7 ms·

Personally, I find it fascinating that this band of merry pirates is so organized, so rules-based. Out of a purely anarchic environment, they've managed to acc

by mdda 15y ago

Personally, I find it fascinating that this band of merry pirates is so organized, so rules-based. Out of a purely anarchic environment, they've managed to accept this kind of self-discipline. If only web-standards committees had that sort of power...

sp332 15y ago
It's because there's a huge amount of competition in the "scene" to get first and best copies of a show. In order to declare a "winner" in the competitions, there have to be rules.
donniezazen 15y ago
Anarchist are more open than content providers. On the other hand, content providers and publishers only act in wake of revenue loss.
- ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
  It's funny because if it weren't for the pirates there'd be no innovation and new distribution means or it would be extremely slow. Hollywood and the music industry had become so stagnant, that it took pirates to get them to change their idea of distribution, I think.
  - nsns 15y ago
    Even more funny, for the fact that Hollywood was originally built in order to pirate Edison's patents... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company#Backlash_and_Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company...
gradstudent 15y ago
The (movie/audio/warez/demo) "scene" is not anarchic at all but rather a very well organised distributed processing machine. You probably know these guys organise into "groups" but there is lots of other stuff you likely do not know. I will describe below aspects of the warez scene, as it was some 10 years ago. I believe most observations continue to hold today and are probably mirrored in the movie-release scene. So: "The scene" is made up of groups and each group is made up of specialists: suppliers provide material for release, crackers (or rippers, depending on context) remove copy protection and sometimes optional "filler" material, coders write useful helper software for the group and couriers distribute releases around the internet. Not all groups fill every role and some may have other roles I did not describe here (hackers, carders, hardware suppliers to name a few). There are sometimes partnerships between groups with different specialities; usually this occurs when there is an overlap in membership. For example: a release group may have close links with a particular courier group and those guys handle all their releases. The distribution process is actually quite interesting. Each successful release group aims to have a small list of affiliations with well known and prestigious underground boards/ftp-sites. The quality and prestige of a board depends on the speed of its connection, its capacity, its group affiliations, the standing of its admins in the community and the speed with which new releases are uploaded to it. Each well regarded site is allowed only one particular kind of affiliation: a games group affil, an apps group affil, a courier affil, an ISO affil -- you get the idea. The important thing is that there is only one of each. Affiliations carry prestige for a site and being affiliated with the best sites raises a group's prestige, so there is often heated competition between sites and groups for affils. This is the case at least in the so called "zero second" scene where releases are "traded" (i.e. re-uploaded) by couriers within seconds of being first uploaded. Once a release has been traded among all zero-second sites, they slowly filter down to lesser and lesser sites until eventually making their way to the Internet at large. So why would you go this all this trouble? The reasons are myriad but usually it comes down to prestige: for example, among couriers there is a longstanding weekly and monthly competition between groups that prove their chops by trying to dominate each other. Similar competitions exist among release groups. There is huge pressure to be the first to release a highly anticipated game or well known application. Additionally, there are strict rules about how to release something -- what to keep, what can (and should) be omitted, how to package everything up, the inclusion of .nfo and .diz files and so on. Failure to comply with these strict standards renders a release invalid and causes it to be "nuked" (deleted) among the top sites. This process amounts to a public shaming of the group responsible and makes it possible for competing groups to snatch the credit by doing a "proper" release. I could go on and on but I think that's enough for now. Hopefully I've convinced you that pirates aren't an anarchic bunch ;)
- hippich 15y ago
  Thank you for insight on how scene works. But my main question - where is profit? I.e. what drives this scene and what these groups compete for?
  - gradstudent 15y ago
    I already told you: prestige. There is no profit motive, despite anything to the contrary you might have heard from the FBI or BSA. Occasionally people will enter the scene looking for ways to make money but this kind of motivation is seriously frowned upon and the individuals in question are often publically scorned. Simply: you don't earn any rep from being a conman or petty ripoff artist. Here is a little more context: Most release groups consist of individuals who break copy protection for fun. They compete amongst themselves to create clever hacks and one-up each other. It's a very tightly knit tribal culture: me and mine vs you and yours. Cracking releases or moving releases from one top site to another becomes an interesting game and so too are the metagames and scene politics that surround it. For example: a courier might strive to get friendly with site admins or group leaders who are privvy to upcoming "pres" (or pre-release) so they can get a leg-up on the competition. Be among the top 10 traders on a site for a few weeks and suddenly you have a reputation: you get invited to trade on more prestigious sites, join more prestigious groups and generally pal around with community elders. You develop very strong bonds over time and that's what keeps you in: the scene is where your friends are, it's where people know and respect you. Plus, the competition to be the best can be intoxicating.
  - methoddk 15y ago
    What gradstudent said. For the prestige and respect. It's a rush, addicting and exhilarating.
  - jongraehl 15y ago
    I imagine it's satisfying to help people and feel recognized (via group affiliation) for it.
  - shocks 15y ago
    Topsites can offer a pay to leech scheme. It's often a hushed topic and people don't like to talk about it (because it is insecure). Many topsites are at it. A lot of scene members react badly to topsites like this, and often people infiltrate such sites and public a "scene notice" about them containing siteop nicknames, hostnames, IRC/FTP details, and screenshots. Scene notices are like the news system of the scene. They allow people to publish messages that will disseminated to all the other scene topsites.
shocks 15y ago
Competition forces rules to be born. Not just competition for prestige, a competition for access. Topsites are fuelled by racers. These are the couriers, who transfer data between multiple topsites they have access to. All topsites have a multiplier. For every 1MB you upload, you can download ~3MB. If you don't each a quota or are not in the top ~15 racers by the end of the week your access will be revoked. With access comes prestige, ability to race to other topsites, contacts, and leech access to the topsite. These things are many terabytes big and can have archives in excess of 60TB. A huge repository of constantly refreshing and up to date material. Without rules this would become a free-for-all, with poor quality. That's no good for anyone.
- omarchowdhury 15y ago
  They still using pftp these days?
  - shocks 15y ago
    http://www.drftpd.org/ http://www.drftpd.org/
    - shibboleth 15y ago
      No one uses drftpd except for rented sites. They all use glftpd, still.. sigh.
  - shibboleth 15y ago
    Yes. pftp is the tool of choice for couriers still.. albeit they hardly resemble the original source.

by mdda 15y ago

sp332 15y ago

It's because there's a huge amount of competition in the "scene" to get first and best copies of a show. In order to declare a "winner" in the competitions, there have to be rules.

donniezazen 15y ago

Anarchist are more open than content providers. On the other hand, content providers and publishers only act in wake of revenue loss.

ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
It's funny because if it weren't for the pirates there'd be no innovation and new distribution means or it would be extremely slow. Hollywood and the music industry had become so stagnant, that it took pirates to get them to change their idea of distribution, I think.
- nsns 15y ago
  Even more funny, for the fact that Hollywood was originally built in order to pirate Edison's patents... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company#Backlash_and_Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company...

gradstudent 15y ago

The (movie/audio/warez/demo) "scene" is not anarchic at all but rather a very well organised distributed processing machine. You probably know these guys organise into "groups" but there is lots of other stuff you likely do not know. I will describe below aspects of the warez scene, as it was some 10 years ago. I believe most observations continue to hold today and are probably mirrored in the movie-release scene. So: "The scene" is made up of groups and each group is made up of specialists: suppliers provide material for release, crackers (or rippers, depending on context) remove copy protection and sometimes optional "filler" material, coders write useful helper software for the group and couriers distribute releases around the internet. Not all groups fill every role and some may have other roles I did not describe here (hackers, carders, hardware suppliers to name a few). There are sometimes partnerships between groups with different specialities; usually this occurs when there is an overlap in membership. For example: a release group may have close links with a particular courier group and those guys handle all their releases. The distribution process is actually quite interesting. Each successful release group aims to have a small list of affiliations with well known and prestigious underground boards/ftp-sites. The quality and prestige of a board depends on the speed of its connection, its capacity, its group affiliations, the standing of its admins in the community and the speed with which new releases are uploaded to it. Each well regarded site is allowed only one particular kind of affiliation: a games group affil, an apps group affil, a courier affil, an ISO affil -- you get the idea. The important thing is that there is only one of each. Affiliations carry prestige for a site and being affiliated with the best sites raises a group's prestige, so there is often heated competition between sites and groups for affils. This is the case at least in the so called "zero second" scene where releases are "traded" (i.e. re-uploaded) by couriers within seconds of being first uploaded. Once a release has been traded among all zero-second sites, they slowly filter down to lesser and lesser sites until eventually making their way to the Internet at large. So why would you go this all this trouble? The reasons are myriad but usually it comes down to prestige: for example, among couriers there is a longstanding weekly and monthly competition between groups that prove their chops by trying to dominate each other. Similar competitions exist among release groups. There is huge pressure to be the first to release a highly anticipated game or well known application. Additionally, there are strict rules about how to release something -- what to keep, what can (and should) be omitted, how to package everything up, the inclusion of .nfo and .diz files and so on. Failure to comply with these strict standards renders a release invalid and causes it to be "nuked" (deleted) among the top sites. This process amounts to a public shaming of the group responsible and makes it possible for competing groups to snatch the credit by doing a "proper" release. I could go on and on but I think that's enough for now. Hopefully I've convinced you that pirates aren't an anarchic bunch ;)

hippich 15y ago
Thank you for insight on how scene works. But my main question - where is profit? I.e. what drives this scene and what these groups compete for?
- gradstudent 15y ago
  I already told you: prestige. There is no profit motive, despite anything to the contrary you might have heard from the FBI or BSA. Occasionally people will enter the scene looking for ways to make money but this kind of motivation is seriously frowned upon and the individuals in question are often publically scorned. Simply: you don't earn any rep from being a conman or petty ripoff artist. Here is a little more context: Most release groups consist of individuals who break copy protection for fun. They compete amongst themselves to create clever hacks and one-up each other. It's a very tightly knit tribal culture: me and mine vs you and yours. Cracking releases or moving releases from one top site to another becomes an interesting game and so too are the metagames and scene politics that surround it. For example: a courier might strive to get friendly with site admins or group leaders who are privvy to upcoming "pres" (or pre-release) so they can get a leg-up on the competition. Be among the top 10 traders on a site for a few weeks and suddenly you have a reputation: you get invited to trade on more prestigious sites, join more prestigious groups and generally pal around with community elders. You develop very strong bonds over time and that's what keeps you in: the scene is where your friends are, it's where people know and respect you. Plus, the competition to be the best can be intoxicating.
- methoddk 15y ago
  What gradstudent said. For the prestige and respect. It's a rush, addicting and exhilarating.
- jongraehl 15y ago
  I imagine it's satisfying to help people and feel recognized (via group affiliation) for it.
- shocks 15y ago
  Topsites can offer a pay to leech scheme. It's often a hushed topic and people don't like to talk about it (because it is insecure). Many topsites are at it. A lot of scene members react badly to topsites like this, and often people infiltrate such sites and public a "scene notice" about them containing siteop nicknames, hostnames, IRC/FTP details, and screenshots. Scene notices are like the news system of the scene. They allow people to publish messages that will disseminated to all the other scene topsites.

shocks 15y ago

Competition forces rules to be born. Not just competition for prestige, a competition for access. Topsites are fuelled by racers. These are the couriers, who transfer data between multiple topsites they have access to. All topsites have a multiplier. For every 1MB you upload, you can download ~3MB. If you don't each a quota or are not in the top ~15 racers by the end of the week your access will be revoked. With access comes prestige, ability to race to other topsites, contacts, and leech access to the topsite. These things are many terabytes big and can have archives in excess of 60TB. A huge repository of constantly refreshing and up to date material. Without rules this would become a free-for-all, with poor quality. That's no good for anyone.

omarchowdhury 15y ago
They still using pftp these days?
- shocks 15y ago
  http://www.drftpd.org/ http://www.drftpd.org/
  - shibboleth 15y ago
    No one uses drftpd except for rented sites. They all use glftpd, still.. sigh.
- shibboleth 15y ago
  Yes. pftp is the tool of choice for couriers still.. albeit they hardly resemble the original source.