Warez group

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A warez group is a tightly organised group of people involved in creating and/or distributing warez such as movies, music or software ("warez") in The Scene. There are different types of these groups in the Scene: release groups and courier groups. Groups often compete, as being the first to bring out a new quality release can bring status and respect – a type of "vanity contest". The warez groups care about the image others have of them. [1]

Contents

Description

ANALOG Computing observed in 1984 that software piracy did not make sense economically to those performing the software cracking. [2] The primary motivation of warez groups is not monetary gain, but the excitement of breaking rules and beating competitors, [3] [4] although at least two Scene groups have been asking for bitcoin donations, PoWeRUp and spamTV. [5] Individual members of these groups are usually also the authors of cracks and keygens. [3]

There are warez groups publishing new content outside of the Scene, often referred to as P2P groups. [6] They are a lot more accessible for people with access to new movies and are not limited to a set of rules and regulations. [6]

The FBI have been combating warez groups with Operation: Cyberstrike, Operation Buccaneer, Operation Fastlink, Operation Safehaven and Operation Site Down. [7] [8] Similarly, the P2P group IMAGiNE has been disbanded due to law enforcement actions. [9]

Some game and software groups include Razor 1911, Reloaded, DrinkOrDie, Pirates With Attitude, Class, Myth and Fairlight. For a larger list, see the list of warez groups.

Release groups

Release groups are responsible for making warez releases. For example, they rip a movie from DVD, encode it to a video file and chop it up in smaller pieces before sharing it. They are at the top of the warez world. [10] An announcement of the release shows up in pre databases after making the release available on their affiliate sites. Access to the original software products is necessary to write cracks and keygens so they share original media among each other, usually using private sites and servers. [3] Communication between members happens with IRC. [4]

Warez groups typically add NFO files with their releases. Due to the nature of the scene, not much is known about these groups. Most groups follow one of the different warez standards to prevent being nuked. Most groups are focused on a single category (music, movies, television, ...) or genre (e.g. metal music or graffiti). [11]

The group members have different roles. Most groups have one or more group leaders, aided by people with assignments such as supplier, cracker or ripper. [4]

Courier groups

Courier groups take releases and distribute them. This can be done using FXP to FTP sites. There are more couriers in the scene than there are crackers, suppliers and sites combined. [1]

Couriers are a specific class of topsite users who earn their access by uploading new releases and filling requests. When a courier gains access to a topsite, they are often required to pass a trial test such as uploading a certain amount in a short period of time. [12]

Couriers compete (race) against each other for respect, credits, access to other topsites, and fun. [13] Private couriers often operate as independent (iND) couriers. Some couriers band together to form courier groups which provide support and friendship through camaraderie. Although it may be noted that Couriers/Racers are looked down upon more than ever by affiliates and topsite staff with the increase of scripts that perform the couriers tasks automatically.

See also

Related Research Articles

Software cracking is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software, especially copy protection features or software annoyances like nag screens and adware.

Warez Movies, software or music distributed in violation of copyright

Warez is a common computing and broader cultural term referring to pirated software that is distributed via the Internet. Warez is used most commonly as a noun, a plural form of ware, and is intended to be pronounced like the word wares. The circumvention of copy protection (cracking) is an essential step in generating warez, and based on this common mechanism, the software-focused definition has been extended to include other copyright-protected materials, including movies and games. The global array of warez groups has been referred to as "The Scene", deriving from its earlier description as "the warez scene". Distribution and trade of copyrighted works without payment of fees or royalties generally violates national and international copyright laws and agreements. The term warez covers supported as well as unsupported (abandonware) items, and legal prohibitions governing creation and distribution of warez cover both profit-driven and "enthusiast" generators and distributors of such items.

Crack intro

A crack intro, also known as a cracktro, loader, or just intro, is a small introduction sequence added to cracked software. It aims to inform the user which "cracking crew" or individual cracker removed the software's copy protection and distributed the crack.

Keygen Computer program that can generate a product licensing key

A key generator (key-gen) is a computer program that generates a product licensing key, such as a serial number, necessary to activate for use of a software application. Keygens may be legitimately distributed by software manufacturers for licensing software in commercial environments where software has been licensed in bulk for an entire site or enterprise, or they may be distributed illegitimately in circumstances of copyright infringement or software piracy.

Fairlight (group) Swedish demo group

FairLight (FLT) is a warez and demo group initially involved in the Commodore demoscene, and in cracking to illegally release games for free, since 1987. In addition to the C64, FairLight has also migrated towards the Amiga, Super NES and later the PC. FairLight was founded during the Easter holiday in 1987 by Strider and Black Shadow, both ex-members of West Coast Crackers (WCC). This "West Coast" was the west coast of Sweden, so FairLight was initially a Swedish group, which later became internationalized. The name was taken from the Fairlight CMI synthesizer which Strider saw Jean-Michel Jarre use on some of his records.

Topsite is a term used by the warez scene to refer to underground, highly secretive, high-speed FTP servers used by release groups and couriers for distribution, storage and archiving of warez releases. Topsites have very high-bandwidth Internet connections, commonly supporting transfer speeds of hundreds to thousands of megabits per second; enough to transfer a full Blu-ray in seconds. Topsites also have very high storage capacity; a total of many terabytes is typical. Early on these warez sites were mainly distributing software such as games and applications after the release groups removed any protections. Now they are also a source of other copyright protected works such as movies and music. It is strictly prohibited for sites to charge for access to the content, due to decreased security, and sites found doing so are shunned by the topsite community.

Warez scene Organized network of pirate groups

The Warez scene, often referred to as The Scene, is a worldwide, underground, organized network of pirate groups specializing in obtaining and illegally releasing digital media for free before their official sale date. The Scene distributes all forms of digital media, including computer games, movies, TV shows, music, and pornography. The Scene is meant to be hidden from the public, only being shared with those within the community. However, as files were commonly leaked outside the community and their popularity grew, some individuals from The Scene began leaking files and uploading them to filehosts, torrents and ed2k.

Workprint

A workprint is a rough version of a motion picture, used by the film editor(s) during the editing process. Such copies generally contain original recorded sound that will later be re-dubbed, stock footage as placeholders for missing shots or special effects, and animation tests for in-production animated shots or sequences.

Rabid Neurosis

Rabid Neurosis (RNS) was an MP3 warez release organization which was founded in 1996, following in the footsteps of Compress 'Da Audio (CDA), the first MP3 piracy group. In 1999, the group claimed to have released over 6,000 titles a year. RNS occasionally used the tagline "Rabid Neurosis - Spread The Epidemic." RNS were best known for releasing highly anticipated albums by hip hop, pop, rock and dance artists weeks and sometimes months before their official release date. RNS is known to have greatly contributed to the mp3 scene.

Paradox (warez)

PARADOX (PDX) is a warez–demogroup; an anonymous group of software engineers that devise ways to defeat software and video game licensing protections, a process known as cracking, which is illegal in most jurisdictions. They distribute cracks, keygens, and pre-cracked versions of entire programs. Over the years, distribution methods have changed, starting out with physically transported floppy disks and BBS distribution. Today most of their files reach the public over various peer-to-peer file networks.

Standards in the warez scene are defined by groups of people who have been involved in its activities for several years and have established connections to large groups. These people form a committee, which creates drafts for approval of the large groups. Outside the warez scene, often referred to as p2p, there are no global rules similar to the scene, although some groups and individuals could have their own internal guidelines they follow.

RISC-ISO was an online warez group, founded in approximately 1993, dedicated to distributing newly released copyrighted software, games and movies. The acronym "RISC" stood for Rise in Superior Couriering, and "ISO" referred to a file format commonly used for the storage and transfer of disc images although the group RISC and RiSCiSO were two completely separate groups. The organization operated until the Operation Site Down raids in the summer of 2005. American authorities are still searching for the organization's ring leader Sean Patrick O'Toole, after he failed to appear in an American court in February 2006. He placed a call to his friend and group leader Sandy Fury, wishing her a happy birthday and an apology and then disappeared at Heathrow Airport.

Myth was a warez group, focused on cracking and ripping PC games. Besides ripped games, the group also released trainers and cracked updates for games. Myth's slogan, "Myth, always ahead of the Class", was referring to the rival group class that existed from 1997 to 2004.

In the warez scene, nuke refers to labeling content as "bad", for reasons which might include unusable software, bad audiovisual quality, virus-infected content, deceptively labeled (fake) content or not following the rules. Duplicates and stolen releases from other pirates that do not attribute them pirates will also be nuked. When a scene release is "nuked", a message is attached to its listing informing other sceners of its "nuked" status, as well as the specific nature of the problem.

glFTPd is a freely available FTP server which runs on Unix, Linux, and BSD operating systems. It has number of features, like logins restricted by a particular set of IP addresses, transfer quotas per-user and per-group basis, and user/groups not stored in the system files, which make it attractive to private warez servers, including topsites. It does have legitimate uses though—a number of web development books recommend it amongst other general purpose FTP servers, and some Linux certification exams of SAIR required knowledge of it. It can integrate with Eggdrop through IRC channels.

Operation Site Down is the umbrella name for a law enforcement initiative conducted by the United States' FBI and law enforcement agents from ten other countries which resulted in a raid on targets on June 29, 2005. Three separate undercover investigations were involved, based in Chicago, Charlotte and San Jose. The raid consisted of approximately 70 searches in the U.S. and approximately 20 others in ten other countries in an effort to disrupt and dismantle many of the leading Warez groups which distribute and trade in copyrighted software, movies, music and games on the Internet.

aXXo

aXXo is the Internet alias of an individual who released and standardized commercial film DVDs as free downloads on the Internet between 2005 and 2009. The files, which were usually new films, were popular among the file sharing community using peer-to-peer file sharing protocols such as BitTorrent. A download-tracking firm BigChampagne found — in a sampling period in late 2008 — that almost 33.5% of all movie downloads were aXXo torrents. aXXo encoded files to approximately 700 MB – the same size for a compact disc. Due to the re-encoded quality of an aXXo file, the suffix "aXXo" was often used by imitators.

Video game piracy is the unauthorized copying and distributing of video game software, and is a form of copyright infringement. It is often cited as a major problem that video game publishers face when distributing their products, due to the ease of being able to distribute games for free, via torrenting or websites offering direct download links. Right holders generally attempt to counter piracy of their products by enforcing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, though this has never been totally successful. Piracy directly compromises revenue, as evidenced by a 2011 UKIE report, detailing how video game piracy using modified consoles cost publishers at least £1.45 billion the previous year. UKIE also estimated that there was a 4:1 ratio of pirated copies to legitimate copies of games, with the aforementioned monetary figure only being drawn from a conservative 1:1 ratio. Digital distribution of pirated games has historically occurred on bulletin board systems (BBS), and more recently via decentralized peer-to-peer torrenting. In terms of physical distribution, Taiwan, China and Malaysia are known for major manufacturing and distribution centers for pirated game copies, while Hong Kong and Singapore are major importers.

FMovies is a series of copyright infringement websites that host links and embedded videos, allowing users to stream or download movies for free.

References

  1. 1 2 Craig, Paul; Ron, Mark (April 2005). Burnett, Mark (ed.). Software Piracy Exposed – Secrets from the Dark Side Revealed . Publisher: Andrew Williams, Page Layout and Art: Patricia Lupien, Acquisitions Editor: Jaime Quigley, Copy Editor: Judy Eby, Technical Editor: Mark Burnett, Indexer: Nara Wood, Cover Designer: Michael Kavish. United States of America: Syngress Publishing. doi:10.1016/B978-193226698-6/50030-1. ISBN   1-932266-98-4.
  2. ↑ Harberg, Allen (January 1984). "Software Piracy: A Survey". ANALOG Computing. pp. 64–66. I continue to be amazed by the tenacity of the pirates. There are software publishers who market disks which contain 500 unformatted disk sectors. To make an illegal copy of such a disk, you would have to search a sea of unformatted sectors to find a single sector of binary zeroes. Yet I know that there are individuals who will spend untold hours listening to their drives make the most horrifying sounds imaginable while they search for an oasis in a desert of unformatted tracks. Eight hours and 1000 I/O errors later, they've created a back-up of a program which retails for a $29.95! I guess that using leisure time effectively, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
  3. 1 2 3 Kammerstetter, Markus; Platzer, Christian; Wondracek, Gilbert (2012). "Vanity, cracks and malware" (PDF). Proceedings of the 2012 ACM conference on Computer and communications security - CCS '12. p. 809. doi:10.1145/2382196.2382282. ISBN   9781450316514. S2CID   3423843.
  4. 1 2 3 Lasica, Joseph D. (May–June 2005). "The Prince of Darknet".
  5. ↑ Ernesto (2016-07-03). "Scene Group Asks For Bitcoin Donations, Gets $0". TorrentFreak .
  6. 1 2 Enigmax (2010-07-29). "BitTorrent Releasers Are The New Kids On The Piracy Block". TorrentFreak .
  7. ↑ O'Brien, Timothy L. (2005-08-28). "King Kong vs. the Pirates of the Multiplex". The New York Times . Retrieved 2012-05-24.
  8. ↑ Garrett, Ben (2004-04-27). "Online Software Piracy of the Last Millennium" (PDF). defacto2.net.
  9. ↑ Enigmax (2011-09-13). "Reports: Feds Bust IMAGiNE Movie Release Group". TorrentFreak .
  10. ↑ Adam L. Penenberg (1997-08-08). "Where do you want to pirate today?". Forbes . Retrieved 2013-07-06.
  11. ↑ Howe, Jeff (January 2005). "The Shadow Internet". Wired .
  12. ↑ Plischke, Sascha (2010-06-21). "Die geheime Welt der Raubkopierer" [The secret world of pirates]. T-Online (in German). Retrieved 2013-07-06.
  13. ↑ Wilson, Steve (1999-07-29). "Online Piracy: From Music to Film". The New York Times . Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Like the pirates, the couriers do this largely for bragging rights, not money.
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