Slashdot Mirror
'Operation Site Down' Closes 8 Warez Servers
JerkyBoy writes "The Entertainment Software Association today hailed efforts on the part of 'U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice's Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section, U.S. Attorneys' offices nationwide, and participating foreign law enforcement officials' in the shutting down of at least 8 warez servers that specialized in the distribution of pirated games. With the code-name "Operation Site Down," close to 100 searches were conducted globally (U.S., Canada, Israel, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, and Australia) within a 24-hour period, resulting in the identification of 120 individuals who are likely to be pursued by the U.S. Department of Justice."
Cue the hordes of anonymous cowards who don't have the balls to admit they can't tell the difference between fair use (archiving or format shifting) and copyright infringement. At least use your name so we know you're an idiot.
Lol, nice one mr Anonymous Snitch
Do you really think these guys are not aware of public warez offerings on IRC?
I would imagine getting to the root of the problem, i.e. taking down the crackers themselves and their supply + distribution channels is a lot harder than taking down large sites that redistribute. I'm guessing that busts like these are more or less scare tactics to get to the "root" indirectly. Don't know if it works though (?).
I just visited the #linuxwarez channel, and if I were law enforcement, taking down something as small as that would seem like a waste of time.
Doesn't make it any less illegal. Regardless of what you hear on Slashdot, breaking a crime isn't okay. You cannot break the law, and expect to get away with it. Ghandi (who organized events where lots and lots of people would go and break a particular law) understood this concept. He understood that if you break the law, then you have to do the time. If you want to share programs, movies, songs, books, etc when the law says you can't. Then you should either work on changing the law, or expect to do the time if you break it.