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153 Comments
- jownz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+157Thanks DoD, for bringing a little joy into my preteen years. I never would have played Duke3D or C&C if it weren't for your valiant efforts.
I did end up buying both those games later on, but it's hard to come across that kinda scratch when you're a kid.
Hell, Warez and pr0n are probably the main reasons I took to computers at such a young age. Take from the rich, give to the poor indeed! :) - RatherDashing, on 10/12/2007, -8/+140Thank god they arrested those people and stopped all that darned copy right infringement. Imagine if they weren't caught!!! The internet would be filled with illegal movies, music, games, etc!
- bevans, on 10/12/2007, -4/+75I second that. I can still remember my first Windows 95 install using about 30 floppy disks.
- PaulRay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+60Isn't the punishment supposed to fit the crime? 10 years of a person's life. Not to mention what will most likely happen to a geek in jail. I think it's too much.
Seriously, did he kill anyone? Cause bodily harm? Give small children drugs?
Take away his computers, put him under house arrest, hell, make him work at Best Buy.
But 10 years?!
Society has become way too punitive.
I'll go put my soapbox away... for now. - sagat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+56Child sex offenders don't get treated so harshly, the justice system really blows.
- jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -5/+60"What this guy did was illegal. The fact that you bought the games latter is irrelevant."
When the media mafia goes on trial I'll shed a tear for them...maybe. I paid thousand when I was younger because of their price fixing and gouging at 900% markup and no competition. They used the cheapest material for tapes and discs possible, the vinyl was always cheap (compared to indy)...the music selection was limited to basically what frat boys and tween girls listen too...Video games worked 50% of the time (unless shareware) without always needing an upgrade. My piece of FCC bandwidth was sold off for nothing to people who play nothing but commercials and crap on the radio and TV....so you know what? ***** em. - graemee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+58Worked for Robin Hood.
- CheezIt9109, on 10/12/2007, -2/+38You bring up a very good point. Piracy is probably the main, if not sole reason I've gotten into computing.
When you're that young, what choices do you have?
Ask parents for the money? Ha.
Get a job? Not at that age.
Free/Open Source? I doubt I could have handled it back then, but I sometimes regret not going that route.
While ethically questionable, I'm glad I pirated software back in the days. Now that I have money (ha! I should say "credit"), I can actually purchase what I need to use.
PS: There are way too many of you who need to remove those giant sticks from your asses. Piracy might be illegal, but it definately doesn't fall in an absolute category of right or wrong. - cJw314, on 10/12/2007, -12/+43"While America obsessed about Brittany's shaved head, Bush offered a budget that offers $32.7 billion in tax cuts to the Wal-Mart family alone, while cutting $28 billion from Medicaid."
:cough: - noddyxoi, on 10/12/2007, -5/+32Pirates will be the heroes of tomorrow, when the world looks back and acknowledges what they've done for everybody. Thanks for spreading the knowledge guys, that is the job of kings and instead they treat you as criminals.
I hope the open source movement and new free licenses drives us to a world without the NEED to pirate stuff to LEARN it ( photoshop and 3ds max for example) . - plugues, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29would you wire 1 million dollars from a rothschild bank account to your bank account if you knew for sure that nobody would ever catch you?
- josegutz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25I am embarassed to see that billions of dollars of our taxpayer money is being funneled to fund this crackdown on the "International" rings of Illegal software piracy to support the major lobbyist dollars lining our congressmen's pockets. We could use this money instead to maybe catch up to the Chinese and Japanese advances in science and technology. FUND EDUCATION!
- HardwareLust, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23I agree. In no way does 10 years of punishment fit this crime. Prisons should be reserved for those that are dangerous to themselves and society (murderers, rapists, etc.) They are crowded enough as it is. A software pirate (and I do mean that in the best possible way) certainly does not even remotely fit into the category of 'dangerous'.
Enforced home detention and/or probation, plus the loss of access to computers...would be a far more appropriate punishment. Sending a geek to get raped and beaten down (and you know damn well that's exactly what's going to happen to him) for the next 6-7 years is just ludicrous, and on top of that, a giant waste of our tax money. - geoken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24I'm so glad the evil practice of copying files is treated more seriously than lesser crimes like rape and child molestation. Thank god the billions of dollars the RIAA and MPAA use to bribe the government have finally resulted in law makers getting their priorities straight.
- counterplex, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19@thcobbs
"He's responsible for BILLIONS of dollars in copyright infringement."
He's also responsible for BILLIONS of dollars in free publicity and mind-share. Companies might _try_ to buy it but nothing captures mind-share like free (as in soda) or pirated software. Look at Microsoft and its Windows and Office products. There's a reason why they have 90% of the desktop market. And it's not the sale of software - it's the piracy of software. Take any other successful software product and the answer remains the same. - BinaryFragger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18The sentence would have been *much* lighter if he would have beaten someone with a baseball bat in order to steal his wallet.
The justice system is a farce. The punishment doesn't fit the crime. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19Let me tell you how it goes down. I got raided in Operation Buccaneer, http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ob/OBMain.htm, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer. They said I broke the $250,000 mark for software piracy (that seems to be the number that pisses them off.) They also said that I actually went WAY over that but they would only charge me with that. When I ended up in court finally (took them 2 years to get me to court) I was facing 8 years. After arguing many finer points of how the actual warez world worked and who really hosted what and what I actually did I was able to get them down to only asking the judge for 4 years. Then we proved to the judge that the prosecutors actually didn't have much a of a clue (in a nice way of course) when it came to how any of this actually worked, or what I had actually done. To make this short, I ended up with a 6 month sentence and half way through got let out on house arrest with a bracelet. Maybe I got off easy, but many of the others who were busted that day (or in operation fastlink,) got it rather easy like me. I served my time in a federal prison yes, but it was the outside part called "the camp". Open bunks, in a sort of cubicle farm.
People say "geeks wont make it on the inside!" Well, the men putting geeks on the inside usually know that and try to put them in places that wont get them killed. Where I was we had Comcast cable, a big library, baseball field (with good equipment,) a running track, a new basketball court, decent food. I got a lot of exercise in, and could use the phone every day. They had a store I could order food/clothing/electronics from (watch, small radio, good headphones, things like that.) So yes, I was locked up, and yes it sucked. But it wasn't as bad as you all seem to think.
There was always the threat of going "inside the wall" though. If you ***** up in the camp they could revoke your camp status and put you inside. If you REALLY ***** up the warden could move you to the unit (N unit at the place I was) where all the rapists were. That would teach you a lesson... But while I was there, no one was moved to N. I could have 5 visitors on the weekend (5 at a time that is, but multiple times.) They tried to keep me close to my hometown so I ended up only a couple hours away. I had a decent amount of visitors.
So I guess I am not trying to say prison for us pirates doesn't suck. God damn being locked up sucks. But it isn't anywhere near as bad as you might think.
That of course isn't the real point here though . Many others in this thread made that already. The government shouldn't be wasting this much money on this. They should be using it for better things. I don't care which of the 1001204912319 causes you think are "better". But one of them, be it education or fighting terrorism. Something more important than making bill gates a little richer. - jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22"but if someone COPIES files, its not stealing, its copying.. so copying stuff is 13 years of imprisonment..but lieing thousands into their death isnt even impeachable.."
Besides...the US really needs more people in their prisons. 1st place isn't enough. We need to be first place for all time (no one who rips off over a million though).
Now these "rich" warez pirates (obviously loaded because they "stole" millions) will pay it back into the economy...right? Wait...what? They aren't bazillionaires from this? I thought they stole a lot? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+29id rather rob from the rich and give to the poor
than whats going on in america today, robbing from the poor and middle class and giving to the rich...
but if someone COPIES files, its not stealing, its copying.. so copying stuff is 13 years of imprisonment..
but lieing thousands into their death isnt even impeachable.. - Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16>>>"Stealing from "the rich" is okay?"
Well, it's a hell of a lot smarter than trying to steal from the poor. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19"criminal copyright conspiracy"
what a load of horse ***** - AeroSquid, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17i would gladly donate to his defense fund. every dollar i would otherwise spend on software can go to help.
- ddn3d, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17I pour a little out for my fallen homies..
- thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Yes, they should make the Child Sex offender sentencing more harsh. That's what the "Megan's Law" push is all about. Yeah, Bill O'Reily(I know ho he's viewed on here) is really active in getting states to pass stricter laws. Go see if your state is one of the 41 that have recently pushed variations on this bill into law. I think the minimum penalty is 10 years(in NY) and most places have a minimum time of 20 years.
- Detritus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17They should really add duality to ethics courses, and the coffee is kicking in folks so let me wax philosophical.
Okay banderbe, you feel that stealing from the rich is "Wrong". Which means someone else might feel that stealing from the rich is just as much "Right". From there you have to spring board into the meaning of right and wrong, and how you come to those definitions. This part alone would take about 4 months of lectures on democracy and social norms. Where modern ethics courses fall on their ass however is assuming that there is an answer based on their need for an answer. Just because we feel we need a social norm, doesn't mean we are granted such.
Skip ahead another 2 months on lectures including divinely inspired laws, natural law, chemical law, the law of gravity. You get the picture here that basically in all of these instances it is whoever is biggest gets to push around all the little bits... but this is not true 100% of the time in any instance. Listening to the Gods' laws doesn't assure you won't get hit by a bus. At the subatomic level gravity stops being the big cheese. So just because the majority feels something is "Right" doesn't mean it really is. This is when the class would say "Well *****, this democracy stuff sure looked like we had something. Oh well back to the drawing board."
At the end of this all you would learn this basic fact: Right and Wrong are entirely subjective, trying to be objective about it is a fools errand... but that does not mean Anarchy should reign. Of course then the class would all quit their college to try and find the meaning of the universe in Tibet or Goa, but that, - I feel - is as foolish as Anarchy.
You know what is right for you. I know what is right for me. - cybortrip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14you're obviously getting dugg down because there are a lot of kids here who were not a part of the scene when it first began...if they only knew what it was like back during the good old days. anyway, dugg up for whatever its worth. also, mad respect to DoD and other REAL release groups. they did a lot for a lot of people.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14I literally laughed out loud at the kid who said that Warez sites gave him viruses. Sites are definitely not part of the scene, and if you don't know then you're not in.
Anyway, while this is a bitch and DoD has released some high-quality stuff, he isn't going to get 10 years I'm sure. At least he won't have to serve 10 years. It reminds me of Razor1911 where the top two leading members went to jail - one guy, Breen, actually had been doing some real illegal *****. The other, Pitman, only got 18months for pretty much the same thing DoD did. - rolosworld, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15“Our agents and prosecutors are working tirelessly to nab intellectual property thieves, even where their crimes transcend international borders,” said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg.
Go Team America! - Jaymoon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14I have to say, reading about the scene and seeing what goes on, you'd think that software companies, game studios, movie industries, television stations, and recording labels would sit back and observe what's going on here.
Think how the internet world would be if software companies strived to compete like the scene does in releasing content the fastest, and provide the highest quality "free" content (free as in free-use... aka no DRM).
There is obviously a demand for the content, so why not fill it? I've always looked at piracy relating to price... Yes, there's the people that would download anything (even if they will never watch/install/play it) just because it's free. But there are consumers out there that would rather wait for a scene release of something, than jump through all the hoops of having to rip the DVD just to get it on their iPod for example, just because of all the extra steps the DVD provider takes to keep you from doing that very thing.
TV shows with commercials, offer them free to download as soon as it's done airing on TV. Don't want to watch the commercials? Charge $1 for the show commercial free.
A CD for $18? No. Charge to download the whole album for $3, and offer the case/book for a couple more bucks.
And so on. Point is, make the prices so low, that not only will people not mind paying it... But then there would really be no need to download pirated material. Yes, the content will still be pirated, but all these "$XXX BILLION dollars lost due to piracy" stats will be irrelevant. The bulk of the consumer would just pay the ridiculously low price, rather than take the time to download it from a warez site. - counterplex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11@jaymoon
I think you make a very valid point. The price points might leave room for debate but the key is this: make the original content cheaper than the cost of downloading it from a warez site (i.e. take into account network costs + time wasted looking for it + time wasted actually downloading it) and you take away the incentive to pirate it completely.
The question then becomes, how to make money off it. Well you're already making some money from the people who previously would've just downloaded it w/o paying you any money. But you're also making much less money from people who previously paid full price. One alternative, which I've been thinking of for a while now, is to sell stuff at that ridiculously low price w/o any support or documentation etc. Similar to your example of jewel cases, sell documentation, hint books etc for additional money. Corporate customers will typically keep paying the current price and expect to get all the same support/documentation etc as they always have. But the new thing is that people who would normally pirate the software would start buying bits and pieces as they can afford it for feel it gives them value. E.g. someone who's learning photoshop goes and buys it for $10. 6 weeks later he's hit the limit of what he can learn so he shells out $30 for the manuals. Finally he shells out $50 for 5 support calls if he needs them, etc. Corporate customers, however, will pay $300 for all that + unlimited support etc.
I've been wanting to get that idea out there for a while. This seems to be the most appropriate forum :) - SilentBobSC, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15@j2007 - " I remember getting weird spyware stuff from Warez sites...not necessarily his though."
That's probably because you were trying to get warez from a Website, an entirely retarded idea. DoD, RiSC, Razor1911, Fairlight, etc. had underground channels that wouldn't have a website. Nomally your top-tier warez distros were private FTP / Telnet sites and you had to have massive cred to get reccomended. However, most people would know their releases through the use of usenet.
As a rule - it's retarded to try and get your warez from Kazzaa, Websites, or even torrents now and even Usenet is risky depending on who you get your service through. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10watch him get a longer sentence than a guy who hit and run killed a cyclist.. after all that was just a regular peons life but this guy was possibly causing business to lose money!
- argoff, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10"Stealing from "the rich" is okay? What perverse morality."
Excuse me, but .... Copying is not stealing! They still have their original copy, what gives? The emperor is naked, quit trying to pretend that a piece of information is just like a physical piece of property. Any idiot can see that it's not.
If an elitist gets themselves personal distribution monopoly, calls that fraudulent monopoly a "property right", calls breaking of that monopoly "stealing" and "piracy" - that does not magically make it so (to people who think). Perhaps it is breaking an unjust law. But it is not stealing any more than it is "stealing" to free slaves off the plantation. - jbreiding, on 10/26/2009, -10/+17Ah the days of downloading this stuff from a wild cat bbs.
Good luck man and don't drop the soap! - SilentBobSC, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Open Source != Free
- MasterRex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7 The man that raped and molested my sister only got five years in prison. She was seven.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the DoD leader's offense was not nearly as bad. Ten years is extravagant for 'e-crimes' that didn't hurt anyone. - Drood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Ten years? Christ, he should ask for rape to be taken into consideration, he'd get a lower sentence...
It's absolutely ***** ridiculous you can get more for copyright infringement than for rape, manslaughter etc... Apparently a womans dignity or a human life is worth less than video games. Sure that's comforting to the victims who see the attacker out within 3 years... - Myonosken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7How the ***** is leaving someone waiting for death for decades good? Most appeals are over with within a year and they leave them for sometimes 20 more years waiting for the death penalty- after 20 years, haven't they served their penalty anyway?
- jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14"Stealing from "the rich" is okay? What perverse morality. "
My taxes paid for the internet. Now who owns all access to that internet? They colonized congress to get that the way it is now....Talk about robbery. - GiggleStick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Don't copy that floppy! Sorry....
- astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Soooooo many more things to worry about then software piracy and the folks who do it. The money the US put
towards this crime, could have been used to help fight the war at home (poverty, health care, etc). But the
government decided to pour it into to a person who counterfeited a $30 game or two.
Shows you how messed up the American Government is.
Charity: "Sir, could you help the poor today?"
Goverment: "No, we need to take that money and procicute a guy who bootlegged Duke Nuk'em 3D
9 years ago." - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Oddly enough, that's exactly what it is. It basically means that they really don't have THAT much evidence on your ass, but if you accept this sentence then at least they won't have to go searching for more ***** and make the sentence worse. You'll find that most people who are arrested for piracy receive this sentence.
the real main issue isn't from just cracking the software or putting it out there on the internet - it is from financially profiting from it - which I definitely believe is wrong. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7History will remember DoD; heroes of the interwebs.
- empyreal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Gotta keep this in persepective, alot of us were 12-16 year old kids doing this crap. That said, on multiple 14.4 modems and OBV/2 or the like, running under desqview386 and later OS/2 Warp. The internet changed the face or scope of the pirate scene, and the scale of its implications.
RiP DoD, TRSi, E/>GE, RiSE, etc - mr.hostility, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Nice to know the US government is willing to go to the ends of the earth for the benefit of large corporations everywhere.
- jockser, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6reading this just makes me want to pirate more !!!
- sneakyrussian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Lol @ stsuida:
'Question: How would you feel if your daughter started dating a guy who genuinely believed it's foolish & wrong to buy the cow because he knows how to get the milk for free? "She didn't lose anything."'
A statement so quaint always brings a smile to my face. Perhaps I would remember that in the 21st century I can no longer view my daughers as property? And that perhaps they are free to make their own decisions? If they guy is in it for the "milk", then she can decided whether to leave him or enjoy the ride for the time being. She really wouldn't lose anything. - TheTap, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Today's array of open source alternatives was not available in the mid 90's. There was some freeware, but that's not the same thing.
Software that I use regularly, I pay for. However, most of those purchases are based on using a warez version first. Twenty trials, 30 days, or crippleware is usually not enough to decide if I prefer product A over product B.
I've purchased a lot of video|dvd|flash authoring software in the last 6 months and all of it was first tried on a warez version I got on abmu. - nublet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4it's all bush's fault.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Copyright infringement (Downloading an MP3, say), and (Not sure of the "correct" word for it, "unauthorized use"?) using some random person's photo for a commercial project, without compensating the photographer, or even asking/letting them though your using it (I.e using a picture of Flickr for a book/DVD cover, which makes the company money) isn't really the same thing, is it..? (More from a moral-point-of-view - both could be seen as copyright-infringement, but some kid's picture being "stolen" by a big company )
As for the stealing of "Digg's idea", I agree - it's silly, but again, it's not comparable to piracy..
- Ben -
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