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Operation Fastlink Cracks Down on Warez
An anonymous reader writes "Beginning yesterday morning, law enforcement from 10 countries and the United States conducted over 120 searches worldwide to dismantle some of the most well-known and prolific online piracy organizations.
Among the groups targeted by Operation Fastlink are well-known organizations such as Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class and Project X, all of which specialized in pirating computer games, and music release groups such as APC. The enforcement action announced today is expected to dismantle many of these international warez syndicates and significantly impact the illicit operations of others."
We don't have the right to distributed pirated works online. How does this story fit in this category?
Of course it's about "Your Rights Online". You claim that it's not a right. Discussion of rights we don't have, and about whether or not we should have them, belong in YRO.
Acronyms Obfuscate
FWIW Razor1911 was disbanded a few months ago. Their lead guys were basing their opperations in the United States and scamming Cisco out of routers and software companies for free software by claiming to be a review magazine or something along those lines. The FBI caught up to them and took em out.
Learn something new.
The difference is:
"10 dogs and one cat" vs. "11 dogs including one cat"
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
When will people learn that attacking pirates just makes you look stupid? I'll admit to having downloaded games and such, but you know what? The ones I liked and played, I BOUGHT.
The CD's I listened to after downloading? If I liked 'em, I BOUGHT THEM! (Yeah! I use iTunes Music Store! I buy CD's at Best Buy!)
The "scene" (aka "International Syndicate") just puts stuff out there for you to check out. Yeah, not everyone is ethical, and maybe software authors / companies do lose money, but they also make money as well, by people who would never have bought the CD/Game/Movie, but who found it online, and liked it enough to go purchase it.
Smart companies have figured out ways to make this more likely. When Call of Duty came out, you couldn't play the cracked version online, so if you wanted to (and who didn't?!) you went and bought the game. Same with Raven Shield, and many other games.
Maybe it's 14 year olds who do the cracking. It is certainly not 14 year olds who are multiplying and distributing this stuff on hundreds of thousands of DVDs and sell them internationally. I regularly got offered Fairlight and Kalisto DVDs at work. Reasonably priced, you know. Just a good profit for the middle men, since nothing goes to the copyright holders.
It might be a surprise to you, but these distributors are like the mafia. They have a well-oiled business dealing in stolen goods.
Sure, the police should pick up violent criminals. But that does not mean they should let financial criminals go until the last rapist is behind bars.
I, for one, as a professional software developer am mighty pleased with this action. All the time I was thinking: it would be so easy to crack down on these people, why don't they do something about it? And now they did. Good show, I say.
Although most of the piracy apologists follow your reasoning, you fail to concede that there is a middle-ground. The internet has opened new ways to make business. However, for the last ten years, the music industry establishment has done nothing but try and keep the old business model. Why?
I'd wager that current publishers think they hold the middle-man spot because they have a strong grip on product exposition. The internet makes product exposition a lot easier, and has the potential to downgrade the middle-man value, therefore causing the whole industry to 'deflate'. This deflation is overall good, for public and artists, but is obviously bad for the editors.
In the end, give or take a couple of years, alternative music selling models will break through the barriers. Then, middle-men (editors) will have to excel in the role they are really needed for: weeding out bad artists, so people don't have to listen to every band out there. Then, only then, we'll again see great bands. Bands that really innovate the way music is created. The last ones, for me, were Nirvana, the pilar of the grunge movement. From then on, no really great global movement came out from the music scene. (The boy-band, girl-band movement fails on the grounds of musical quality).
I finish the comment with a glimmer of hope: Magnatune. Magnatune is clearly a small shop. However, it's a small shop, almost a one-man stunt, with a really innovative business model. And you know what? It's currently profitable.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
Ashcroft sets the priorities for the FBI.
If you are unaware of the state of enforcement of computer crimes against networks, you are ignorant. Here's an exercise left to the reader: run a network or even just a website. Antagonize a skript kiddie clan. Watch as they obliterate your net presence with bandwidth attacks. Contact the FBI. Watch them do nothing. Contrast with 1) being a big campaign contributer - watch them allocate resources to stupid, trivial shit.
The FBI can't investigate everything. It is investigating prostitution in New Orleans, peace groups, and warez doodz. And with what is left, it allocates to organized crime and terrorism. Yeah, they do more than one thing at a time, but they shouldn't spend any time on economically insignificant copywrite violations against politically connected corporations until they have done a much better job against the serious shit.
Sorry your attempt to burst the bubble was so lame. Try again?
I'm not especially anti-Bush. It's just that anyone with a grip on reality looks that way.