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Media Your Rights Online

Major Piracy Bust Against Top Providers 35

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the it-wasn't-me-it-was-the-one-armed-man dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It appears the German copyright authority has launched a massive offensive against top warez providers. According to Slyck, GVU (the German version of the RIAA/MPAA) coordinated a wide spread effort that included the seizure of 20 servers and 30 arrests in 5 countries - Germany, Austria, Holland, Poland and the Czech Republic."
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Major Piracy Bust Against Top Providers More

Major Piracy Bust Against Top Providers

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  • Police raid at GVU-headquaters (Score:5, Informative)

    by ga53n ( 122179 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2006 @07:08AM (#14556276) Homepage
    The interesting part ist, that according to Heise News http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/68760 [heise.de] (in German) the police raided the GVU offices in Hamburg. It is assumed that the GVU paid some people for administering warez-servers. Maybe they used it at a honey-pot, but is was illigeal participation, if it is true.

  • Like, duh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dekortage ( 697532 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2006 @07:11AM (#14556284) Homepage

    From the article: Initially, these raids may place a damper on spread of pirated material, however the allure of public recognition is simply too great for many to avoid. With time, their role in the online warez community will most likely be replaced.

    This is news? It's been like this since way, way, way before the World Wide Web was invented. (Yes, children, there was software piracy back in the days of 5.25" floppy disks.)

    Of course, with the Internet, all the other warez sites on the planet can easily fill the void left by the ones that were just shut down.

    • Re:Like, duh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2006 @07:33AM (#14556388)
      (Yes, children, there was software piracy back in the days of 5.25" floppy disks.)

      However, even further back, in the days of 8" floppy disks there was hardly any piracy because it was mostly all Free Software to begin with.

      • However, even further back, in the days of 8" floppy disks there was hardly any piracy because it was mostly all Free Software to begin with.

        Quite true. And disks made better frisbees back then, too.

      • Re:Like, duh (Score:5, Funny)

        by Xemu ( 50595 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2006 @01:34PM (#14560281) Homepage
        in the days of 8" floppy disks there was hardly any piracy

        I think you're on to something.

        8" floppy disk: hardly any piracy
        5.25" floppy disks: some piracy
        3.25" floppy: lots of piracy

        Similarly,
        LP: hardly any music copying
        tapes: some piracy
        CD: lots of piracy

        and it holds true for video too!
        laserdisk: no piracy
        vhs tape: some piracy
        dvd: lots of piracy

        Clearly, the smaller the media becomes, the more copies are made. The MPAA should make a note of this and make pizza-sided Blu-Ray media.

      • Oh, back then someone showed me BASCOM80 for CP/M. It was so bad, I decided that the cost of an 8" floppy would outweigh the value of this product. Of course, these days media are much cheaper, which might be the reason why the makers of BASCOM80 are still so popular [trustworthycomputing.com].

    • Dare I say? (Score:4, Informative)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2006 @09:08AM (#14556993) Homepage Journal
      Of course, with the Internet, all the other warez sites on the planet can easily fill the void left by the ones that were just shut down.

      Dare I say that free content is making warez redundant, even second rate? Free software works better than commercial software. Free media, such as can be found at places like the internet archive [archive.org] or http://magnatune.com/ [http]">Magnatune is better than RIAA/MPAA crap. Give your money and mind share to those who deserve it!

      Allow me to pimp the Radiators [archive.org], one of the best jam bands to come out of New Orleans. There are hundreds of hours of their concerts available that you can share with your friends without charge or greed [archive.org].

    • Remember kids! (Score:5, Funny)

      by beacher ( 82033 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2006 @09:11AM (#14557019) Homepage
      Don't copy that floppy! [google.com]

      -B

    • And an account with a local bbs to get the old software way back when. My friend had a both of the above back in the mid 80's, so we were able to play different (some crappy) games back in the apple iie/c etc days.

      brun choplift

      Of course, those games kept us entertained for weeks on end. Now, you can just dl a mame pack or apple roms and play all known games from 2001 and back. Crazy.

  • so much for obscurity (Score:3, Funny)

    by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2006 @08:09AM (#14556539) Homepage Journal
    thankfully, this type of tyranny will only result in better anonymity

    if software was reasonably priced, there would be very little piracy

    • T34|\/| \/\/4R3Z (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Odiumjunkie ( 926074 )
      When warez groups begin to realise the effects of publicity, maybe we'll start seeing scene releases without file.names.that.are.redundantly.long.and.tagged.wi th.the.Gr0uP_N4ME.rar and juvenile NFOs filled with ASCII art that looked outdated ten years ago.

      In groups that are dedicated to the free distribution of other people's content, why are they so keen to show that a release is "theirs"?
    • why has this been moderated Funny ?

      " thankfully, this type of tyranny will only result in better anonymity"
      correct.
      As the main stream public facing services are removed they will be replaced by underground systems(i.e. non public facing, invite only etc).
      Seeing onion proxys and other anonymity systems gaining ground will allow these to reach the public with negligable risk.

      "if software was reasonably priced, there would be very little piracy"
      again correct.
      I refuse to buy DVDs and games when they are first r
    • if software was reasonably priced, there would be very little piracy

      Where "reasonably priced" is roughly equal to "Free" that is.
      • Where "reasonably priced" is roughly equal to "Free" that is.

        Not really, no.

        I buy games used for my consoles all the time. I almost never buy them new, because I don't feel there are that many games worth $60-$70 CDN. However, if I can get it used for $15-$20, that is just fine for me. Ergo, for me, games are too expensively priced for me to consider purchasing them at their initial sell price, so I don't buy them there. I either wait for them in the used bin, or the bargain bin after they get to be 3 o
        • I buy games used for my consoles all the time.

          Wow a personal anecdote. What a stunningly perceptive analysis of human nature and market forces. NOT

          Here's how it works - as long as people can get a product for a lower total cost they will do so, individual non-rational actors notwithstanding. So as long as software, or any digital product for that matter, is available through easy to find (i.e. low cost) illicit venues, then people will use those venues instead of purchasing it legitimately for a higher
          • Wow a personal anecdote. What a stunningly perceptive analysis of human nature and market forces. NOT

            Yes, a personal anecdote. Which holds about as much truth as your editorial opinion above. However, unlike your little rant, I can back up my anecdote with additional info. There's lots [escapistmagazine.com] of easily [cnn.com] located evidence [mcvuk.com] that a lot of people prefer to buy used as well, cost being a major, if not the only factor. Can you think of another "market force" that would convince all those people to buy used except the p
  • ...if this story has anything to do with my favorite tracker, Torrent Finder, being taken offline. http://www.digg.com/technology/Torrent-Finder_gone _ [digg.com]

  • Nice try (Score:2, Insightful)

    by the-amazing-blob ( 917722 )
    This time, they went for the big boys. Straight for the top. Too bad the ranks will just fill back up within a month.
    • >>they went for the big boys. Straight for the top.

      Ye, the GVU. Their website was down when the police seized their servers. Apparently they keep their warez/moviez on their main website servers. I'd expect better covering up of their involvement (as a protection racket for both the `piracy' industry and the copyright holders) from a branch of the MPAA.
  • Wow, that'll like take... ages to replace for the million sized community.
  • For those that want to see a sort of drama about this whole piracy bit try
    http://www.welcometothescene.com/ [welcometothescene.com]


    Free and entertaining.
  • When I saw the headline in the sidebar, I thought it was "Major Privacy Bust," and I was thinking, Great, the authorities have busted some company for giving away private information, always glad to see that... Imagine my disappointment. Oh, it's just some warez kids getting someone in trouble, and in Germany, no less.

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