Major warez bust...

#21 Everyone one of you are missing the biggest issue around all of this.

There is a lawsuit being filed right now to stop the Government from "taking over" and re-directing domains. For one simple reason, you click on that link and you are automatically voluntaryly telling the Government "please investigate me for visiting this link!"

Just the act of visting the site has already been used against some people to charge them with crimes, conficaste their computers and other things.

That is the real issue, not that they busted a "warez" site, but that they have the ability and the desire to get a list of everyone visting that URL regardless of the intention on visting it.

If you have clicked it don't be suprised if they come knocking on your door or your name ends up on a supoena somehow.

#22 That's scary! It's kind of like looking through broken window and being arrrested for burglary! Well not quite, but the comparison popped into my mind.

#23 Jarrod:

>>>Just the act of visting the site has already been used against some people to charge them with crimes, conficaste their computers and other things.


Where did you learn this from ?

#24

Quote:If you have clicked it don't be suprised if they come knocking on your door or your name ends up on a supoena somehow.

I highly doubt they'll allocate the manpower to serve subpoenas to the 140,000 people who've visited the site and those like it. If anything they'd use it to profile people who visit those sites regularly and flag repeat offenders for investigation. They're not going to bust someone for clicking the link once. Hell, the visits probably skyrocketed from the link posted by Yahoo's news.

#25 @Ken I read on a mainstream news web site about the Gov taking over domain names and redirecting to goverment servers and then forcing ISP's to turn over the users and some have been charged. The article only mentioned porn sites and music swapping sites.
But it sets a precident for the rest of the industry. The only "mainstream" news sites I even glance at are cnn.com, foxnews.com and the headlines on yahoo.com, it was earlier this week that I saw this. I will try and see if I can find the article and post the link in a followup edit.

#26 Perfectly legal for the government to do something like that when done in the form of a sting and can prove wrong doing.

Just going to the link will not provoke immediate action.

More likely the site will be monitored for activity.

As for the Air India incident mentioned earlier, the whole issue wasn't stated in any NEWs article.

1.) The guy had been held for 10 yrs before being sentanced, so the total time in detention will be 20 yrs with no possibility of parole.

2.) He was charged and convicted of manslaughter and not murder as there was no evidence of intention to kill.

Basically he provided directly the means to kill the people on the plane.

3.) The four inidividuals directly responsible are still in Libya.

#27 I don't understand how you can assist in making a bomb to go on a plane without having intent to kill?

#28 Apparently he was lied to and was under the impression it was to be used in damaging property and not against human beings.

To a certain degree he was naive.

#29 who was it that said, "ignorance is no excuse" ?

#30 I would have to say that the biggest problem with total software locking is the fact that it will cost developers a lot of money that they don't have, just to meet regulations for a certain company (IE Sony) to 'allow' you to legally run your software on thier system. This in turn only would allow only the large companies to develop, squashing the every day developer (such as myself). Meaning in a sense that the current path at which software is being 'locked' will continue until one large company creates a monopoly big enough that the governmaen can't do a damn thing about it. Microsoft is close to that as it is. This will also create a rise in prices, because these large companies would then say 'either buy our games or have none at all.' Now I agree with what was said about software piracy making the companies raise thier prices and/or cut projects/jobs. By no means do I condone software piracy, but on the other hand, where the hell do companies like discreet get off charging you $3500 for a fucking 3d modeling program? And then royalies on TOP of THAT! I feel that if companies would lower their prices some, more people would buy the software and less would have to pirate it. And I don't care WHAT software companies do, or even the music/film industry does to prevent bootlegging, there will ALWAYS be assholes who steal stuff, one way or another. This reminds me of Kazaa, which is one of the biggest file sharing programs out there. If the Government kills it, the same will happen as what happened with Napster. You kill one program, five more pop up to replace EACH one killed. This is a problem that I think has no complete solution. Then again, in today's 4-dimensional world, is there really a complete fix for ANYTHING? I think not. Again, if companies lower prices, less people will turn to warez.
If anybody does not agree with me, please don't flame me for it. This is my opinion, I'm not trying to force my ideas on ANYONE, nor are they 100% what everybody wants to hear. If one does not like what another says, and then cusses them out for it and calls them an idiot, then aren't they themselves lowering themselves to idiocy? Again, these are just opinions. To conclude, warez is stealing, and stealing is a crime. However, as mentioned before, I do not believe stealing deserves more severe punishment than murder, but it DOES deserve punishment.

I've done my rambling, I'm clocking out.

::Have good mosh pitting, trust no one. Peace::

#31 Well it mitigated the sentance and didn't remove it.

20 yr sentance and no parole.

#32 I don't want to get too involved in this thread, but I do want to point out two things:

Warez is not theft. Warezing is not stealing. It's an illegal duplication. Please get it straight. Calling it theft or stealing gives it the distorted perception that you a re depriving someone else of the software's usage. Please keep that in mind.

And Vroman, you don't want to be flamed, so I'll try and say this politely. Discreet can charge $3500 for their software because it's their software. They wrote it, they can charge whatever the hell they please. If you don't like the cost...don't buy it...use something else. Or make something else, or pay someone else to make something else. You are not owed anything. This goes the same for games, music, movies, or any other manufactured item in the world.

#33 It's theft.

Does it belong to you? No. Are you taking it? Yes.

theft ( P ) Pronunciation Key (thft)
n.
The act or an instance of stealing; larceny.

steal ( P ) Pronunciation Key (stl)
v. stole, (stl) sto

#34 Edward, if that were true, then major software pirates could be charged with grand theft. They aren't... they're charged with violating federal copyright law.

It's still immoral, it's still illegal, but it's _not_ theft. Theft deprives the victim of property. Illegal duplication does not.

#35 Well, the point is he was not arrested for stealing. He was arrested for selling modchips, not for selling warez or something like that. Modchips are not illegal, certain uses of them may be illegal (eg, playing pirated games), but the chips themselves are not illegal. As someone mentioned earlier, there are many legitimate uses for modchips including playing import games. Them being legal should also be of utmost importance to all of us hobbyist and indie console developers because without them there is no way for us to develop for consoles like the Xbox. I personally have 3 Xboxes (2 of which are modded) so I can fiddle in Xbox development. 1 modded is for my own game development work, playing other hobbyist games/demos, and just regular xbox games; 1 modded is for working with xbox linux, the third (clean) box is for working on getting linux running on an unmodded box (don't play games on this one as I mess up the hard drive every couple days and have to write over it with a saved image of the disc I've got and I wouldn't want to lose those precious save files ;). I know I'm starting to ramble now, but my point should be clear: there are legitimate uses for modchips. Arresting someone for selling them is like arresting someone for selling forks because one could potentially stab another with the fork, just like one could potentially play a pirated game with the chip.

edit: made the part with my point bold so you can skip the rambling if you want :)

#36 People caught 'warezing' are prosecuted under the Intellectual Property Statutes by the Justice System. Go have a look at the Justice Department's CCIPS (Computer Crime and
Intellectual Property Section) about Intellectual Property Cases. It is considered (by the government) theft of intellectual property. When you buy a game or computer software, you are essentially leasing their software (IP). You do not own it. You agree to their terms of use during the setup of the software (EULA). You can romanticize about it all you want, but it is theft. When you take something that is normal payed for without paying for it, you are stealing. Pretty simple.

One other thing to the alarmists on this whole ISOnews.com spiele. This is taken from the press release:

Quote:As a condition of his plea, Rocci agreed to surrender to the government his public website, www.iSONEWS.com, which he used to facilitate his illegal activity.

The government did not seize it, he surrendered it as part of the deal.

#37 I'm not saying it's right, but it's not theft. You can make all the opinion statements and quote DoJ propaganda statements if you like, but if you actually sit down and read the US copyright law (www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/ you're not going to find the word theft in any of the language of the law.

I'm personally very sensitive to copyright infringement of any sort - I don't violate software EULAs, I don't copy music or games for my friends, I don't download mp3s off the internet, etc. But calling pirates thieves is just propaganda, and I don't agree with that either.

#38 Seems we're crossing lines here and I could have been clearer. The people duplicating and distributing are not 'taking something they don't own'. The end user who plays a 'warezed' game or uses a 'warezed' program is. That's what I'm refering to. Like you said, "Theft deprives the victim of property". The software is considered Intellectual Property and you must pay the company to lease its usage. The people duplicating and distributing are facilitating theft. The end users of 'warez' are stealing.

#39 Just a quick thought, but you guys are splitting some pretty fine hairs about the theft issue.

The fact is, that if I have $30 in my wallet and you mug me, that you STOLE thirty of MY dollars.

If I make a game, or application that sells for $30, and you pirate that, you just STOLE thirty of MY dollars. When you distirbute that pirated program, you are STEALING thirty more of MY dollars each time you hand out a copy.

Say what you like, engage in as many semantics as you wish, but theft is theft is theft. Taking something that isn't yours without paying for, or offering compensation, i.e. MONEY, is THEFT!

Coat in as many vague and obscure philisophical references and illusions as you wish, but theft is theft, and the truth is truth. It simply IS, and does not require your permission, interpretation, or belief.

*/rant* Flame on. ;-)

#40

Quote:The fact is, that if I have $30 in my wallet and you mug me, that you STOLE thirty of MY dollars.

If I make a game, or application that sells for $30, and you pirate that, you just STOLE thirty of MY dollars.

Actually, if you had $30 in your wallet, and I mugged you, you would no longer have that thirty dollars. If you made a game and I made a copy of that, you would still have your game.

The whole intellectual property situation is turning into an economic collision. Simply put, things work differently here. The idea of intellectual property with respect to software is, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed. Property itself is based on tangible materials. It may cost thousands for you to buy a car, but that car is a unique object. It take a lot of materials and work to replicate a vehicle, but it costs an insignificant amount to replicate software, and the computer does the work. Holy economic insight, Batman! Things are valuable because there are a limited number of items to fulfill an unlimited number of wants. If there's a virtually unlimited number of items, then the whole idea of value changes.

Actually, the topic came up in one of my classes last night. The professor made a point that what seems to create value in this type of situation is opposite: software that's everywhere is more valuable than software that only a few have. It seems weird at first glance, but it makes sense. What good is having Internet access when there's nowhere to connect? It's a brave new world. Those that adapt will survive. How do you adapt? Well, that question's kind of up in the air right now. So far the most successful method seems to be giving away the product and providing services for fees, like updates and support. It allows the product to spread all over (and thus become invaluable for people to have in order to work together), but provides added value for people who want to pay for it.

Ah well, I've had my say. I think O'Reilly had a pretty good paper up on the subject, it's a little long but definitely worth the read.