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Warez is a shortened leet speak (computer slang) derivative for the plural form of the word "software" meaning copyrighted material traded in violation of its copyright license. The term generally refers to releases by organized groups, as opposed to peer-to-peer file sharing between friends. It does not always refer to commercial for-profit piracy.
Initially this term was only used by members of various computer underground circles but has since become commonplace amongst more mainstream Internet users, and the media. "Warez" is most common as a noun ("He downloaded 10 gigs of warez yesterday"), but can also be used as a verb ("The new Photoshop was warezed as soon as it was released").
People engaging in warez production and distribution are often called pirates, figuratively referring to the pirates of ocean commerce, though the use of this term is controversial, it is embraced by some groups such as Pirates With Attitude. (For more details on the controversy see Copyright infringement of software). They are also sometimes pejoratively called warez d00dz. The collection of warez groups is referred to globally as the warez scene, or more ambiguously, the scene. Among warez users, there is often a distinction made between "gamez" (games), "appz" (applications), "crackz" (cracked applications), and "vidz" (movies).
How does it work?
Warez is both a large-scale and international phenomenon. Well-organized groups – often based in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Russia – illegally produce millions of bootleg copies of copyrighted software, which are regularly sold on city streets throughout most of Asia and Eastern Europe and if sold at retail would be worth several billions of dollars annually.
Pirates exploit the international nature of the Internet to avoid law enforcement from specific countries. In Russia, for example, the copying of software was once explicitly permitted by law when such software was not in the Russian language; this is no longer true, but prosecutions for copyright infringement are still very rare. While most copies of pirated software are manufactured in Asian factories, their distribution more often than not begins in Western nations such as the US and the European countries, where the largest international software companies are located.
Software cracking groups (not to be confused with the mostly Asian-based bootleg CD manufacturers and the street vendors that sell warez), delegate tasks among their members. These members are mostly located in first world countries where high-speed Internet connections and powerful computers are readily available.
For example:
- A popular new piece of commercial software is released
- A warez group might use one of its contacts to obtain a pre-release copy (or steals it from a CD pressing plant)
- It is then sent to a skilled software cracker/programmer to remove copy prevention
- It then is sent it to a courier who transfers it around to many FTP servers.
As a result, distribution of illegally copied programs on the same day as the commercial release (0-day warez), or even before (negative-day warez), is common.
Distribution of warez is usually handled between groups using Topsites. The groups also have private sites for internal purposes, such as archiving their own releases and transferring the unmodified material between their members. Through the users of these sites the warez is delivered to people outside groups where it starts spreading through peer-to-peer networks, like BitTorrent or KaZaA, and becomes available to the public.
Such releases of a software titles often come in two forms, full and ripped; a "rip" is a cut-down version of the title, typically lacking the PDF manual, and other heavyweight additions included on the legitimate CD, In games the ripped version generally removes all in game video, and compresses the audio to MP3 or OGG which must then be decoded to its original form. In full form games and applications are generally released as cd writable disk images (BIN or ISO files).
Formats and Standards
The warez scene deals with petabytes of data and thus the need for an efficient system of handling files was apparent. A typical 1 CD software release contains around 700 megabytes of data; sending a single 700 megabyte file over the internet can present some challenges (this was especially true in the early days). The warez scene made it standard practice to split releases up into many seperate pieces using a file compression format called RAR. The 700 megabyte file was compressed and split into fifty or less 1.4MB rar files then ZIPped. This compression could sometimes achieve almost a 10 fold improvement over the original CD image. This could then be decompressed and the original 700 megabyte file would be recreated.
This method had many advantages over sending a single 700MB file. The overall file size was cut down because of the compression, lessening the transfer time and bandwidth required. If there was a problem during file transfer and data was corrupted it was only necessary to resend the corrupted rars instead of resending the entire 700MB file. File verification was accomplished using SFV files and this was integrated into the FTP server software so that files were verified automatically as they were uploaded.
These methods were required by topsites and if a warez group failed to adhere to them thier releases were nuked meaning they were void and not to be used. It is somewhat ironic, but the distribution methods used by the warez scene are very efficient and sometimes superior to the ones used by actual software companies.
Movie piracy
Beginning around 1998, feature films began to be released by warez groups prior to their official release. These pirate versions come in many forms, VCD, SVCD, DivX, XviD and DVD-Rip (which is a writeable DVD image file). A notable example of which was American Pie [1] (http://www.theisonews.com/release.php?releaseid=4262), this release in particular is notable for 3 reasons:
- It was released in uncensored workprint format (the later theatrical release was cut down by several minutes and had scenes reworked to avoid nudity).
- It was released nearly 3 months prior to its release in theaters (CNN Headline News reported on its early release).
- It was listed by the movie company as one of the reasons it received an Unrated DVD edition.
The most common form of a pirated movie is known as a "Cam" recording, typically made by an audience member who aims a camcorder at the screen to record the movie. Other forms are typically more complex and involve an associate who either works for a movie theater, movie production company, or video rental company. These are:
- the "Telesync" (common) – a camcorder mounted typically on a tripod for a more steady shot with a secondary audio recording done with a professional microphone (the audio and video is resynched before digital encoding).
- the "Telecine" (very rare) – a film projection camera used to frame by frame transfer film from its analog reel to digital format.
- the "Workprint" (rare) – an early version of a film as produced by the studio, typically a workprint is missing effects overlays, and may not be identical to its theatrical release. Some workprints have a time index marker running in a corner.
- the "Screener" (common) – an early final theatrical release of a film (either on VHS or more commonly on DVD), typically sent to movie reviewers and executives for review purposes. A screener typically has a message indicating who manufactured it and a message similar to "the film you are watching is a promotional copy, if you purchased this film at a retail store please contact 1-800-NO-COPIES to report it."
- the "DVD-Rip" (very common) – a final retail version of a film, typically released before it is available outside its originating region. (see DVD Region Codes).
Motivations
Unlike the pirated CD manufacturers and street vendors, cracking groups obtain no monetary profit from their actions. The motivation of these groups varies. Warez groups are competitive amongst each other, and a fast warez release is viewed as a social accomplishment.
The morality of copyright infringement is also much more disputed than that of conventional property theft, and members of warez groups often view their actions as socially positive. Justifications include the alleged impossibility of copyright enforcement and the perceived injustice of not sharing information with those who could not afford to obtain it otherwise (and thereby comparing themselves to Robin Hood). They also claim that a warez release may actually increase the value of software through the network effect.
Legality
The production and/or distribution of warez is illegal in many first world urban countries, and typically overlooked in poorer third world and communist countries. (See: Copyright infringement of software for legal details).
Sometimes, in addition to actual illegally copied data, warez dealers distribute Free software and documentation, copyrighted works whose copyright license specifies that the work may be legally redistributed. The free software community generally doesn't have any relation to the warez scene.
Warez groups
Some warez groups have included:
Such groups tag their releases with NFO files.
See also
References
External links
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