Police can't find warez groups, but I have their addresses?

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Fri May 30, 2003 5:39 pm

Whilst playing some very old Amiga games the other day (through the wonder that is UAEX of course), I happened to notice something - all the major warez release groups, who incidentally seemed to be mostly British, listed their home addresses on their crack intros, either so that you could buy some hardware from them, or so that you can have a party (:?). One even said, "Come to so-and-so address and meet all your favourite guys from the Amiga release scene". Why didn't anybody just go to one of these addresses and arrest them?

perry · Post by **perry** » Fri May 30, 2003 5:58 pm

LMAO.

Firthy2002 · Post by **Firthy2002** » Fri May 30, 2003 6:05 pm

Oldskool cracktros rule.

Joestar · Post by **Joestar** » Fri May 30, 2003 6:13 pm

cos the cops are dumbasses

-Azathoth- · Post by **-Azathoth-** » Fri May 30, 2003 7:14 pm

I suppose European copyright laws are different than in the US?

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Fri May 30, 2003 7:21 pm

-Azathoth- wrote:I suppose European copyright laws are different than in the US?

Could very well be - the Amiga never did too good outside of Europe, and Europe has always been very lax on warez. You can still go to Spain on holiday, walk into a supermarker and get a GBA multi-cart. But nowadays they don't go around putting their addresses on stuff (except for Utopia, who put their pictures up

), but they used to (no IDSA), which makes me wonder why the police don't follow these leads. The IDSA had been trying to prosecute outside of America for a while, but they don't seem to want to go after the easy targets.

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Fri May 30, 2003 10:53 pm

it may be a fake address, so that the cops end up going to a competitors house.

Garmo · Post by **Garmo** » Fri May 30, 2003 11:18 pm

Prophet][ wrote:it may be a fake address, so that the cops end up going to a competitors house.

I dunno.. I never got the impression that hacker/warez teams were in malicious competition.

Speeddemon · Post by **Speeddemon** » Fri May 30, 2003 11:52 pm

back then piracy wasnt really a big thing

Ender · Post by **Ender** » Sat May 31, 2003 12:08 am

First of all, they'd only have circumstancial evidence. Those could be anybody's addresses. Besides, to crack something isn't in itself illegal, it's the distribution that's illegal. They'd have to prove that those people had distributed those programs (and as far as I know, for $) to put them in jail anyway, so it's not worth it. In short, the police aren't really after the pirates, only the people who sell what the pirates do. ARR!

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Sat May 31, 2003 4:14 am

it would be funny if the cops decided to go to one of these addresses and they ended up barging into McDonalds or something

lim · Post by **lim** » Sat May 31, 2003 9:52 am

Perhaps cops should continue doing hard work and try to catch real criminals like rapists and murderers. Software piracy?? Get your prioritites straight.

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Sat May 31, 2003 9:53 am

lim wrote:Software piracy?? Get your prioritites straight.

Professional software (and film / music) piracy funds terrorism and organised crime higher up 'the line'. Same with drug dealing.

lim · Post by **lim** » Sat May 31, 2003 10:09 am

Here we go....anything can fund terrorism- any kind of cash transfer. White collar crime hurts "the industry" (all industries) more than piracy ever could. And nobody goes after those guys. That piracy link is laughable, there is millions more that can be directly made with the sale of weapons and drugs. Bootleg copies of shenmue funding bin laden

pavelbure · Post by **pavelbure** » Sat May 31, 2003 10:13 am

Nyarlathotep wrote:
lim wrote:Software piracy?? Get your prioritites straight.
Professional software (and film / music) piracy funds terrorism and organised crime higher up 'the line'. Same with drug dealing.

right.

i guess if i downloaded music from someone on kazaa im funding terrorists. unless you mean a different kind of piracy.

lim · Post by **lim** » Sat May 31, 2003 11:08 am

Here you go Nyar, your claim has been substantiated:

toastman · Post by **toastman** » Sat May 31, 2003 11:13 am

Hey Kids, Don't Warez.
Except for Creedence Clearwater Revival. Pirate them to hell and back.
Fantasy Records stole John Fogerty's hard work and denied him any and all royalties from the sale of CCR albums. In other words John Fogerty doesn't see a dime off of any CCR album you buy. Fuck Fantasy.

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Sat May 31, 2003 11:43 am

apparently some of you don't understand the concept of 'professional piracy'

Its things like WindowsXP in boxes nearly identical to the original that only an expert could tell the difference to, right down to professionally printed and packaged movies on DVD, CDs, Games etc etc etc.

And YES it IS mostly produced by PROFESSIONAL AND ORGANISED CRIMINALS.

Im not talking about Joe Lamer leeching a stack of ISOs from an FTP somewhere - I AM TALKING ABOUT PROFESSIONAL MEDIA 'PIRATES' - and YES it is WELL KNOWN that a large number of terrorist groups incomes are DERIVED FROM IT as well as from gun running and drug dealing.

lim · Post by **lim** » Sat May 31, 2003 12:34 pm

Sounds like you got the inside track on this Nyar, you should apply to be a juniour special agent dealing exclusively with this rampant and brazen criminal act. You could be like Frankie Muniz

and be out there, stopping this unbelievable and most destructive problem of copying software. You could even start a concerned citizens brigade, ask your local mafioso exactly what he thinks he's doing, copying Windows ME home version, I believe you'll be pleased with his reply.

sixteen-bit · Post by **sixteen-bit** » Sat May 31, 2003 1:49 pm

DOWNLOADING warez doesn't affect crime!

However, large organised groups selling CDr'ed copies of PSX, PC and PS2 games at a certain very large and well known market I know of does.

These people are linked to the groups that provide ""tax free"" smokes and you don't think that higher up the foodchain these profits are used for less-than-wholesome purposes?

[edited to remove my annoyance censor bypassing

]