Warez scene

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A hierarchy, from the top down it reads: "Release Groups", "Topsites", "Couriers", "Sites", and "Leechers".
Warez hierarchy

The Warez scene, often referred to as The Scene,

torrents and ed2k
.

The Scene has no central leadership, location, or other organizational conventions. The groups themselves create a ruleset for each Scene category (for example, MP3 or TV) that then becomes the active rules for encoding material. These rulesets include a rigid set of requirements that warez groups (shortened as "grps") must follow in releasing and managing material. The groups must follow these rules when uploading material and, if the release has a technical error or breaks a rule, other groups may "nuke" (flag as bad content) the release.[4] Groups are in constant competition to get releases up as fast as possible. First appearing around the time of BBSes, The Scene is composed primarily of people dealing with and distributing media content, for which special skills and advanced software are required.

History

The warez scene started emerging in the 1970s, used by predecessors of software cracking and reverse engineering groups. Their work was made available on privately run bulletin board systems (BBSes).[5] The first BBSes were located in the United States, but similar boards started appearing in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and mainland Europe. At the time, setting up a machine capable of distributing data was not trivial, and required a certain amount of technical skill; this was usually taken on as a technical challenge. The BBSes typically hosted several megabytes of material, with the best boards having multiple phone lines, and up to one hundred megabytes of storage space, a considerable expense at the time.[6] Releases were mostly games and later software.

As the world of software development evolved to counter the distribution of material, and as the software and hardware needed for distribution became readily available to anyone, The Scene adapted to the changes and turned from simple distribution to actual cracking of copying restrictions and non-commercial reverse engineering.

artscene, which specialized in the creation of graphical art associated with individual groups.[7] The groups would promote their abilities with ever more sophisticated and advanced software, graphical art, and later also music (demoscene).[8]

The subcommunities (artscene, demoscene, etc.), which were doing nothing illegal, eventually branched off. The programs containing the group promotional material (coding/graphical/musical presentations) evolved to become separate programs distributed through The Scene, and were nicknamed

Cracktros
.

The demoscene grew especially strong in Scandinavia, where annual gatherings are hosted.[9]

Release procedure

When releasing material, groups must first encode properly so as not to be nuked, which shows up as a cautionary flag to potential users. After encoding, they upload the files to a

Share ratios in most cases, while "racers" in Topsite IRC channels will be given a ratio. Racers use FXP software and custom auto-trading software to transfer releases from one FTP to other FTP's and FTP Site-Rings (group of dedicated servers
linked together) around the world. IRC site channels will use modes such as +s (secret) +p (private) and +i (invite only) to avoid detection.

Each release in The Scene consists of a folder containing the material (sometimes split into

checksums to ensure that the files of a release are working properly and have not been damaged or tampered with. This is typically done with the aid of an external executable like QuickSFV or SFV Checker. Failure to include an NFO or SFV file in the release will generally result in a nuke, as these are essential components of the warez standard
to which The Scene adheres.

In 2012, the Scene had over 100 active groups releasing material. Over 1,000 releases are made each day, with a cumulative total of more than five and a half million releases through 2012.[10]

As of 2023, the number of releases has doubled since 2012, surpassing 11 million in total. With now over 400 active scene release groups, more than 2,000 releases are made every day.[11]

Crackers and reverse engineers

Main article: Software cracking

Cracking has been the core element of The Scene since its beginning. This part of The Scene community sometimes referred to as the crack scene specializes in the creation of software cracks and keygens. The challenge of cracking and reverse engineering complicated software is what makes it an attraction.[12] The game cracking group SKIDROW described it as follows in one of their NFO files:[13]

Keep in mind we do all this, because we can and because we like the thrilling excitement of winning over the other competing groups. We absolutely don't do all these releases, to please the general user that rather want to spend their cash on updating to the latest hardware, and sees the scene releases as a source to play all these games for free. Enjoy playing and remember if you like it, support the developer!

The game ripping group MYTH expressed it as follows in their NFO files:[14]

We do this just for FUN. We are against any profit or commercialisation of piracy. We do not spread any release, others do that. In fact, we BUY all our own games with our own hard earned and worked for efforts. Which is from our own real life non-scene jobs. As we love game originals. Nothing beats a quality original. "If you like this game, BUY it. We did!"

David Grime, former DrinkOrDie member, describes the motivation of the warez scene as follows: "It's all about stature. They are just trying to make a name for themselves for no reason other than self-gratification."[15][16]

See also

References

  1. ^ Walleij, Linus (1998). "Chapter 5 – Subculture of the Subcultures". Copyright does not exist (PDF). Translated by Øien, Daniel A. The Scene (capital S) is thus a label for the large group of users that exchange programs (primarily games) and also so-called demos.
  2. ISBN 978-1-68571-036-1
    .
  3. ^ Crisp, Virginia (2017). Film Distribution in the Digital Age: Pirates and Professionals. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 186.
  4. ISBN 978-1-68571-036-1
    .
  5. ^ a b "The History of the Warez Scene (unfinished)". Retrieved 2012-07-07.
  6. ^ McCandless, David (April 1997). "Warez Wars". Wired. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
  7. ^ "scene history". Retrieved 2009-06-06.
  8. ^ The BBS Documentary – MOVIE
  9. ^ "ASSEMBLY Summer 2011 – Finland's largest computer festival in Helsinki". 2011.
  10. ^ "PreDB.in".
  11. ^ "PreDB.net".
  12. ^ Craig, Paul; Honick, Ron (April 2005). "Chapter 4: Cracking". In Burnett, Mark (ed.). Software Piracy Exposed – Secrets from the Dark Side Revealed. United States of America: Syngress Publishing. p. 63.
    ISBN 1-932266-98-4
    . For many, it is the challenge of the game; trying to defeat technology designed specifically to stop them. For others, there is a significant financial incentive involved. Many black market counterfeiting operations employ crackers to remove copy protection from software titles, thereby allowing the material to be copied and sold. Cracking is taken very seriously, and is the most respected role in the warez group scene.
  13. ^ Trainz.Simulator.12.Nfo.Fix-SKIDROW, 2011-04-18
  14. ^ Yager.DVDRiP-MYTH, 2003-09-25
  15. ^ Lee, Jennifer (2002-07-11). "Pirates on the Web, Spoils on the Street". The New York Times.
  16. S2CID 15919355
    .
  17. ^ "The Movers Collection, Part 2". got papers?. 2016-01-27. SCA sending out custom-made anti-virus software to protect their friends from their own SCA Virus

Further reading

External links
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