p2pnet - rss feed: The Dark Side of Warez
p2pnet.net News Feature:- Warez is a computer slang term meaning copyrighted material (usually software) traded in violation of its copyright license. The term generally refers to releases by organized groups, as opposed to file sharing between friends - Wikipedia
=================
It’s a given that the real warez action goes on in the vacuum of deep, deep cyberspace, not the oxygenated atmosphere of the Net where 99% of the online population surf.
In those far reaches, warez enthusiasts trade in movies, software. music, you name it. But whatever the file being traded, it’s all about getting there. First!
Money doesn’t come into it - unless you’re talking about the secret fees some people pay to become a part of the ‘elite’.
“Once a file is posted to a topsite, it starts a rapid descent through wider and wider levels of an invisible network, multiplying exponentially along the way,” writes Jeff Howe in Wired Magazine’s January, 2005, The Shadow Internet.
A ‘topsite’ is one of about 30, “underground, highly secretive servers where nearly all of the unlicensed music, movies, and videogames available on the Internet originate,” he says.
“They start with a single stolen file and pump out bootleg games and movies by the millions. At each step, more and more pirates pitch in to keep the avalanche tumbling downward. Finally, thousands, perhaps millions, of copies - all the progeny of that original file - spill into the public peer-to-peer networks: Kazaa, LimeWire, Morpheus. Without this duplication and distribution structure providing content, the P2P networks would run dry. (BitTorrent, a faster and more efficient type of P2P file-sharing, is an exception. But at present there are far fewer BitTorrent users.)
“It’s a commonly held belief that P2P is about sharing files. It’s an appealing, democratic notion: Consumers rip the movies and music they buy and post them online. But that’s not quite how it works.”
Synonymous with ‘crook’
Howe’s piece on how the warez-cum-trading groups work makes an interesting, not to say sensational, read. And it’s mostly true, although there’s not much new in it.
That’s the way the elite ‘leet’ groups have always worked. Only ways and means differ, or are up-dated as new processing and acquisition technologies and methods come along, or are figured out.
Most of the operators are in their teens or early twenties. And they don’t do what they do for profit. They do it for fun.
Unfortunately, however, the elite groups also training grounds.
Hackers are, for the most part, people with an insatiable need to know what, where and how. They’re clever, often brilliant, and they find cool ways to explore interesting systems. Surreptitiously. .
Unfortunately, a handful use their knowledge for illicit purposes and the activities of these few have meant ‘hacker’ is now synonymous with ‘crook’ to many people, particularly if they’re members of one or other of the government or corporate enforcement agencies.
The same applies to warez traders.
Although 99% of them do what they do for the thrill, eventually going onwards an upwards and becoming ‘normal’ members of society, a tiny handful are either recruited by organized crime gangs to produce ‘product’ for the underground markets, or they set themselves up as suppliers.
In the process, all warez traders are labeled as criminals.
A pirate elite
Howe is writing about a minority and as he stresses, “Outside of a pirate elite and the Feds who track them, few know that topsites exist.”
The tragedy is, thanks to ongoing, extremely successful misinformation efforts on the part of the entertainment industry through its RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America ) and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), the mainstream media and substantial numbers of the public at large believe the people currently being persecuted for sharing files online are either members of this ‘pirate elite,’ or work with them.
In reality, however, the two groups have nothing to do with each other.
The ‘file sharers’ who have become such a great source of headlines for the mainstream media, thanks to the MPAA and RIAA , are actually people who’ve found a way to try before they buy.
They don’t sell the tunes and flics they download. And they still do what they did before p2p came along. They buy CDs and go to the movies.
The main difference is: where before the advent of the Net and file sharing, they had to take things on trust, now they can see and hear good, but far from perfect, examples before they throw their money away on a $15 CD with only one decent track, or a film that looked terrific in the trailer, but which turned out to be pure garbage in the cinema.
Most of the movies, and some of the music, on the p2p networks may indeed have originated with traders, but by the time they reach the p2p network level, they’re pale, low quality imitations of the originals that no one would pay a dime for.
And while the entertainment industry terrorizes the men, woman and children who share these kinds of files, epitomizing them as hardened criminals, or closes down sites such as Suprnova, the true hard-core criminals continue to dance rings around the various agencies, laughing all the way to the bank.
But that’s not a picture the entertainment industry wants to be seen in public.
===================
See:-
multiplying exponentially - The Shadow Internet, December 30, 2004
low quality imitations - RIAA sues more people, p2pnet, November 22, 2004
December 31st, 2004 at 4:58 am
Two words…
NO SHIT!
December 31st, 2004 at 5:08 am
“they’re pale, low quality imitations of the originals that no one would pay a dime for.”
I beg to differ about the quality of the movies on the net. I am now looking at alt.binaries.ftn in usenet and I see the movie Cellular (2004) DVD. Total size is 5,268.5 MB. It’s sitting there on my ISP’s server just waiting for me to download it. That’s the same quality I get when I buy or rent the movie. If I download it, I am sure not going to rent or buy it. There are many more just like it from the same place.
The ease which people are able to download movies from the net will not inhibit the production of movies in the future . On the contrary more movies will be made than ever before. For there is an insatiable desire to tell stories and become famous.
With the downward spiral of prices for broadcast quality movie making equipment, many people can now make a low budget movies and distribute them on the net if they run into a wall with the established distributors. I see many in alt.binaries.documentaries right now. The distribution costs are pennies.
The established production houses will still be making movies, though you will not see as many big budget ones. The 30 million dollar per movie stars will have to except 3 million per movie. With more competition from from the little people we may even see price reductions in the movie houses. Oh! poor MPAA.
December 31st, 2004 at 5:28 pm
Reading the Wired article, I noticed a few inaccuracies, omissions, and misperceptions. But then, that’s understandable for a writer who is presumably only just starting to learn about the workings of the P2P world. Many of the numbers given seem way off the mark. Was this a result of the ’scene’ members exaggerating their own importance and reach, or the copyright industry inflating the extent of their “loss”?
The P2P food chain
Another noticeable error was in stating that the files get transferred directly from ftp dump sites to Kazaa/Morpheus users. There are really several additional transport points along the way. IRC and newsgroups - which were not even mentioned in the Wired article - play a major role as the first publicly-available access points for newly released files. Next in line would be BitTorrent, eDonkey, then last in line, the favorite of the unwashed masses: Kazaa.
Many released files that do not have broad demand simply do not make it all the way to the n00b P2P networks such as FastTrack. The ’scene’ might be highly organized and enthusiastic at the top and mid levels, but that’s about where it ends. No self-respecting insider gives a flip about Kazaa users.
In addition, there are also other types of distribution that may tap into the stream somewhere along the way: Private independent FTP and HTTP sites. Public websites. DC hubs.
January 1st, 2005 at 9:42 am
“Hackers are, for the most part, people with an insatiable need to know what, where and how. They’re clever, often brilliant <snip>….Unfortunately, a handful use their knowledge for illicit purposes and the activities of these few have meant ‘hacker’ is now synonymous with ‘crook’ The same applies to warez traders.”
Err…no it doesnt - comparing hackers to warez traders is ridiculous - hackers need brains and ingenuity, to be a warez trader you just need to be able to copy files, and have access to an internet connection, what skills are required to do this? how many warez traders have spent years learning their trade, studying books and manuals, scouring the web for information? come on….
“…In the process, all warez traders are labeled as criminals.”
well according to the definition of what warez is, at the top of this article, all warez traders *ARE* criminals.
January 2nd, 2005 at 5:58 am
January 2nd, 2005 at 6:02 am
In regard to the comment
“Without this duplication and distribution structure providing content, the P2P networks would run dry. ”
The only area where the distribution structure makes a difference anymore is 0-day releases for unreleased movies and games.. Anything else can be ripped by any kid with commonly available programs and shared with millions of others….
January 3rd, 2005 at 9:14 am
its ez to find a perfect CD quality .wav song on limewire .the same gos for dvd quality movies. lots of good working software too. my idia is that moast of the people who fileshare dont have the money to buy CDs ,tapes,dvds or go to the movies any way. so if they dident buy stuff befor they had fileshare what makes the entertanement industry think they will buy things if they stop people from trading?? these ”topsites” seem verry interesting…how do you get acsess to one??
LONG LIVE PIRACY!!!
WOO-HOO!
January 3rd, 2005 at 10:10 pm
Ok… so you have a reply saying that it disbelieves the way the article says it happens, and in the same reply, it is taken as being written in stone that “topsites” exist….
Anyone else see the flaw there?
January 4th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
“.. Anything else can be ripped by any kid with commonly available programs and shared with millions of others….”
While this is undoubtedly true, I think that the point the Wired article was trying to make was that this duplication and distribution heirarchy is respinsible for seeding the P2P networks with many sources for identical files.
If young Joe Schmoe decided to rip his latest DVD purchase into an AVI and stuck it into his shared folder. It would most likely sit there doing sod all because only a very few of those ‘millions’ of other P2P’ers would in actual fact find his file in a search conducted via their native P2P search function. And with only one source for this file (which, assuming it’s a decent quality rip, will be approx 700Mb) it’s gonna take quite a while for anyone else to complete the download. Compund this with the fact that there will doubtless be other sources of the same film (NOT the same file as the hash value would be different) which may have upwards of 200 sources per file. ie those which have been filtered down through the ‘l33t’ pirate network (sic). Consequently poor little Schmoe esq. will not recieve the infinite pirate kudos from his friends and peers (pun intended) which he so desperately seeks.
This is where websites like the now defunct ShareConnector and long lamented ShareReactor came into play. They are home to groups of users (those release groups that were mentioned in the previous article) who will all get the same copy of a file via whatever means (DC, newsgroups, FTP, etc. NOT P2P!!). ie all having an identical copy of the film. They will then post this as a release in one or many P2P indexing websites for consumption by the general public.
Ha, looking back over this post i’ve realised that i’ve merely been re-iterating most of what was mentioned in the Wired article but I feel that the point was somehow missed in the previous comment and felt an unsurmountable urge to correct it! lol
January 18th, 2005 at 5:41 am
“its ez to find a perfect CD quality .wav song on limewire .the same gos for dvd quality movies.”
First of all, i salute you for being a p2p user, but good copies of software are hard to come by, and perfect copies of music are just as hard