruntled ex-employees. It doesn't have to be a tip based on fact, it just has to be believable enough to warrant an audit.I can't believe they left out all the difficult/fun questions that were asked. If slashdot ever wants to be taken seriously, they should questions other than "what's your opinion of free software?"
Get the guy to answer and become squeamish. That's what interviews are all about
Hmm, it seems to me that you're making another warez site, and you are using the phrase "Free Software Mirror System" to cover it up. The other possibility is that you're trying to do warez with free software, which is completely ridiculous and unnecessary. So, before you do that, make sure you absolutely have boundaries set for yourself and know exactly what you're doing, because the feds might not see it as a free software repository but as a warez site. And what do you mean by "Free Software"? Is it software that you got for free and posted to the system, or is it truly GNU software. You have to be sure to make it clear to everyone that it is GNU software, and to make sure that the illegal software doesn't mysteriously appear. So, I would say, it's in your best interests to stay on the ethical side of things right now, and that seems kind of borderline.
The standard rationalizations that I'm complaining about are, in no particular order:
- I steal because it's too expensive.
- I steal music because the RIAA is "evil".
- I steal software because it helps the company I'm stealing from.
- I steal because I don't believe in intellectual property.
- I steal music because the CD only has one song I like on it.
- I steal as a test drive.
- I steal music and movies because they are just corporate shit, not art.
- I steal because the artists don't get much profit from purchases.
- I steal MS products, because MS is "evil".
and so on and so forth.Thank you Chris, for taking the unpopular position that copyright infringement is wrong.
Software companies really do lose money from piracy, why else would they support these types of organizations?
Prove it. You're telling me that if a high school kid who messes around with with Photoshop occasionally downloads a pirated copy off IRC, that Adobe loses 500 bucks?
Don't get me wrong, piracy is basically theft. I make it a point to buy software that I find useful, especially in the case of shareware, because I have a moral obligation to myself to do so. But this is the same flaw in logic the music industry uses to brand us all theives and legislate against us for the "good of the artists".
Is a written language. Nobody speaks it.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The laws have really gone over the line. Copyright violations used to be civil matters, going into criminal if somebody sold copies for financial gain.
It is a sad time when corporate entities have so many more rights than citizens.
Good thing for open source software.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
That's just a little less than three years. Three years with little or no chance of hetero sex. If I had time that I got to spend outside of prison before going inside, you can sure as hell bet that I wouldn't be spending it reading slashdot.
Chris, no clue as to your romantic situation, but put the keyboard down and find yourself a woman to fuck before its too late.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
So once upon a time there was this merchant ship carrying live sheep from New Zealand to points westward. The ship went down in a storm, and only one New Zealander, one sheep, and the ship's dog survived. All three washed up on the shore of a deserted island.
Every night, the Kiwi, the sheep, and the dog would sit on the beach and watch the sun set, dreaming of rescue. After a few months of this, the Kiwi started to get powerfully lonely, and the sheep started to look better every day. One particularly beautiful night, the Kiwi reached over to put his arm around the sheep... at which point the dog starting barking and howling and snapping until the Kiwi stopped.
This went on for many weeks. Every time the Kiwi got ready to put the moves on the sheep, the dog went nuts. Finally, one day another ship went down and the only survivor-- a beautiful woman-- washed up on shore. The Kiwi helped the woman, dressed her wounds, gave her food and fresh water, and eventually she joined their little family. Every night the four of them-- Kiwi, woman, sheep, dog-- would sit on the beach and watch the sun set into the ocean.
Finally the Kiwi could take it no longer. He waited until the quiet, romantic moment just after sunset, leaned over to the woman, and whispered softly into her ear.
"Would you mind taking the dog for a walk?"
I don't believe that "warez" is an important enough issue to break the law over, I probably wouldn't morally approve of the activity if I thought about it enough, and I'm probably not clever enough (anymore) to crack software anyway.
However, one must wonder whether Chris' discouraging of people to follow in his footsteps is motivated by his inner feelings, or by the terms of his sentence / plea bargain / desire for early parole. The last, I can understand, for obvious reasons; the first two have always seemed just shy of legalized censorship.
That was a pretty good response to the question I asked, but I wish had emphasized the security aspect.
Mainly, I think there is an interesting legal difference between "leechers" on IRC/Usenet/etc. and "leechers" on P2P, in that the P2P users technically become distributors themselves. Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Both networks utilize the internet as a means to illegally distribute copyrighted works.
It is NOT a prerequisite of a P2P network to exchange illegally copyrighted works. I can have a P2P network that exchanges legal copies of files. I cannot have a warez network that distributed legal copies of files, unless you redefine what we know warez to mean.
I steal software, music, movies, and games becuase I like stealing. It doesn't cost me much, it's easy and relatively safe via the internet (unless you're at the head of a large pirating group), and I'm poor. Why do inner city residents rob liquor stores? Because they're poor. Why do I steal 1s and 0s? Because I'm poor and can't afford to pay for them.
Stealing is merely the cheapest way to get what one wants, and I'm cheap.
Aside from that, warez is basically the underground of the net we know is there, but deny it's existance in the media. The underworld in the media's eyes are genuis hackers who mastermind complex systems and takeover websites. You rarely ever hear of the massive amount of child pornography, illegal software, or other things that make sleeping a little harder.
These people should use their talents for a greater good.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
he's building evidence of his being a reformed pirate ... perhaps for some future early release hearing
If you are reading the comments, I had one more question. Are they going to let you use computers during your stay in prison? P.S. I am also interested in your "Free Software Mirroring" you can contact me at sjh4069ksu.edu
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Interested in AI? MACR
He has an obvious conflict of interest, namely that he will want to appear sincerely repentant when it comes time for parole hearings and what not. I think it's safe to assume that he doesn't really feel that way, and the only reason he's saying it is because he's being caged like a laboratory animal for sharing information.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
take a basic course in social psychology, and you may learn that the first step towards changing an attitude can be to act the role.
it's in his best interest for many reasons (not just impressing parole officers) to change his internalized belief. whatever motivates him to start down this path is fine with me. best of luck to him.
He did not act from a desire of profit, or even of fame. He did not do anything with an intent to hurt someone. His entire warez career was based on the desire to be with his friends and help them out. In a sense he lived the life that the Gnu Manifesto envisages as the ideal state of affairs: a life in which everybody may modify and copy software for all of their friends.
Do you believe in death after life?
haiku
/haiku
Here's something for the
Open Office marketeers -
Chris Tesco likes us!
This space for rent.
Conjugal visits? Not that I know of. No, minimum security prison is no picnic. I have a client in there right now. He says the trick is, kick someone's ass the first day, or become someone's bitch. Then everything will be alright.
Morality is so very overrated. Go get laid and lose the holier than thou bullshit.
It is illegal copying and/or use. Theft implies that the owner was deprived of his property. Oh and please don't trot out the old saw that warez use "steals" revenue from software manufacturers! That would only be true if the warez user would have otherwise purchased a licenced copy had a warez version not been available. It is wrong for anyone to make assumptions about the purchasing habits of individuals...a tactic often used by the aggrieved parties to inflate their "losses". In order for say...installing a "warez" MS Office to be theft, the install would have to be accompanied by backing a large truck up to a loading bay in Redmond and...
That being said, I'm starting to introduce some of my clients to the concept of GPL software and they're liking the concept of not having to pay the "Microsoft tax". The hardest part is getting past "What's the catch?" when I tell them that an Open Office license has no cost attached to it.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Everyone, Chris included, has the right to their own opinions. But, to me, this seems a hideous sell-out. One can only wonder whether there was some clause in the guy's plea bargain or whathaveyou that forces him to keep saying "piracy is bad", "stealing is wrong", without any mitigation.
Quite aside from the arguments as to whether piracy *really* costs anyone all that much, and about whether the industry grossly inflates the figures of the costs of piracy (hint: they do) - the punishment is ridiculously out of proportions with the crime. There are people who torture animals or beat their wives getting smaller sentences.
The fact is that most people dealing in warez aren't making any money from it. They're often not stealing things which they would otherwise buy. They're not causing anyone any physical pain. They're not taking money directly from anyone's wallet. And yet these people - often, young kids who spend most of their time just chatting with one another - are faced with the risk of *years* in prison. This is ridiculous. Irrespective of whether you think piracy is "wrong", I find it incredibly difficult to believe that anyone genuinely thinks that someone should be *sent to jail* for this kind of thing - least of all when, for example, people who drive drunk often aren't sent to jail. It is *wrong* that crimes that ostensibly affect big business carry a greater punishment than do many crimes against humanity. It is *wrong* that people should be locked up for several years for this kind of thing: who amongst us doesn't have the odd mp3 lying around, the odd tape copied from a friend, the odd copy of Office made on numerous computers?
The fact that everyone's doing it doesn't mean that it's not 'wrong', of course. But can anyone really endorse having _two years_ of someone's life being taken from them for the sake of something which almost everyone is doing?
This makes me sick.
Though what he did was illegal, I just dont feel it to be immoral. Sharing information or music or ideas just doesnt raise the sin-o-meter at all.
The fact is that something which is not naturally immoral (sharing) can be made to give people pangs of guilt through conditioning. The "IP" establishment thinks that if they continue to pound into peoples heads that "Copying is stealing" and "Sharing is evil", then people will actually start to believe it. (In fact it does work to a limited extent) What will actually happen is that the harder they push the party line, the more people will see through it, and the harder they enforce the rules, the more people will protest them (or realize they exist at all).
At some point in the future, the whole copyright cartel is going to falter. Its not human nature to hoarde information, opinions, or ideas. It is in our nature to share ideas that we have discovered, and hopefully our economies will have enough time to get out of the way and figure out new business models before its too late.
For an amazingly overly zelous system designed to do one thing this is about what i'd expect:
Shell shock. Having been on the recieving end of tickets i'm prity sure once the kid gets over that part he'll educate himself alright, probably on security methodology. What he does with that....
just as he says, stealing software IS wrong. There's no way around it. However, I don't like how he calls the corporations innocent. While it's not good to steal ever. Many big software comapanies are far from innocent.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I was expecting the raid to be somewhat cooler than that. Tell me, did you receive a cellular phone via FedEx before you got nailed? Or was the phone ringing on your desk per chance? You missed the way out if either of those things happened.
...about what he did, it's interesting to see that he's planning on using his skills to help distribution of free software with the "Free Software Mirror Project". The warez scene has undoubtedly got a huge skills base at it's core for organising large scale distribution structures like this. We're already starting to see individuals skills and general methodology (such as the evolution of p2p) being used for legitimate distribution of software. Hopefully this will be something that grows (I cannot see that it won't). /. have also been mentioned in the past. However the techniques are developed and whomever develops them, the knowledge of how to get a stable and working environment where increased demand gives increased availability rather than the inverse has got to be worth exploiting.
The recent example of hammering of websites and servers for the release of Mandrake 9, RedHat 8 and UT2003 show that these methods are needed (along with a myriad of other occasions). Methods for mirroring sites linked to by
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
Most people convicted of crimes eventually come to the realization that they were indeed wrong. Those that don't usually are the ones that end up back in jail over and over again.
What?
it is absolutely wrong to steal software from a company. Whether it is ones or zeros or bags of money, it is stealing.
If it's bags of money, it's called stealing.
If it's ones and zeros, it's called copyright infringement.
They are different things.
That's why we have different words for them.
If you download Photoshop, I don't believe you are depriving Adobe of $500 (more like $700).
You ARE depriving other software vendors of $50 or whatever you would be willing to pay for a photo program. If I wrote paint shop or Billy Macks Paint'n'Go I'd be mad, because you stole something and deprived me of the chance to sell you my $15 shareware program.
Them: Mr,Tresco, if you go on slashdot and tell them why software piracy is bad and that they should all be looking forward to DRM, then we will let you off with a low security prison near your home and a shorter sentence. If you tell the truth to them then you will get your original longer sentence.
Chris: erm. okay it's a deal.
When Men in Black could get by with just a single letter name:
"Agent XXXXX, meet agents XXX, XX, XXXXXXXX, X and Sever."
"Sever? What the hell kind of name is that?"
You are only thinking of the 1s and 0s of the situation. In reality, warez steals control from the copyright holder.
If I am a potential customer of BigSoftwareCo and I have two equal options of a) paying BigSoftwareCo $1000 for their products or b) downloading it for free from your warez site, which am I going to do? Maybe a), maybe b).
If I go with a), that's a moral failing on my part, sure... but the fact that you offer the product has stolen control of it from it's creators. They no longer have the ability to say who gets to use the product (those that cough up the $1000 to them) and those who don't.
That's theft, plain and simple.
*~*~*~*~*~*
gavle sucks but bbb ownz0r j00 :D so easy to get on bbb sites and they get great speed to each other
i dont want another fucking capitalist puke in my country. stay where you are. please. thanks.
People still speak it.
I would've thought that the kind of person who'd post their grades might've been the kind of person to spend 2 seconds double-checking. Guess not.
What next, i can just see it . im at a bar taking a leak i look down t the urina mat, instead of dont do drugs it sayes, dont pirat software what next.
kitty bush " just say no to warez".
the betty ford warez clinic. warez anonymous.
-- if you post it " they will steal it"
Is this guy in love with his professors? What's with the pictures and adoring commentary?
IMO the biggest thing holding back Open Source/Free software is not M$ or any of the other large closed source software companies.
It it warez fucks like this.
If there wasn't such an availability of cracked versions of commercial software, way more effort and talent would be funnelled into Open Source development.
Photoshop is still a way better product than GIMP. I can get a warez copy of Photoshop. Why would I use/support GIMP?
Every parents who refuse to buy their kids toys, computer games, software are STEALING Money from the toy, game, and software companies!!!! All the parents are theft!? Don't you tell me they are not physically stealing from the companies... they are hurting their business!!!!
The truth is that when a new distribution comes out, the bandwidth is quickly overwhelmed by everyone wanting to get the latest thing. What's wrong with trying to do this more effectively and efficiently?
The site doesn't say much about how this would work, but I guess if I actually knew anything about the technical aspects of how the illegal networks that he was busted for supporting function, it might be obvious. Doesn't seem like it would be too complex. You just have to have a couple of levels with good fan-out, and some way to find a mirror with capacity and spread the load so no site gets hammered.
That is the wrong way to think about it. You are asking yourself if it is worth something to commit a crime. What you should be asking yourself is, if what you are doing is fundamentally wrong. If it is (and I would say that it is) then stop doing it.
I wonder how fast his lawyer can type, or if his lawyer just dictates slashdot responses to his secretary.
I'm married, have a paid-for car, a good job, and share a house with the bank. I've got responsibilities. At this point, I'm using 100% paid for (or free or Free) software. Please allow that fact to color my response.
Everything in life is a cost-benefit analysis. Sure, the MBA people will tell you they came up with it, and they're the only people who truly understand how it works, and now I wonder if they're right. There's a risk in driving to work every day. Is it right? Well, it puts money in the grubby hands of a greedy corporation that cars about the environment to the extent required by the EPA. I could get killed. Therefore I shouldn't drive? Certainly are downsides to working, not to mention risks. Flying home for Christmas to visit the in-laws? Well, that involves the pollution of the airplane, more money in the hands of terrorist supporting oil barons, and again, that risk of death on my part.
Everything in life is a trade-off. Just sticking with what's right isn't enough -- few things are inherantly right. Just sticking with what's legislated isn't right. Now, say I am interviewing students for a job that involves using windows on a daily basis. I'll choose the candidate who pirated windows to get practice over the candidate who did the "right thing" and has honestly never seen windows because he can't afford it. Explain to me what is right there? Those who are too poor to "do right" shouldn't take risks?
Take a survey of college students. Some will certainly agree, but many won't. Don't bother asking attorneys, or people worried about their next parole board, but ask people with little money and a great concern for their futures.
Now, back to Mr. Tresco's situation. Is it "right" to hijack Institute computers to violate copyrights? One could easily argue the "Robin Hood" perspective; less easily, one could attempt to learn how much software enters MIT illegally then compute a net flow.
Let's assume that Mr. Tresco, or someone like him, is single, and has very few obligations. What's the risk??? Get caught, stripped of your job, sent to jail for almost 3 years. No freedom. Potentially unkind things happen there. If done well, someone could take advantage of the free room and board, earn a GED, BA or BS, and put together an outline on your experiences and sell the book/movie rights on how you're a better person. There are a lot of people out here for whom jail is not a punishment, but rather a new place to live with new opportunities. "What's right" is for the ethicists. Cost benefit analysis for the rest of us.
Clean record, time with my wife, commute to work for me, please.
... I do not think it means what you think it means.
Maybe you should look up "stealing" in the dictionary.
Theft.
Sounds like someone put a cage around your head with a rat in it until you hated the one you loved. I'm no fan of pirating, but you've had a mindjob big-time. :(
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - spoken Latin was found dead in a Catholic church this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the linguistics community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy learning all those tenses, there's no denying its contributions to modern language. Truly an Roman icon.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Its pretty funny. I think I interviewed with this guy for a co-op at the MIT Economics Dept. right before he got arrested.
i have been perusing the previous comments, and it seems as though people are encouraging free software but not warez, now looking at this as purely an information issue, it looks like people are basing their stance against warez on some consensus and not how they actually think. viva la resistance!!!
So its it wrong for me to steal a cure for cancer and cure people for free? People that could not otherwise afford it? What if, I just steal the formula for it?
Sharing Intellectual property advances our society.
Under his situation, where he is currently at liberty but will begin a prison sentence soon, how difficult would it be for him to put himself beyond the reach of the criminal justice system?
For myself, if I were on the jury, I would have used some of the powers described at FIJA to ensure that he received a maximum of 6 months in prison (assuming that I believed in his guilt and I agreed with the law, which I probably wouldn't).
However, assuming that members of the jury were duped or otherwise misled into this unreasonable sentence, how easy is it to leave and where should he go? Is Brazil the best destination (since they lack an extradition treaty)?
I would like to know this, for the day when these sentences are doled out for Kazaa users.
I've read lots of stories here on organizations (City of Virginia Beach comes to mind) that have been served with a letter from the BSA about the status of their licences. But has there EVER been an actual raid on an organization?
I ask this because it seems to me if a squad of accountants from the BSA showed up on the door of my business, I would say "Go away, I'm busy!" For their threats to mean anything, they would have to get a warrant from a judge. Which would require reasonable grounds for search and seizure. Which would require the actions of the police.
I think that we would all have heard of such an event by now, if it has happened. If it has (and I missed it), please let me know.
I assume the audits in question are carried out voluntarily because the business cannot risk that the BSA may do exactly what I describe above. The impact of preparing for the audit is less than the impact of having your office shut down (perhaps indefinately) by a police search. If you were then found to be in compliance, would you have legal recourse against the BSA?
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
And not a Civil action? He didn't hurt anyone, He didn't threaten anyone with a gun and rob a liqour store. He didn't make any money or gain anything at all financially for having done this? Why isn't this a civil suit for money instead of a PRISON term for COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT?? WTF?
this is the clip from the cybercrime.gov website: "As of July, 2002, 16 defendants have been convicted in the U.S. of felony criminal copyright offenses, including conspiracy to commit those offenses, and nine defendants have been sentenced to federal prison terms ranging in length from 30 to 46 months"
and i say again FELONY copyright offenses?? WTF?!?!?
[i]Theft implies that the owner was deprived of his property.[/i] Ever heard of Intellectual Property? It may be a novel thing to you, but I assure you there is such a thing (yeah, I'm sure you could have written Beethoven's 9th, MS Word and Quake III Arena if you'd wanted to). I'm the first one to admit though that it's a faulty business model (especially for games and music, programs used in offices rather gains than loses from illegal copying by individuals), but that really doesn't change that it's immoral.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
It has monetary value. It is theft weather or not its 1's or 0's or an actually copy of the software. Copyright Infringment would be selling the game as your own.
I mod down any one who says "I'm sure I will get modded down for this"
...but how did he pronounce it? Quintuple-X??
It is a good thing people can't be locked up for their beliefs... but only their actions... Also, it is good that hackers can still write software freely, assuming they come up with it themselves, without getting locked in jail. That said, I think the future is in reverse engineering. I intend on making software that can reverse engineer commercial software effectively and easily. I intend to create the software by testing it on my own personally created programs. I will not run it on any system out there. I am writing my own OS and programming language for the purpose, from the ground up. When it is done, I will pass out the source code for all to have and do as they wish. What will be the result? The world will have to change to catch up with the amount of changes you can make to your own software at that point. No more repackaging and charging for the same old ancient crud. The only way to make money will be to write NEW software that is USEFUL.
In Article I, Section 8, the authors explicitly gave Congress the power "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". The Consitution does not invalidate copyright, it explicitly grants it.
I can play this game:
[T]he manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
~United States Constitution
So, is it illegal to buy alcohol in the United States? NO! Why? Because the text above (Ammendment 18) was later superceded by a later ammendment (Ammendment 21). In Constitutional law, when new ammendments conflict with old ammendments (or with the original Constitution document), the new ammendments supercede the old text!!! Look through an archive of the Constitution on the web, and you'll see that a good portion of the original document is crossed out in many copies, indicating that it has been superceded by later ammendments.
Congress would have been granted the ability to authorize Copyright had the First Ammendment never been added, but in my mind, the First Ammendment calls into doubt the Constitutionality of the "progress of science" clause. Remember, NEW Constitutional text supercedes OLD Constitutional text whenever there's a conflict.
Also, you say "The Consitution does not invalidate copyright, it explicitly grants it." Even if I'm wrong about the First Ammendment making copyright Unconstitutional, the Constitution never granted Copyright; rather, it granted Congress the ability to grant Copyright. Congress could revoke Copyright tomorrow and it would be 100% legal for them to do so. Congress has no obligation to grant Copyright, it just has the ability to grant Copyright, which I personally feel was overturned when the First Ammendment was added to the Constitution.
According to the original Constitution, Al Gore would be Vice President right now, because he got the second-highest number of electoral votes for President. Why isn't he? Because that part of the Constitution was superceded by an ammendment.
ALSO: how exactly does the government's current behavior with regard to copyright meet the "limited time" restriction, given that every 4 years or so, copyright is extended for another 5 years, meaning that copyrighted material just gets further and further away from the public domain as time goes on rather than closer and closer?
ALSO:
Which of the following is the latest Britney Spears album?
1. Science
2. Useful
From where I stand, I don't see it as either.
i think piracy is bad for open source. if illegal copies of win2k and photoshop were not available then students and others who cannot afford expensive software would not use the software. thus, they would be look for cheaper or free alternatives.
maybe?
Will the real men of the warez scene please stand up? When DoD went down, there wasn't even a noticeable decline in warez for 1 second.
I had a friend who went to jail for duplicating data. The problem was, he was using a color photocopier at his work to duplicate $20 bills. And all he did was use a photocopier!
Other than that, I agree with your post... Much of this should be civil only. I also think that Corporations have so much power to put individuals behind bars, yet no individual can put a corporation behind bars. However, legally, corps are people too. I don't get it.
Bork!
If that was as well enforced as the DMCA, you'd have a lot of company in jail ...
Legally, it certainly is. And you'd likely be put away.
Morally? You'd most likely die a hero.
I won't even get into the fact that warez != cure for cancer. See the subject. Nothing ever has a line, nothing is ever black and white.
No, it is stealing (as well as copyright violation.)
Webster's NewWorld Dictionary, 2nd College Edition
steal: 1. to take or appropriate (another's property, ideas, etc.) without permission, dishonestly, or unlawfully, esp. in a secret or surreptitious manner.
Cambridge International Dictionary of English
steal [cambridge.org]: to take (something) without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it
From these definitions, it is clear that the word 'steal' may be applied to the appropriation of ideas, trade secrets, and other non-physical assets (like copyrighted digital music.)
You have taken away the author's right to say who can have a copy of his work, and under what terms.
No such right exists.
Your logic:
I hereby demand that you give me $50. If you DON'T give me $50, then you are stealing from me, because you have taken away my right to decide who must give me $50, and under what terms.
That's your logic. But no such right exists.
Your logic:
I hereby demand that you punch yourself in the nose. If you DON'T punch yourself in the nose, then you are stealing from me, because you have taken away my right to dictate the interaction between your fist and your nose.
That's your logic. But no such right exists.
Your logic:
I am the author of a book you bought last week. I decide I don't want you to have the book after all, and I demand that you return it to me and pay me $500 for the inconvenience. You don't get back the money that you spent on the book, because I get to dictate the terms here, buddy! If you don't give back the book that you paid for (and pay me $500), then you are stealing from me by taking away my right to decide who can have a copy of my work, what they can do with it, and how long they can keep it.
That's your logic. But no such right exists. And you are an idiot.
c'mon slashdot crowd, aren't we intelligent enough to realize that sin is an outdated thought process? the whole idealogy of "innocence" is something that needs to be forgotten with the majority of what is called christianity now.... christianity was a social movement which was good for when it started... it was something challenging the status quo... true, it still is with the progressive jesuits in central and south america... but i think generally.. as a society we should be able to push on past these "morals"... basic reason why the christian thoughts of innocence should be abolished: innocence was created and used by the christians to try and keep one from doing sin in the same way a lot of more modern revolutionary groups will claim something is "counterrevolutionary"... sin was designed in such a way so that if you did something that was not permitted by the church.. then you were doing something 'wrong' and should feel 'guilty.' what happens when people are limited from things with guilt trips? they do them anyway, AND feel guilty. the first showing that guilt trips such as "innocence" and "sin" are ineffective, the second showing that they are utterly unwanted(at least, IMO... to any person with any sort of sense)... i doubt tresco means half of what he said... he's saying it to look good... because he is going to be monitered more, and if the monitering shows him as regretful, then poof.. parole! to confront the thought that stealing/copying(i'm not going to confront the argument between those two words really.. although i agree it is the second of the two) from adobe/microsoft/whatever is wrong: in the case of microsoft, they have continually used tactics that are unhealthy to the general community of people who use computers.. and why? for little green pieces of paper. microsoft has probably set computers back more than i can imagine with their marketing techniques... so i completely support any copying of their software rather than giving them more of those green pieces of paper. in the case of products from places like adobe who i don't know as much as i probably should about... i have to view them from my view... which is that of a young-ish kid/adult/creature(depends on what numbers you designate as "kid" or "adult") who has grown up at poverty level.. jumping under and a little above constantly his whole life... who got his computer only because he was lucky enough to have a friend who had a lot more money than he needed and was surprisingly generous... i don't mean to sound like i'm giving a sob story, but sometimes i can't afford food... so yeah, i've stolen from supermarkets that would rather have me starve than give up a little food so i can eat. so i don't have money to buy these 700+ dollar software packages... even though i would like to use some of them! i have used photoshop before, and it's not that great in my opinion... i actually prefer gimp... but i know there are programs out there i would love to just try and see what i can do with... not to make money, but to just satisfy my curiosity and to produce things that i can be proud of. i am generally against intellectual property... saying this, i must also say i am generally for software developers eating. but i feel as a society we must go through a full cultural revolution before we kill ourselves... intellectual property is ridiculous on the aspect that.. how can you own a sound? some text? a little bit of code? a graphic? intellectual property was a ridiculous, and completely unproductive idea... when one person 'owns' it, and you can't take it and alter it to make it better... things are so much more stagnant than they should be. this is why i support the open source community, but i think it needs to go further than this. very much so.... and since this point has been nagging my mind since starting this reply.. i might as well voice it.. i would not participate in the warez community as it is right now... one simple reason: it is incredibly easy to catch those involved... and i don't feel like spending any part of my life even more confined than i am... the warez community needs to work on making things untouchable, or as close as it can get to this... from there the warez community needs to get itself some positive attention and actually gain some beliefs that stimulate their warez trading.. rather than this disconnected amount of people with all differing reasons going to ftp's... from there the warez community could do more for the all people who use computers than linux has, i think... because if we could keep ahead of the feds, we could really force companies into changing themselves... oh yeah, all of you dang /. users need to do some reading on the spokane, washington free speech fight... they can't jail all of us if we just organize!
Sigh. I know I shouldn't respond to trolls.
Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus was against the law.
The American Colonies rebelling against the United Kingdom was against the law.
Helping slaves escape from their masters was against the law.
Owning alcohol in the United States was against the law.
Women voting was aginst the law.
ANYONE voting is against the law in non-democratic countries.
Owning a Bible is against the law in most of the world.
Criticizing the government is against the law in most of the world.
Smoking pot is against the law.
Self-defense is against the law in many places.
A woman appearing in public with her face uncovered is against the law in many places.
Unmarried sex is against the law in many places.
Homosexuality is against the law in many places, and used to be illegal almost everywhere.
WHO FUCKING CARES if it's against the law? A whole damn lot of things are against the law. Be more original when you troll.
You need to be very careful when you ask if it's "wrong" to do something. In all cases, if the cure for cancer is patented/copyrighted, and you do not have permission from the owner of the rights to redistribute the cure, then yes, stealing the cure for cancer is "wrong" in the sense that it is illegal. By stealing the cure for cancer, you're depriving the owner of his rights.
However, it is "wrong" for the owner of the cure to withhold it from the world in the first place, in the sense that it is immoral.
So here we have a sticky situation: he's doing something wrong, you're doing something wrong in order to counteract the effects of his doing something wrong. Do two wrongs make a right? No; they don't cancel each other out. But your wrong cures the world of cancer, whereas his wrong prolongs human suffering.
Given the choice in this situation I would steal the cure for cancer every time, and damn the jail sentences. Ultimately, the effects that your actions have on the world matter much more than whether they weigh as right or wrong on someone else's moral scales.
Of course, warez are not a cure for cancer. They're a relief valve, a way for people who cannot afford the exhorbitant price of commercial software to obtain the benefits of that software without selling a testacle to do so. Warez are wrong, but that has never stopped me from engaging in light warez trading, and it never will. I'll buy the games and apps I think are worth the price, but if I can't afford it then I wouldn't have bought it in the first place, and I'm not hurting anyone by stealing it.
Marijuana is illegal, despite the fact that it is neither wrong nor harmful, and would save countless lives if legalized--from medical marijuana users, to people who smoke deadly cigarettes because they are "right," to the thousands of people who are killed or exploited every year in the underground drug trade.
Until recently, the perfectly normal act of homosexuality was illegal, despite the fact that it is a naturally occuring biological phenomenon.
The Patriot Act and DMCA have made free speech illegal in circumstances, despite the fact that our nation was founded on the belief that free speech is an inalienable right.
Right and wrong have nothing to do with legal and illegal. By diluting the lawbooks with meaningless rubbish, legislators are depreciating the value of the judicial system in the eye of the common citizen. I cannot abide by a system of laws that I do not respect. If you wish me to follow the reasonable laws, then get rid of the unreasonable laws, and show me that the legal system makes sense.
How is that a troll, you fucking moron?
It's a ***FELONY*** because it's a combination of a variety of PROPERTY crimes, including THEFT, FRAUD and DISTRIBUTION of stolen property.
Would we argue the nature of this if someone had broken in an electronics warehouse or a bookstore or a Costco and taken an equivalent dollar amount of goods and given them out to their friends?
I doubt it.
However, because software is "intangible" in nature compared to a frozen cheese pizza or bottle of Jack or Sony Walkman, some of us look at it differently.
However, the manufacturers of the software have to pay ALL those same expenses that Sony does.
They have to pay executives, engineers, marketing staff, assembly workers, packaging, warehousing, shipping, et al.
When you distribute a stolen copy of a piece of software and by so doing, reduce the numbers of copies that will be sold, you make it harder for a company to survive.
While it's easy to imagine that every s/w company is a MS, Oracle, IBM or Sun, it's not true.
Most s/w companies are much smaller and are fighting for their survival on a daily basis.
And we all have to wonder what would have happened to our entire marketplace, if their had been less piracy.
What would have been the fate of WordPerfect Corp, Lotus, Novell, and many other dead products if there had been less piracy?
What impact on Apple's conversion from a $10BN a year company to $1+BN company?
There have been many jobs lost, products destroyed and careers sidetracked in our industry by sales declines.
Sone of these SURELY have been as a result of warez.
If you lost your job and maybe your family, and knew warez had been at least partially responsible, how would you feel about warez?
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Neither should we measure a crime by how much money it supposedly has cost a corporation. For people who do measure crimes thusly, it entrusts to corporations the power to price our activities in any way they see fit, and corporations are not guided by the public good.
"On a morality basis, Mr. Tresco isn't even a gnat on an elephant's ass. He is a common crook, plain and simple."
~You
"On a morality basis, Harriet Tubman isn't even a gnat on an elephant's ass. She's a common crook, plain and simple."
~Your great-great-great-great-grandfater.
History puts things in perspective. The future will put the present in perspective, and your great-great-great-great-grandchildren will gasp in disbelief when they study history, and they will wonder, "Did people back then REALLY support locking people in cages for sharing stories and songs with friends and family?" Their teacher will say, "Yes, it was against the law back then. But those were different times, before people valued freedom." They'll look at the 20th century the same way we look at the 19th.
As for the unweighted numbers? Here's some data from a US DoJ report, which combines first- and second-degree rape:
Still leinent by many standards, but not nearly the disaster that the RAINN release makes it out to be.making DeCSS so piracy can run rampant (but has a legit excuse to run dvd's on linux) is fine
'stealing' something that wasn't going to be bought anyway = bad. how many people actually were going to buy doom as the disks went everywhere? how many LEGIT people bought doom so they could have their own copy. this also goes into (audio) cd sales... nobody translates the logic though.
score -1, truth troll.
Runnin' On Empty
Stop using commercial software. Completely. I'm quite serious.
Back in the day when the 80s warez scene was going strong, we really didn't have that option. Enter Linux/GPL/OSS software. These days, I can do anything on OSS that I can do on commercial software. Why the hell would I pony up $500 for Photoshop when Gimp can do almost everything Photoshop can do? Why spend $300 on Windows when Linux is storming up behind it and will soon pass it in features, reliability, and usefulness? Use free databases, tell Oracle to stuff their $20,000 per processor license up their ass. I'm not paying any company enough money to buy a decent car for a bunch of ones and zeros. To me, that's blatant extortion.
So I'm taking myself out of the loop by learning to use all of the free stuff. Not just me, either... we've been offering open source solutions along with closed source solutions regularly to our customers, and since about 8 months ago they have been going 100% with the open source solutions because the price tag difference is stunning.
Sure, there might be a few applications that you simply cannot find oss solutions for. Those are few and far between now, and they are going to get a lot fewer and farther in the future. Itches to scratch, and all that.
Microsoft was right... OSS was very much like a cancer. It's a cancer of the software industry, and hopefully one day it will kill its host and provide all of us with a great deal more freedom than we have right now. If you think that sounds laughable, just remember that until about 5 years ago very, very few people had heard of Linux. These days it is a household word among anyone who uses a computer.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
That 12-year-old secuded me!!!
Most software sucks.
Spend your time more wisely. Write your own.
Rob Newhouse: You know, minimum security prison is no picnic. I had a client in there once. He said the trick is kick someone's ass the first day, or become somebody's bitch. Then everything will be alright.
... Watch out for your cornhole..."
Michael Bolton: We're not going to some white collar resort prison. No, no, no! We're going to federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison!
Lawrence: [as Peter leaves to confess to Lumbergh about stealing money, knowing he may go to prison] "Peter
All stolen from IMDB.
Photoshop is more like $700 or so, the academic version is $200-250 alone.
That's INSANELY expensive for a high school student, and pretty damn expensive for a college student.
I'd have to say that at least Microsoft is doing better than Adobe in this regard - Their academic discounts are MUCH better than Adobe's.
Adobe Premiere academic is $250 - The full version with a Firewire card is available for $300 from ADS Systems. (Look around on Best Buy's website, the kit is somewhere there. Try searching for 1394)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
In my misspent youth I was a Hare Krishna. We got up before dawn to chant verses from the Bhagavad-Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam, both of which are written in Sanskrit. Granted, Sanskrit isn't anyone's first language but it definitely can be and is spoken.
Aren't you late for you NAMBLA meeting?
Microsoft doesn't care about piracy by college students. We can DOWNLOAD any Microsoft software we want (CS majors at Cornell) from the network after we sign a form saying we're using it for non-commercial purposes. If we don't want to use a CDR, 9 times out of 10 a CS student can ask the MS rep on campus for a copy of whatever CD or whatever MS press book they want.
It's unfortunate that all software is not available in this manner -- if it were, I'd be much more prone to supporting the notion that all piracy is bad.
--
Mod this one up. Sound reasoning that most everyone can understand!
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Just think, If you stole stuff and sold it you would have been better off. At least you would have gotten money from the theft. In fact, you probably would have gotten less time for killing someone! After all, people aren't all that important, right?
Hopefully you'll present this list at your parole hearing. No doubt you'll look a lot better than most that show up there.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Wrong or right, civil or criminal, this was an "Organized Crime Ring".
While its intents and purposes wasn't directly for the re-sale of pirated software, it was an organized crime ring transporting STOLEN GOODS.
This isn't someone copying a CD and violating the COPYRIGHTS of the software, this is basically "druge dealing" with the drug being the software.
This isn't corporations having more rights, this is corproations, small business and small developers protecting THEIR OWN RIGHTS!
I wrote the fucking thing with the intention of getting stupid responses from people like you. If that's not a troll, I don't know what is.
Tresco typing: ... it is absolutely wrong to steal software from a company.
<gag><gag>
Tresco thinking: the crap I have to go through for early parole.
Well, this seems like a disappointment. Although you could take the interview at face value, it looks like Chris wrote these responses with an eye toward paroll.
Not that I blame him, but it's too bad we couldn't fast forward a few years and ask him the same questions when he can speak more freely.
If I could believe that I was guilty, then perhaps.
If I believed that I was wrongly convicted, that I was the victim of a DMCA witch hunt or other unreasonable persecution of dubuious constitutional footing, then no, it would be time to leave, and never look back, save to pull all the assets I could out of the system.
There really should be a FAQ somewhere for people who need to leave in a hurry. I'm surprised that it isn't done more often.
Euro Charts:
------------
Multiplier: [x5.0] : BB CL T
[x4.5] : B1 MD NB POX
[x4.0] : 187 FM HIF TWS
US Charts:
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Multiplier: [x4.0] : MWM
[x3.5] : DDS
can anyone add my ip on b1 plz?
i3
The biggest argument people seem to have for theft of software is that they're only hurting the companies. So why go to jail?
That's not true.
If I'm a software developer, and I work extra nights to finish a product, and our sales are deflated from organized piracy, and I don't get a cost of living raise that year, then I have been harmed.
Me. Not just my company, but me.
Those organizers are costing me money. Just as if they came and vandalized my house and I had to repair it.
I want those responsible put in jail, just like vandals and other theft and crime.
It's easy to support stealing software or movies when you don't actually make them, but instead sit on your fat ass playing games and watching movies.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
"When you distribute a stolen copy of a piece of software and by so doing, reduce the numbers of copies that will be sold, you make it harder for a company to survive."
Ignorance is bliss, isn't it ?
A 14=yr old downloading Photoshop does NOT deprive the company of any sale. That kid would never have bought Photoshop in the first place.
"Would we argue the nature of this if someone had broken in an electronics warehouse or a bookstore or a Costco and taken an equivalent dollar amount of goods and given them out to their friends?"
No, because it IS different !
Here's how :
If a company makes 1000 gadgets and puts in a warehouse/wherever and you steal 1, they only have 999 to sell. But, when you're talking about software which you download off the net, the original party("distributor") still HAS his/her copy to play/work around with. You haven't deprived him/her of it. They can still sell it or whatever.
Understand the difference between copyright infringement and stealing. They have 2 different terms for a reason.
Just another reason to be paranoid, another reason to use exclusively free software, and another reason to avoid Flash.
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
There is something weird about the site he linked. The mail contact says something like mail@antipiracy.org. Go to this site -antipiracy.org - and you'll see a banner telling you that "Internet piracy supports terrorism".
:-)
Dammit, I shouldn't have sent this crack to the guy who called himself B1nLaD1n
You have taken away the author's right to say who can have a copy of his work, and under what terms.
No such right exists. Your logic: I hereby demand that you give me $50. If you DON'T give me $50, then you are stealing from me, because you have taken away my right to decide who must give me $50, and under what terms.
WTF? Are you dense? My logic:
"I have written this calendar software. I hereby demand that anyone who wishes to use this software pay me $50 for the right to use it. If you do not may me $50, you may not use my software."
I have no fucking clue where you are coming from with your angle on this.
"The original post was a whining rant that Tresco shouldn't do time because he "did nothing wrong". My response was simply that he should do time because he did break the law. All this "high and mighty" is deflecting the real issue. warez is IN NO WAY, NOR WILL BE AT ANY TIME the moral equvalent of slavery or civil rights..."
~You
"The original documente was a whining rant that Harriet Tubman shouldn't do time because she 'did nothing wrong'. My response was simply that she should do time because she did break the law. All this 'high and mighty' is defelecting the real issue. Helping niggers escape from their rightful masters is IN NO WAY, NOR WILL BE AT ANY TIME the moral equivalent of the civil rights of decent, white-skinned people..."
~Your great-great-great-great grandfather.
History repeats itself...
While I applaud the government in catching this group and meting out something approaching justice in this case, I cringe every time I see the DMCA mis-applied to squelch criticism or competition.
Perhaps when we can get those making the laws to begin a sane discourse about the future of copyright, people's opinions won't seem quite so stigmatized in this area... Is it wrong to share a copy of your favorite game with your best friend? Probably not (at least it didn't used to be illegal and you'd be able to do it with a book). Is it wrong to share a copy of your favorite game with 10,000 of your closest friends? Absolutely.
Copyright has been chosen by the current establishment. But it is optional. The more IP infringes on important things (like free speech) the more likely it is to be thrown out by the next generation. I am a voting member of the population, and I currently wonder if a reasonable set of IP laws can ever be reached. If not, I'd much prefer no IP over the alternative.
I write software because I love to. If you compete with me using dirty tricks instead of technical merit you devalue not only what I do for 10-20 hours a week. You devalue the usefulness of computers everywhere.
And we need to crack down on illicit drug use (marijuana in particular) much harder!!
Can't have those free loader hippie types floating around...
mote, meet beam.
Who the fuck modded this up? Are you slashbots conditioned to hit the +1 when you see a dictionary definition?
Sorry to dis anyone,but there is no parole in a federal conviction, there is a chance for 55 good days a year,or your looking at doing 85% of your sentance regardless. Bummer dude! looks like he'll be doing 28 months even if he's a good boy.
I know, I know, I'm feeding the trolls. I guess I'm bored enough to humor them for a while longer.
My television has scarcity. There is only one of it. The same with my car. Only one of it. The same with my computer (well, actually, four of them rather than one, but still a finite number). Also, they are mine and you can't have them unless I give them to you. If I gave you my television, I wouldn't have one.
However, if I have an infinite number of televisions, and I sell an infinite number of them to your friend, and he gives an infinite number to you, what's the problem? I still have an infinite number of televisions, your friend has an infinite number of televisions and he obtained them in a moral way (buying them from me), and you have an infinite number of telivisions and you obtained them in a moral manner (your friend, who obtained them in a moral manner, gave them to you). What's the problem?
If I give you a copy of a song I write, it becomes YOUR property (morally, if not legally), and it would be morally wrong and Communistic of me to try to FORCE you to use it or not use your own new property in a certain way.
You should expand your mind and learn to care about freedom. You should start by visiting the Libertarian Party and learning why government interference in the private lives of consenting adults is BAD. Next, you should take The World's Smallest Political Quiz, sponsored by the Libertarian Party. Chances are, you may already have many Libertarian views! The transition to Libertarianism might not be as hard as you think. I used to be just like you until I learned to care about freedom.
Next, to learn about real Capitalism, not fake enforced-by-government-mandate capitalism (also known as Socialism/Communism), you should visit The Ayn Rand Institute. She's is, in many ways, the father of modern pro-capitalist anti-government-regulation thought. You should read her books, too.
Do these things, and you'll see the world from a different perspective. A *free* perspective.
This kid didn't write this stuff himself.
I can seem him feeling that what he did is wrong and going a little over board toward the copy infringement is theft camp, but somebody had to put those words in his mouth. The BSA are closer to customs agents at the Mexican boarder than they are to any useful policing force.
Lost your printed license documents? Oooh that's gonna COST ya!
Whoever moderated this as a troll needs to read it again. I assure you I am not taking an adversarial position to provoke reaction from unsuspecting posters as a troll would. I think you have to interpret anything our interviewee says with a giant grain of salt to the extent that he is unlikely to jeopardize his chances of parole/early release/whatever, so you can expect him to be less than candid about his real feelings about idea ownership. Perhaps our dear moderator presumed that because I believe information sharing should not be illegal that I must be a troll, but I hope others will think a little harder before clicking 'moderate', because I think this is a very important point.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
So I suppose the possibility that all DRM schemes will be breakable one way or another seems to escape your radar.
This world of yours would either be a heaven for hackers (becuase no one would believe they exist) or a hell for all "curious cats" out there, whether misguided or not...
"I have written this calendar software. I hereby demand that anyone who wishes to use this software pay me $50 for the right to use it. If you do not may me $50, you may not use my software."
Fair enough. But once I pay you $50 for the software, it becomes my software, and I'm free to give it away to my friends and family if I choose to do so.
At that point, my copy of the software is MY property, NOT yours. You have NO RIGHT to tell me what I can do with MY PROPERTY. Taking away the rights of people to use their own property in the manner they choose is called Communism, and I think history has proven very well (1 billion people murdered in a 50-year period) that it doesn't work.
How can you OWN something that you've already SOLD or GIVEN AWAY to SOMEONE ELSE? If you SELL it, it isn't YOURS anymore, it belongs to WHOEVER YOU SOLD IT TO.
I'm talking morally, not legally. The law hasn't yet caught up with morality.
Learn truth; don't be idiodic.
The question is whether your sales *would* be adversely affected by piracy.
And besides, my original point was centred upon the fact that people can do incredibly screwed up things - animal abuse, for example - and get away scott free. But copying a few files around can get someone incarcerated.
Ironically, pirates create an entire industry for developers of copy protection...
Just because he's sentanced to 33 months, doesn't mean he'll serve the entire term.
He'll probably serve 6-9 months, and get parole.
This guy is facing 3 years in prison for copying software, and you fuckers have the gall to complain that his responses are "insincere"?
I have a pretty good feeling you'd also be pretty insincere if your ass was facing 3 years behind bars. I bet you'd kiss as much ass as you could, just like he is. Hypocrites, all of you.
l33t months $ux
If you really were into the warz scene, I can't believe you'd give such pathetic answers. I can only assume you're much smarter than that and your bucking for parol or this whole artical was a total scam. I have my money on the scam angle. Myself, I'm not into the warz scene, but I am a sysadmin and can afford to buy shit. Comes right down to it, some shit I buy, some shit I take. The shit I take is usally just that, SHIT! If it's good shit, then I go out and buy a legit copy. This applies to software and music. As far as companies complaining that they're losing millions from piracy, sorry, that's a load of crap. The people into the warz scene (both crackers and users) aren't the ones who'd buy the software in the first place. If they couldn't get a warz copy, they probably wouldn't buy it either hence net product sold to the warz community would still be zero. Those freaking companies aren't losing money and they know it! And triple goes for the music industry. If music and software were at a reasonible price, people wouldn't be stealing it. It's greed on the company's side that causes the warz scene to exist in the first place. On a side note, it amazes me that the enforment agentcy is so dilligent with cracking down on piracy, yet Microsoft can still sell buggy software and be able to have the disclaimer that says if it causes dammage, they can't be sued.
sounds pretty interesting.
Not that I want to become a cracker, but it's a lot more complex than I ever thought.
I'd love to learn more. I've never really had that mob-obsession the rest of America has (sopranos, godfather, etc..) but this on the other hand is fascinating.
hell, I'd even read a Katz book on the topic.
Chris, you should write a book in prison. I'd buy it. Then I'd scan it and upload it to a DorD server in your honor.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
You are stealing unactualized profit, as if you took the money out of their pockets.
I am so sick of "Copying isn't theft." It is. you are stealing real money from these people.
"companies who are completely compliant who are targeted by the BSA would be happy about it."
No company is completely compliant. The smallest startups and coffee shops tend to "borrow" a copy of Office Pro. The very large companies pressure IT to set up computers with specific apps by a deadline (usually yesterday). This is even more so if they constantly move departments around every month. Not many actively check to see if they've exceeded their user count license for connecting to the database server. If you're a developer and code is needed immediatly, submitting a form for a tech to install an "official" IDE for your code could bring trouble if they take a long time or never show up.
"It doesn't have to be a tip based on fact"
Sometimes giant software companies start it. They know that nobody has 100% compliance so the software president could call up the president of another corporation and solicit for them to switch their email software. It's not implied but sometimes when they refuse they get audited.
I may have seemed harsh in my previous replies. I apologize. I just don't want to wind up as a slave in the future.
Read this. This is an honest plea. This is what the future will be like if the concept of Intellectual Property continues to grow without restraint.
For the past couple hundred years, Intellecual Property has grown stronger, and stronger, and stronger, and stronger, and the rights of the people who buy the intellectual property have grown weaker, and weaker, and weaker, and weaker. What if the trend never reverses?
What happens when it becomes illegal to buy a television that lets you change the channel? After all, changing the channel would deprive one network of advertising revenue, and that would be unethical, right?
Never happen? Don't be so sure. In many places, it's already illegal to buy or build a multi-region DVD player, and in just a few years it'll be illegal to own a computer that can run non-government-approved software.
Imagine 500 years from now if the trend continues. Our entire lives could be scheduled and controlled by Microsoft. Instead of being merely told what we can and can't do with the property we've purchased, we won't even have a choice in what we purchase. The party line will be "not buying this book deprives the author of payment for his hard work, so you MUST buy this book!" We'll be required to buy every work that is produced whether we want it or not, because not buying it steals money from the author, and if everybody is forced to buy it, there'll be no danger from the boogie-man of pirates.
If you're an Intellectual Property absolutist, then shouldn't making the decision not to buy a book be illegal, because it deprives the author of money he would have gotten if he'd bought the book?
I worry that in the future, we may never even see our paychecks our our money... rather, once we complete the education that the government selects for us, we'll go to work at the job they select for us, and we'll do what they tell us to do, and rather than being paid for working, we will be "allocated" a specific amount of food, clothing, consumer goods, and entertainment material based on a government/corporate allocation system. They'll TELL us that we're getting paid, but really, we're just laboring for them like slaves and they're throwing content and possessions at us to keep us from rebelling... we'll never even have a choice in what to buy.
After all, deciding to buy Product A instead of Product B, because you genuinely think Product A is a better product, deprives Company B of the revenue that went into the development of Product B!
This is where Intellectual Property leads.
See what the future could hold, and do whatever you can to avoid it!!! Please!
Seems to me that the biggest argument is that there aren't actually losses: the people that steal copies of software are people that don't have the money to purchase all that software in the first place anyway. They were never going to be able to afford the 1 Tb of programs, so how are the corporations losing money?
Sounds like a waste of my tax dollars just so that you can get your revenge on. I don't see how I'm benefitted by locking up some sysadmin that could continue to do his non-violent crime which involves distributing stolen software to people too poor or stupid to buy their own. I'd rather that my tax dollars were spent on breaking up large software companies that monopolize large areas of my marketplace due to their aggressive exploitation of that patent-system and the court-system. I don't give a flying fuck about some dweebs pirating software. They've been pirating since forever and the industry is still here and making a huge amount of money. If you're looking for a subject for self-righteous outrage take a look at how most of the Worldcom, Enron, GlobalCrossing and other mega-cheats are going to get to continue rooking us and raiding our 401Ks while the media distracts us with bullshit about Iraq.But it still costs money *up-front* to write the program, debug it, market it, improve it, etc. It also costs money up-front in the music and movie businesses too. How are providers supposed to recover those costs and make a profit?
By marketing and selling their product better, cheaper, or more conveniently than the competition can market and sell it.
Copyright is just an excuse to avoid competition. It's a government-granted monopoly.
Let the company that can sell the most copies of a novel be the company that makes a profit off of it. The company that produced the norel originally will have a strong edge because they'll be first out the gate, but if they drop the ball and market the novel poorly or too expensively, I should be free to buy the novel from a rival company.
Warez has the advantage of a low price, but a high level of inconvenience. Many people will stick with a more convenient, but also more expensive route of getting software. Let the various methods of getting the software compete with each other. Some people will want the affordability of warez. Some will want a more convenient way of getting the software, as well as manuals, support, and upgrade opportunities. They'll purchase the software. Let both groups of people live their lives. It's THEIR decision. The presence of group #1 doesn't mean the company can't make a profit from group #2.
*YOU* don't care, but I'll bet the car manufacturer cares, because that's one car less he could have sold to recover his costs (yes, yes, and make a profit too). Since it cost money to *develop* the product, and to *market* the product, and to *improve* the product, why shouldn't you have to *pay* for the product? Under your logic, once a single CD is sold, the product is then "represented in digital form", and the seller can do nothing to prevent unlimited copies from happening, thus never recovering his costs, or making a profit.
If I decide that I'd rather ride a bicycle than own a car, am I stealing from Ford or General Motors? After all, I'm *not* paying money for the product that they spent so much to develop. Should I be FORCED to own a car, just because car companies spend so much money designing them?
If you spend all your money developing a product that is so poor that nobody wants to purchase it, you get what you deserve. If you don't make a profit, it means that either your product sucked or you marketed it poorly.
Don't blame the competition for your inability to make a profit.
In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged the weak, evil people blamed the competition when they couldn't make a profit. The strong, motivated people, when they found themselves not making a profit, blamed themselves and did their best to improve.
"The copyright holder has lost nothing, only the copies own (the store) has lost anything. Copyright law is completely irrelevant, the thief will be charged with good old fashioned shoplifting."
The lost sale backs lost royalties back up the chain... unless artists receive royalties on stolen property?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
What would have been the fate of WordPerfect Corp, Lotus, Novell, and many other dead products if Microsoft hadn't bundled or otherwise gave away their products to put them out of business. By your logic, Bill Gates should be the one doing time here.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
I hope for a utopia, but I fear for a world like RMS's The Right To Read. That document was written to warn us about how things could go. Let's try to avoid it.
May I please put my penis in your mouth??
One of the most annoying misuses of terms with criminal meaning is "murder". If you're trying to build a negative slant around someone, it's never "A killed B". It has to be "A murdered B", because "murder" sounds so much more egregious. There "murderer will walk". Yet murder is a specific type of crime, distinct (and worse than) manslaughter or similar.
I don't understand what's so bad about calling copyright infringement "copyright infringement". It sounds less impressive, but that's about it.
May we never see th
GNU software is only a subset of GPLed software, let alone Free software, as a certain R. Stallman would be happy to tell you. What he'd be distributing would be GNU/software...
The problem is that when doing large site license agreements, one of the stipulations for, say, MS Office is that audits can be conducted.
May we never see th
Thanks for standing up to the idiots.
(To make this perfectly clear: I'm against copyright infringement. I'm a software engineer by trade and have several products I've developed on store shelves. However, copyright infringment is not the horrible monster it's made out to be.)
Perhaps we look at it different because we're capable of noticing the differences. If you break into a store and steal something you 1) damage the value of the property you broke into when you damange windows, locks, and other things, and 2) remove property so that the store no longer has a copy.
Copyright infringment is illegal and immoral, but it's not physical theft. if you break into my car and steal my CDs, I'll be pretty angry because I can no longer enjoy the CDs I paid for. The original copyright holder doesn't care because he already has my money. If you make a copy of my CDs, I'm out nothing and don't really care. The original copyright holder might have lost a sale, but you can never be sure. They are very different cases and deserve to be treated differently.
Interesting. I thought it was a felony because the law says, in summary, "redistributing copyright protected works is a felony." It doesn't say anything like, "redistributing copyright protected works is a form of theft, fraud, and distribution of stolen property and should prosecuted as such." There are plenty of felonies that have nothing to do with property (rape, murder, assault, negligence). Our politicians (not always the smartest beings on the planet) manage to identify the difference and legislate that they be treated differently, why can't you?
Most software companies are doing contract work and don't really rely on copyright, but instead on contract law. "Yes, we'll write an accounting system for your bank and give you the source if you'll give us $X". Most software companies (and more programmers) wouldn't see noticable changes if illegal copying was stamped out.
It's an interesting question. On one hand, perhaps more sales would have resulted as people chose to purchase instead of illegally copying. On the other hand, many people who copy would not have purchased the product, so not all illegal copies represent lost sales. Also, some of those people using illegal copies went on to purchase legal copies, or to work for companies which purchased them legal copies.
Erm, to take a wild guess, they still would have suffered at the hands of more successfully companies. Software exhibits the network effort (more users == more valuable to users), so there is a natural tendency for a single product to rise to the top. These companies didn't go out of business because of illegal copies, they went out of business because a competing product trounced them.
And yet dispite rampant illegal copying, the software industry has managed to grow every year. The sales declines tend to be by specific companies or specific sectors, suggesting changing market forces and competition. Nothing that illegal copying has anything to do with.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Sorry that you're wrong.
...and I usually specify Guiness.
You're using her as bait, Master!
If we accept that copyright laws were originally intended to promote a common good, then obeying the original intent is a moral issue I think. I have had many arguments with people who lean too far the other way, I think, and have tended to argue that the issues the courts have generally used to define doctrines like "first sale" or "fair use" are inherently moral issues.
The point of original copyright law was to grant a small-scale monopoly on a given work for a short period of time so that these works would be disseminated and our culture would become richer. In this way of looking at things, DRM would result IMO, of a great incentive to steal from our culture. This theft would not be monetary but it would be robbing from every man, woman, and child nonetheless, and this theft is what the doctrine of fair use is designed to prevent, IMO.
If copyright is not morally sound, wouldn't plagerism at least be immoral? Plagerism is very clearly the theft of someone else's intellectual property (this is about as black and white as you can get).
OTOH, what if a book is out of print? Is it immoral for me to violate copyright law and copy a few copies for my friends? By the same token, piracy of Windows 3.11 hardly strikes me as immoral (unless you buy the argument that every x86 computer rightfully should be running the latest version of Windows). In both of these cases, we are dealing with copyright-protected works, where the copyright holder has decided to discontinue the product's availability, so 1) there is no monetary damage and 2) it is the only way that said works can be available.
So I don't think the matter is as black and white as either Chris nor the parent to this post would have you believe.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The person who flamebaited above going by the name of 'Xeno' should not be confused with the moderator of Crackbaby.com (who has far more brains that the individual listed above). Just trying to save some eventual hatemail from headed our way.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
This was obviously meant as a joke, but it makes me wonder. Microsoft uses IIS to host all their web sites, right? And they probably use Outlook for email. So why don't they ever get taken down by the latest IIS exploits and email worms? (Or do they, and I just never heard about it?) I'm not trolling, I've actually been wondering about this.
If copyright is not morally sound, wouldn't plagerism at least be immoral? Plagerism is very clearly the theft of someone else's intellectual property (this is about as black and white as you can get).
Plagiarism, done for the purpose of demonstrating that you have a capacity which you do not, is fraud. Done for diverting credit from the true author is dishonesty. "Copyright Infringement" isnt one of the seven deadly sins, last I checked.
Repeating an interesting phase and not explicitly giving credit is human nature. Almost every phrase you can contruct hasn been uttered by someone else before: giving credit to each original speaker is beyond tedious.
While common oppinion here is that copyright infringement is negative to society, I would like to present a different oppinion.
Firstly, I would like to point you to a well-written Slashdot comment about the current abuse of the original concept of Copyright. The points I would like to take from there are that Copyrights were intended to promote society, and the progress of Science and Useful Arts, but are now used for the sole means of creating profit for companies.
You must note that Copyrights, the exclusive rights to copy some data, is a big limitation on everyone's freedom to copy whatever they want. I'm not saying this means its necessarily a bad thing - because I agree its a necessary evil. Limiting people's freedom is acceptable in many aspects of life, and here too. Unfortunatly, the limit on our freedom remained through the years, but the original purpose of copyright - since it was originally drafted - was lost.
The original copyright concept was to give incentive to create, for the sole purpose of promoting science and useful arts. (Its true, its not meant to reward authors, its meant to promote science and useful arts - read about it in the constitution). This is why Copyright was created to last for limited times, which is not really limited anymore. This means that all copyrighted work is supposed to be out in the public domain within a reasonable amount of time - It is no longer this way. It also means that copyrights are only given to works that are published and distributed - for the inspiring of new works - for the progress of science and useful arts. Today's large copyright owners try to make people forget this purpose of copyright, and claim it is actually meant to protect them - That their creation is somehow their "Intellectual Property" and can be "Stolen". But the original framers of the constitution did not mean this, as Thomas Jefferson has said: There is no such thing as Intellectual Property.
If we take the software industry specifically, we must not forget that until the Copyright reforms of the 1970's, Binary Data was not copyright'able. Why? Because its creation does little to Promote Science and Useful Arts. See, you cannot both eat the cake (Get a Copyright) and have it full (Not promote science and useful arts). A copyright is not a god-given right, its given to the creator in exchange for his sharing of the created information, for the progress of science and useful arts for us all.
Since Copyright has devolved from a strong respected publishing incentive to an infamous tool for company profit, people have lost all moral obligation to it. There is no wonder people care not for the Copyrights of large corporations, as those copyrights place a limit on their freedom to "Help thy Neighbour", without contributing back to Science and Useful Arts.
This is why I will not obey the current draconian Copyright Laws, while I will support the GPL. Hypocracy? No: Copyrights have violated their mandate to Promote Science and Useful Arts. The GPL hasn't: It has inspired huge amounts of Free Software writers and possibly caused some of the greatest software code to be written and be out there for everyone to learn from.
Sorry this comment is a bit long, just my oppinion on the matter.
No you would not. He's on his way to jail for doing what he did. He HAS to say things like this or he will be staying in jail a little longer. If his description of the raid as both the Matrix and War Games does not send chills down your spine, read it again and imagine the vans and interviews happening at your place of work.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Many readers keep discussing the difference between theft and copyright infringement, and many readers still don't seem to "get it." This comment is for all of those people who seem to think that copyright infringement is equal to theft. If I get into another person's car, break the steering lock, hotwire the ignition and drive off, it is THEFT. Alternatively, if I gain access to, or duplicate the engineering plans for that very same car, then manufacture that car (to either give away or sell, or call my own) I have infringed upon a patent. The difference is in no way a moral judgement on the two crimes, but there IS a significant difference.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - tps12's comedy career was found dead in a gay bar this morning. There weren't many more details. I'm sure everyone in the gay community will miss it - even if you didn't enjoy his lameass 'Stephen King found dead at 54' jokes, there's no denying that he's an asshole licking faggot. Truly a homosexual icon.
a monopoly on his creation for a limited time
A copyright term subject to extension of subsisting copyrights by 20 years every 20 years is in no way a limited time. Name one computer program that has fallen into the public domain upon expiration of a copyright term.
free the mouse
Will I retire or break 10K?
it's interesting to see that he's planning on using his skills to help distribution of free software with the "Free Software Mirror Project".
That'll help if OSDN tanks and takes its mirror with it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Unlike most of you fags, i'm not gonna take a holier-than-thou approach and say 'I don't leech software that's just wrong' as I sit here with my 120GB HD full of pr0n, appz. and gamez.
If there's a piece of software i can leech, i'll do it. You can bitch and whine about the '100+ hours of work it took you to create' and i'll just download it, pocket the $60 it would have taken to buy the lastest piece of shit software and go buy cigs and booze. thanks!!
A circle-snot is a Taco-snotting circle-jerk, another practice common among the Slashdot crew.
There are *very* few crimes that don't require some intent.
Unfortunately, copyright infringement (although not in Tresco's case) is one of them. In the USA, a legal precedent exists that it's possible to unknowingly infringe a copyright on a musical work by creating an original melody that's "substantially similar" to an existing work under a subsisting copyright. Another precedent found "substantial similarity" in four notes. Even though a copyright case is most often a civil action, you still go to jail for not paying $150,000 statutory damages that you can't afford.
Will I retire or break 10K?
they don't share their files. They shutdown the program
What good is keeping the program open if a user is no longer dialed into the Internet?
Will I retire or break 10K?
No,
Any good "cost/benefit analysis" of this sort would include the potential "costs" to others, as well as benefits and costs to oneself directly.
Anything else would be foolhardy, as humans are truly "interdependent" creatures, NOT indepdendent.
In this particular scenario, I do feel that moral justifications can be made for copying the "copyrighted works". In my opinion (which I'm quite certain is shared by many others too), the current laws are unreasonable in their punishment of copyright infringements.
You're bringing up quite different situations when you start talking about the morality of killing an abortion doctor, or gasing Jews.
Software piracy, in most rational people's view, is much more akin to choosing to drive 75MPH in a 55MPH zone, or choosing not to report your earnings on a garage sale to skirt the taxes.
In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged the weak, evil people blamed the competition when they couldn't make a profit. The strong, motivated people, when they found themselves not making a profit, blamed themselves and did their best to improve.
I haven't read Atlas Shrugged. What happened to people who were motivated but physically or mentally weak (the vodka is good but the meat is rotten) through no fault of their own? Did they succeed?
Will I retire or break 10K?
You're bringing up quite different situations when you start talking about the morality of killing an abortion doctor, or gasing Jews.
I was primarily responding to the parent poster's comment that thinking about what's right is the job of "ethicists" and not the rest of us. Not to the topic of software piracy.
Software piracy, in most rational people's view, is much more akin to choosing to drive 75MPH in a 55MPH zone, or choosing not to report your earnings on a garage sale to skirt the taxes.
I agree that software piracy in most cases is close to your analogies. On the other hand, the level of activity involved in the DrinkOrDie operation is probably closer to not reporting the sale of a Boeing 747.
What they should really do is put a lien on his earnings for X years.
How long would a lien have to last in order to recover the actual damages, even if actual damages are estimated at 1 percent of the retail price of the pirated software?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm smiling at your 747 analogy...
But actually, I'm not even so sure groups like DoD should be considered as commiting "larger crimes" simply because larger amounts of software pass through their hands.
Consider this:
Relatively few individuals have the technical know-how to remove copy protection mechanisms from software packages. If this wasn't so, the motivation wouldn't have existed to form "cracking groups" in the first place.
Is this so much a "criminal" action, or "providing a service to the public"? How often has copy protection gotten in your way? I can remember one, specific case, where a piece of video game software (Tony Hawk Pro Skater) wasn't even Windows 2000/XP compatible as purchased in the store. If you wanted it to run fine on 2000 or XP though, you could use the cracked version. The copy protection itself was apparently the only incompatible thing in the program!
I know many others who run pirate copies of software they bought legally, because it's more convenient to use the cracked version. (Look how often a program requires that you leave the original CD in the drive to run it. Many times, all the data is already loaded on your hard drive from the first installation. They simply want to check the CD to make sure you're the real owner. How annoying....)
Yes, I was a menace to society with my reprehensible spray painting of a federal building. Oh the stupid things we do when we are young...
:-)
It really did seem to knock some sense into my damn fool head though. I emerged a hard-working responsible person that thinks about what he does before he does something now. Yes it sucks to lose a chunk of your life, but when you are done you will have a new respect for your freedom for sure.
It won't kill you. Read a lot of books. You will probably eventually be given some kind of job at an army base or something after they see that you are not a total shithead.
Sucks to be you right now, but theres a lot of other people in a lot worse shit than you, so just do the time, and by gosh stick with Linux next time
Clickety Click
All I saw when I read this article was Uncle Sam's hand on his shoulder like a pedophilic uncle. "That's a good boy.. It's not lying if you actually believe it"
And all you guys saying he is being a good little boy for "recognizing that he did something wrong?" This is fucking corporate america we're talking about here. They fuck you over on a regular basis and probably giggle while smoking their wads of hundred dollar bills. The only reason they are going after the crackers and the "warez" scene is because they think that some geek in his trailer park could actually pay for some photo-editing software he downloaded off the net, that retails for about 1000$US. These guys regularly make decisions based upon how much money they can make, not on how they can scratch your back and make your life easier.
You're getting reamed in the ass, man.
Personally, I would be a lot happier if we didn't have such a proliferation of greed and ecstatic ass-reaming by the companies that like to fuck their customers over. Those out there know of which companies I am talking about.
The whole thing just reeks of some guy trying to get you to find the candy in his pants while giggling the whole time.
*sigh*
So the way I look at it is like this: A program is just basically a representation of a mathematical algorithm run by a combined set of logic circuits and electricity, and an algorithm is just a mathematical equation. Does one "discover" Mathematical equations? Not bloddy likely! If you are feeble of mind enough to think that a mathematical equation is "invented" then here is something that you should consider. Are the laws of gravity, as in black holes, invented? No, they represent a basic and fundamental idea that is COMMON in the universe. I believe that we are discovering algorithms all the time and that we shouldn't be afraid to share them with each other. That being said, the cracking scene IS taking money away from the programmers, which only hurts the community. But I don't think it should be paying money for some closed algorithm. I think it should be paying money to the programmer to find an algorithm for us to use and explore. That way, everyone could see the program and use it in any way they want. If I buy a car, I'm free to take it apart and fiddle with it all I want right? Why not make that the same with computers and software?
Anyway... I hope you don't look at this like I'm trying to change all of your minds, I'm just trying to open the mind to other opportunities and options. Feel free to open up my mind too =) Just don't scramble it with eggs =) or bacon.. Dammit now I'm hungry.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
It's easy to talk tough sitting in our comfy little homes with no more worries than paying the bills or a parking ticket or two. You fucking assholes... you have no concept of your place in the world so you will learn nothing from this.
Stop right now and imagine a horde of federal agents busting down your door right this moment. Imagine it and then talk some more shit.
Tresco didn't want our pity, but I'm pitying all you blind fools who think this is some debate club pizza and beer night. This guy is going to prison. Prison. Let me say that a little louder
PRISON
Dicks.
- I am made of meat.
Are you the Gendou from Ars?
- MrHat
You are correct. Except the abortion thing.
A tent has limited seating. Small brains like yours can't seem to grasp the simple fact that intellectual property laws are illogical.
One common argument for software piracy is that software costs too much. For example, what college student can afford $600 for PhotoShop? The common conclusion people reach is that if software were simply priced more reasonably, then more people would opt to legitimately purchase it than to pirate it.
There is actually a lot of truth to this line of thinking. If PhotoShop were offered at a more reasonable price ($50) to non-business consumers, Adobe would undoubtedly see piracy rates drop and sales improve. So then why do Adobe and other software companies stupidly refuse to establish this kind of offering?
From a producer's perspective, the idea of protecting a person's ability to be financially rewarded for their work is an ethical one. This is the motivation for capitalism. Capitalism favors producers.
From a consumer's perspective, the idea of allowing people to freely exchange the fruits of labor for the equal benefit of all is an ethical one. This is the motivation for communism. Communism favors consumers.
The problem is that these motivations and economic approaches radically conflict. In the USA we do not have a capitalistic economy, nor do we have a communistic (or socialistic) economy. In reality, what we have is a blend. And the fine balance between philosophies is constantly being adjusted in an effort to be as ethically fair as possible while also keeping the economy as healthy as possible.
Software companies are producers, and they (incorrectly) market their products under the assumption that they are operating within a purely captialistic economy. When businesses market to, sell to, and buy from other businesses, an elite high-powered sub-economy is formed which is pretty close to true capitalism. But the truth is that the "home consumer" market is an entirely different sub-economy which is a consumer-focused market closer along the spectrum to communism. The mistake large companies often make is to neglect this home-consumer sub-economy, or to incorrectly treat it as just part of a larger "capitalistic" economy.
Therefore Adobe offers PhotoShop at one price to everyone. The price is reasonable for players within the business sub-economy, but it is outlandish for people within the home-consumer sub-economy. Result? The home-consumer sub-economy pirates the hell out of it, because they need the product just as much as the businesses do but they can't afford the pricing the way that businesses can.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
The most telling statement was his reference to DoD as "organized crime". Before people start to wail about whether there was intent, benefit, the true nature of the victim (if any), the ass-in-the-fire repentence, or the hypocrisy of the system as a whole I'd like to point out two things: 1) the acts were illegal, 2) the acts were organized. Before you sit to compose ten giant paragraphs on the injustice of the situation, please clearly decide which of those two facts you are chosing to ignore.
If that's not enough of a cold shower, I recommend taking a long bath with Ronald Dworkin's "Law's Empire". Dworkin is a very good writer and he tackles all the difficult issues in an area of law known as jurisprudence.
The deep complexity in this matter is that the victim of this crime is the unborn child. Most software piracy consists of people with $30 budgets ripping off $300 or $3000 software packages to solve a $100 problem. The unborn child are the small companies that might exist--if software piracy didn't--that would sell $100 solutions as $30 software packages.
Just this morning I finally figured out why Slashdot sucks. I didn't have anything to say on this subject yesterday. It took me a day to organize my thoughts. Now I'm posting a day later and probably nobody even reads my post. The root problem with Slashdot is that it's the fast food outlet of discussion forums.
It really struck me looking at the responses to this item. Most of the people on Slashdot find sober second thoughts repugnant. It's true. 33 months is an awfully cold shower. We should interview him again when he gets out, after he's had such a long time to think about life. It'll be a whole new experience for the Slashdot crowd.
But actually, I'm not even so sure groups like DoD should be considered as commiting "larger crimes" simply because larger amounts of software pass through their hands.
Is this so much a "criminal" action, or "providing a service to the public"? How often has copy protection gotten in your way?
I can understand this, and am often just as annoyed at how some copy protection schemes work and nag. I will vote with my dollar.
I do think that more illegal activity does correspond to a larger crime, but it is hard to come up with an analogy or precedent that definitively makes this case. I would think the closest thing is probably renting a movie and making 1 copy for yourself versus 1000 copies for everyone in your neighborhood and office. I think most people will agree that the latter is a much more severe act than the first.
Also, I will not agree with your criminal versus Robin Hood speculation. It is not as though we are forced to purchase one software package each month or get sent to jail, or lose our rights. That's like saying gas is too expensive so it's okay to buy stolen gas (I know, not perfect because of the change of product, but the idea is similar in my mind). That could certainly also be seen as a service to the public, but I wouldn't accept that statement. The Robin Hood idea is to relieve suffering and oppression by stealing from the oppressors to benefit the oppressed. That is certainly not applicable with Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop.
you are talking utter crap mate..as has been said before 99.9% of people who use warez would not have bought the product in the first place..i buy utils and games all the time, but i refuse to support capitalist scum like ms..so avoid their products..its an easy equation drop the price of software and most (not all i know) people will buy the product..
There's nothing wrong with "voting with your dollar" (aka. only buying non copy-protected software), except we have no good mechanism in place to inform the buyer in advance whether or not copy protection exists on the software!
I can't remember a single game I ever purchased that said on the box "Warning: This CD is copy protected using XYZ protection." Once you open the box and discover such a thing, the product is deemed "non-returnable" since it was opened - and you're stuck. You just voted with your dollar for something you didn't even want!
The software situation is much more complex than the "Robin Hood" analogies people keep trying to use. For starters, Robin Hood was physically threatening people and taking their money away from them. Software piracy involves no direct assault or confrontation with another individual, nor does it even involve physically stripping someone of their possession of the original code and/or media it's placed on for sale.
Just as importantly though, Robin Hood was a pretty "cut and dried" case of attempting to make everyone more "financially equal". (A very questionable goal, at best.)
The software industry, by contrast, does a number of ethically questionable things, including making the buyer agree to shrinkwrap license agreements. (Oh wow, I'm not allowed to use product Y with this product X I just purchased? I had no idea of that until I read page 6 of this fine print *inside the box*!) Sometimes, they attempt to artifically inflate their sales via legal strong-arming people. (EG. Microsoft's lawyers threatening people who try to resell unopened/unused "OEM editions" of their operating systems on eBay.) Sometimes they even partake in "false advertising" when their product promises to perform functions that don't work properly (or sometimes, at all!). Often, the buyer is left with only a suggestion that "we'll address that in an update later this year".
In this rather hostile software purchasing environment, why is it so surprising that some folks are motivated to strip away the copy protection schemes and help distribute the resulting code? If that makes those doing it into "Robin Hoods", I daresay they should have far less of a guilty conscience than the original Robin Hood.
I spent eight years, three-and-a-half months in Federal prison for armed bank robbery - I'm not your ordinary geek :-) - so I have some notes on the prison comments.
First, Federal prison is not state prison. The Feds have their own program and the joints typically do not look or operate like you see in the movies.
Second, there are dangerous people in the joint. Most of the people are street people from five classes:
1) Ghetto blacks.
2) Ghetto Hispanics.
3) White urban punks.
4) White rural rednecks.
5) Bikers (who cross over into classes 3 and 4).
and a smattering of Native Indians, a few Asians, and a certain number of white-collar people. I had a cellmate in the Hole one time who was a Savings and Loan executive...
Third, do not run your mouth. People are very sensitive in the joint. You will notice most of them running their mouths, which is why they get into fights, get stabbed, etc. Keep your mouth shut unless you have to say something, and be polite and respectful to people when you do say something. This goes for the guards, too - no matter how much they act like assholes - and they will.
Fourth, the guards come in two classes:
1) The guy who can't get a real job and enjoys making $30,000 a year or so for basically doing nothing but unlocking doors and escorting prisoners and handling paperwork. He tends to view the whole thing as a job and won't hassle you unless you break a rule.
2) The assholes. These are usually (but not always) young punk wannabe cops (B.O.P. guards are not considered "real" cops by "real" cops.) They are too stupid to get a real job (including a real cop job which requires a college education), and they have something to prove. They will hassle you for no reason.
Fifth, if you threaten a guard with actual violence, you WILL get your ass kicked by three or four of them - despite the fact that it is illegal. And if you complain, you will be ignored by the B.O.P., and if you take it to court through your lawyer, you will not have enough evidence and you will lose (in 90% of the cases.) So NEVER threaten a guard. If a guard roughs you up a little, accept it.
Sixth, you are in their system - accept it. Don't bother trying to change anything, don't try to fight it, don't file lawsuits, do not waste your time and energy in confrontation - you will lose. This is the Federal government - they have billions in budget and the support of the entire country in how they treat prisoners. It's not going to change any time soon.
Seventh, you are lucky that you will get a minimum security facility near your home. Don't count on staying there - you won't, most likely. If you get in a beef with another inmate, they will ship you or the other inmate or both of you. They may ship you halfway across the country just because they need to thin out their population. ALL the joints are overcrowded. They may arbitrarily ship you because your Case Manager does not like your face. If you ship, you may be flown or you may spend a day or two on a bus winding through six states, plus stays of up to two weeks in Transit facilities.
Eighth, the food in Federal joints depends on where you are - some places are good, some are lousy, and they change depending on who becomes the Food Administrator.
Ninth, do not gamble, do not argue over what program is on the TV set in the TV room, do not deal with known homosexuals, do not argue over access to the telephone. That is how inmates get their asses kicked or stabbed.
Tenth, and this is critical. NEVER talk to the staff about ANYTHING ANY inmate did. This makes you a snitch and you will get your ass kicked or stabbed to death. If an inmate kills another inmate in front of you (rather rare in most joints), you DID NOT SEE IT HAPPEN! And keep in mind that a LOT of inmates ARE snitches and they will tell on something you did.
11th, there are other geeks and white collar people in the joint. Find them and hang out with them (to a certain degree) - you need support. Stay away from the guys who are in the gangs - you could get caught up in something just by association.
There's a lot more I could go into but this should help keep you in one piece. In eight years I never got into a fight, got roughed up by guards only once - however, I did spend three years of that time in the Hole and stayed at three different facilities.
And remember, you will do 85% of your sentence IF you stay out of trouble - if not, you will do it all. Three years is long, but you can make it in one piece - and you will learn a LOT about how the Federal government REALLY works.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
So, if I ask you to create a program for me that does x, y, and z then it will take no effort on your part because all of the mathematical equations going into it are already invented? Do you think that all the people at a software development company besides the programmers (Testers, Managers, Human Resources, Executives, etc.) serve no function in getting a product out the door?
I believe that we are discovering algorithms all the time and that we shouldn't be afraid to share them with each other. That being said, the cracking scene IS taking money away from the programmers, which only hurts the community.These two statements are conflicting, and you just answered your own question. Giving away all of the effort that it took me to discover an algorithm is the same as somebody cracking it. The company basically has no way to make money on it. Now, you're probably going to say "By selling services, just like Richard Stallman says!" but that's bullshit because it's double the work and half the money if I have to discover the algorithm, give it away, build a service, and then hope people subscribe to it (and hope that another company doesn't just come out with the same service).
But I don't think it should be paying money for some closed algorithm. I think it should be paying money to the programmer to find an algorithm for us to use and explore. That way, everyone could see the program and use it in any way they want. If I buy a car, I'm free to take it apart and fiddle with it all I want right? Why not make that the same with computers and software?Once again, how could the programmer make money if he gives it away (without doing EXTRA work to build a service to tie the algorithm into)?
If you are some sort of crazy scientist, and you are playing with certain chemicals and you develop some type of substance that can be taken for a drug, is then stolen from you, reproduced in mass quantities? should you then be charged as a drug exporter? Take a few mintues and think about how the "scene" works, a coder, full of curiosity, decides he wants to try and break through protection, to test his own skill, and has a copy of that information on his personal ftp site, and it is taken from him, to be transfered to other sites all over the world, even though he is not involved wahtsoever in the transporting of these broken files, why is he the only criminal to be charged for such a crime? The people who normally "crack" the software, almost 90% of the time, buy it, and own a legitimate copy of the product before even touching it, as for it to get out in the scene, somebody needs to pay for it initially. I think the people using the software should be charged with the same crime as the the creator, as they are all fully aware of their actions. Also a note on Chris's comment about not returning to the scene, its really a great place to be, with alot of friends to be made, and I dont believe him for a second, he is saying that to keep law enforcement off his case for when he gets out, but I have talked to many people who were busted and still couldnt stay away and come talk to their long time friends :P If u want to do the crime, u gotta be ready to do the time, maybe some DoD mebers werent ready, but the scene is going stronger than ever, and everybody is fully aware of what happened with operation bucanneer, seeing as it didnt slow down a bit, shows that alot of people are ready to do the time for the thrill of the rip :) Realistically, it will never stop, law enforcement just need to keep a tight forcefield around it so it dosent get too big, but it will never die.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
...hurt.
I think copyright is just a sad marketing sceme to make more money out of something that already made enough money.
Does creating a backup of the CD I bought make me a criminal?
Does uploading that backup to an FTP, so I can download it again when I loose my CD, make me a criminal?
When somebody else downloads my backup, does that make me a criminal?
I have no bad intentions, if I really like and use software, i buy it.
I bought my Windows XP, I bought my Earth & Beyond, I bought my R-Studio NTFS.
If somebody else decides to download MY backup, i don't think it is my problem.
Therefor i can not anwser YES to any of the above questions.
But hey, if Microsoft can possibly make another $300 by calling me a criminal, then i guess i AM a criminal. (after all)
It's always about the allmighty dollar, and i fucking hate it!
Can you imagin why eastern countries hate the US?
Nobody cares about the meaning of life anymore, its all about the money.
Well that's not a world I want to live in, and I think many would agree if only they would look further than their wallet.
That sheep story was awesome. Kiwis are so fucked. I hope that fuckwad parent post moves there so I don't have to break his redneck teeth when I run into his conservative closet queer ass.
Yes, there are many problems with the EULAs and other business practices of the software industry. But I don't think those practices, or a hostile software purchasing environment, justify bypassing software copyright protection or distributing software illegally. You still have the choice and the legal right to exercise your choice and punish those who try to impose illegal restrictions on you or commit fraudulent or misleading business.
And yes, while our system is not perfect for helping the little guy do this, that is the system we have and the system we have to work with. I don't like how big business has railroaded a lot of the laws in Congress, but I don't have the right to not live under those laws. I do have the right to try and change those laws and elect different people.
With respect to DoD, there are much bigger groups in the scene. Still, if you have a look on that bucaneer website thing, they mention RiSC, which I have to say is one of the better-known groups, and seeing them disappear from the scene would make an impact.
Chris, Don't be gone too long. You will be missed. I know I haven't talked to you in awhile.. I guess I pissed you off one too many times hacking your mit boxes. I was just trying to help you tighten down your security so shit like this wouldn't happen. :(
I never got a chance to tell you, that night at scoreboards and we pounded down dozens of pints of guinness.. the hour and a half drive home.. I spent half of it with a state trooper following my extrordinarily intoxicated ass!
I didn't get nabbed with the heat barrelling down my ass and endangering the lives of thousands of commuters flying down the interstate going 80 MPH with a trooper following me, and damn near 100 when he finally left.. and you get 33 months for this bullshit. Hell, had I hit and killed someone I probably would be out before you. :(
When you think of terms of real damages, your life has been devastated by this. Piracy affects no more than probably 5% the total _distribution_ of a software company, and perhaps these laws just need to be rethought because the only "damage" you inflicted these software companies is by distributing their warez to a largely 15-25 yr old demographic that most likely wouldn't have bought their shit anyways.. But htey would have learned how to use it, which greatly benefits the company. Do I have a warez copy of photoshop at home? yes, since 3.xx for mac. Since I've grown up and gone to work, guess what, when I need to use a photo manipulation tool, I purchase a photoshop license.
If these people would focus on targeting the COMPANIES that steal licensed software and forget about the "organized crime" aspect of it they would see much better results. It's easy to scare a corporation into submission, but targeting the curious (every scener is by default a curious person technically) children that grow into the scene as a fascinating culture of the internet generations if flat out wrong. But shit chris, your site was HUGE, it couldn't go unnoticed.
The world is fucked up, and despite all your words, I don't think you did anything worth all this. I've seen jail, and it sucks. Look to be better at playing basketball when you get out, cause god damn, I'd hate to have to beat you from the line again!
We never die, we only become legends,
Drink or Die for life with love,
letterman
"Our only crime is that of curiosity."
It's not stealing.
Look if it really were stealing there wouldn't be a need for copyright law since there are plenty of laws for stealing and theft already.
Yes there are reasons for copyright laws. Different countries have different rules for their own reasons. If you break such laws you are depriving the copyright owner of a legally granted monopoly on copying and distribution. Where I live, it's not infringement if it's for private and domestic use.
I suggest you try not to say it's stealing when it is not. There are too many people brainwashed already - "stealing", "intellectual property", "piracy", "Digital Rights Management".
And then there's the part where people tell you to agree to X before you can use their stuff.
Perspective: No surprise people are often hurt when you don't do what they want you to do. But that doesn't mean you should always do what they want.
If there is greater harm in doing what they want opposed to not doing it (keeping in mind laws, rules, customs, society's expectations, setting a good example etc), then it's better not to do it.
Hey, that's too bad about him going to prison. I hope he doesn't drop the soap! : P
Software companies really do lose money from piracy, why else would they support these types of organizations?
Well... my point of view is that the companies do support these types of organizations because it is a good investment. The do not lose money from so called "piracy", it's more that they could earn even more. So, investing in organizations that fight "piracy" is a good deal, as long as the revenue made from "converted pirates" is higher than the original investment.
But since nobody really can say whether all caught "pirates" really would have bought the stuff they "pirated", the whole thing is somewhat hard to prove.
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
If i wasnt going to purchase the package in the first place, what income did they lose from me?
Zero.. thats the answer.
Now if i copied just to save a buck that i would have spent otherwize.. that would be labeled theft.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is a FEDERAL minimum security prison. I've been there (2 years, 3 months). He doesn't have to worry about his arse.
These places hold crooked accountants, and the ilk...
Depending on his orientation, maybe some of the current inmates need to start trembling...