Piracy - did you ever get caught?

[BrooksterMax]

I have been warned several times through my ISP in the past (forwaring on infringement notices from DCMA) for downloading "stuff" from torrents. So I suppose I have been "caught" assuming that I am guilty of what they claim

[Claw22000]

Originally Posted by BrooksterMax

I have been warned several times through my ISP in the past (forwaring on infringement notices from DCMA) for downloading "stuff" from torrents. So I suppose I have been "caught" assuming that I am guilty of what they claim

Oh who hasn't got 2 or 3 of those. Trick is to only get them once a year or so.

[deicidal]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Tonight's light reading are pages 186 - 244: Machine Code for the Z80

Make sure you read outloud that way the wife can test you on it in the morning

[vidarh]

Originally Posted by Skope

But never anyone for regular trading. Seems it was always the trickery on the side that got people under lock and key.

I see you're listed as in Stockholm - if your friends were from Sweden as well, that explains it. Until '92/'93 I think (see the article on Strider linked to earlier), Sweden had notoriously liberal copyright laws with a very wide reaching "personal use" exemption that made it next to impossible to convict anyone for non-commercial trading (at least unless people were stupid and said the wrong things before hiring a lawyer). Norway had similar exemptions (not sure when they were changed), but I think it was generally interpreted more strictly by the courts.

[Skope]

Originally Posted by vidarh

I see you're listed as in Stockholm - if your friends were from Sweden as well, that explains it. Until '92/'93 I think (see the article on Strider linked to earlier), Sweden had notoriously liberal copyright laws with a very wide reaching "personal use" exemption that made it next to impossible to convict anyone for non-commercial trading (at least unless people were stupid and said the wrong things before hiring a lawyer). Norway had similar exemptions (not sure when they were changed), but I think it was generally interpreted more strictly by the courts.

Yeah that's true, and will help explain the massive public uproar that took place when the copyright laws were crazy hardened (atleast in our eyes) over here a few years ago. Up until then it wasn't illegal to download copyrighted stuff even, only uploading (or spreading) was against the law. And as I recall from back in the days it seemed like guys in the U.K. had it rough with the feds on their nuts all the time. Boards were being busted on the regular over there, atleast it looked like that to me.

Btw, my strongest selling point when coaxing my mum into getting me a computer in the 80's was that all my friends had one, so I could just copy games off of them for free, not having to spend money on that like the Nintendo dudes. (:

Originally Posted by mfletcher

Second instance was a few years later, I think 2002 at the Barras market in Glasgow. There was an alleyway in the market you could go to and buy all kinds of counterfeit stuff... movies, cds, ps/ps2/pc games. I think even cards for Satellite boxes. The setup there was a bit more organized. The sellers didnt actually have any merchandise on them. Instead you'd choose from the "menus" that they had on them, and they'd send a runner off to pick up the warez.

Being a Paisley boy I'm lucky my town boarders Glasgow and is only a half hour commute to the Barras. When I first started heading up there to get ST (am I allowed to mention the ST on this site ) and Amiga games the guys had the equipment behind their stall. That's how I remember them using X Copy Professional for the Amiga stuff (what a truly amazing piece of software that was ). The guys were totally professional in their set up and would always refund/replace if you took back a dodgey copy. When they got busted they would always have back ups and be back the following week. I remember they eventually had to separate the service stall from the copying area due to cops. I remember them having a couple of massive folders with the lists and a separate of for the demos (God I love those, the music was stunning). You would hand over your fiver (it was 3 quid a game or 2 for a fiver or a fiver for a double discer) no one would ever buy one game for 3 quid.

TBH I always preferred the consoles but thanks to the Amiga, the Barras market and the demos I heard some of the most amazing techno tunes ever produced. The intro to Desert Dream still warms my heart. I hope my first post wasn't too tl;dr guys...

[laffer]

Originally Posted by Claw22000

Oh who hasn't got 2 or 3 of those. Trick is to only get them once a year or so.

Never happened to me, even once. I'd get rather jumpy if I received something like that, I had no idea it was semi-common?

Then again, I don't download new stuff... I have very little interest in new games, generally... so I guess that might be why, they don't have the time to waste on bothering people downloading stuff from decades ago

[moijk]

Originally Posted by DDNI

DDNI - Spent a few days taking games orders from several school friends, told them how many disks I needed and then spent TWO WEEKS making copies for them - No cash just kudos.

With hindsight, taking the orders in IT class with the deputy headmaster watching was my downfall....

I have the opposite experience. Back in the 90s in highschool, the teacher in my IT class approached me to get pirated games. So I supplied him with a bunch of games during the school year.

Today I have a different approach. My movie and music collection is legal, and beside some mame roms I've not got much pirated. If you overlook the tons of games from my c64 days.

[mrbob2]

I enjoy collecting and builiding up my rom collections, of course i have the amiga complete TOSEC and am currently downloading 13gb of gameboy advance roms. Then i will have all the roms for all the popular systems from the 80s and 90s. My psp games collection is complete (apart from RPG and kiddie games)

I think if you were downloading a brand new game for xbox360 for example like dirt3 then i can understand codemasters getting a bit miffed. But for retro games, i cant honestly see anyone caring if you download supercars II as the original developers vanished 20 years ago. Yeah technically its illegal (getting something for nothing) but hey ho, if i had to buy all my games in my collection individually...... phew, 10000 amiga games, 2000 snes and megadrive etc etc i would have spent millions! So even if i was caught and fined £5000 im still quids in :-)

[Merlin]

AlL I can say is "Yarr!", as I was visited by Darth Vader and his minions, but not for Miggy stuff, it was console games on CD (nuff said). My stuff got confiscated and I got a caution from The Man.

The old penalty back then used to be £5k or up to 2 years inside, but then they brought the penalties into line with other counterfeit items and the current ones are up to 10 years inside or an unlimited fine, plus a Proceeds of Crime (POCA) hearing where they try and work out how much you made, so that they can get you to repay it as damages or confiscate property to the value. Harsh...

I'm not going to risk a second time..... some people admitting as to what they download as ROMs might want to think twice before posting about it...

[roy bates]

nah never got caught but then again everyone i knew was doing it anyway, sometimes it was the only way to get the game you wanted.some say it afected game sales on the amiga,but then again it was part of the scene and it was on the c64 spectrum etc.
its funny really i used to get a copy see if it was any good .then buy the original if i could get it that was.

[Lorfarius]

I used to have 2 bedroom drawers stuffed with... floppies. I remember being on just £1 a week spending money and had to make do with pirate games. That's my excuse anyway

[DDNI]

£1 a week! Crikey you were doing OK!
Still i bet £1 a week didn't keep you in new floppies... You probably recycled plenty back then. I shudder at some of the things I deleted just to get a disk for the latest game...

[cv643d]

Here in Sweden there was nothing to worry about if you was a causal pirate, I had a friend who had 600 floppy disks he was so scared that police would knock on his door, he had a plan to throw floppies outside the window if they came to his door, very funny.

Running a pirate BBS was a different matter though, but you have to consider back then in Sweden a pirate BBS was the equivalent to a VIP Taliban suicide bomber private forum in USA today. Press went mad with articles of home made bomb files/anarchy cook book, Nazi/patriots (Nazi scene was huge in sweden back in 1991-1993, if you know ur swedish you notice this in scrollers too) BBS at the time.

[andreas]

Originally Posted by cv643d

Here in Sweden there was nothing to worry about if you was a causal pirate, I had a friend who had 600 floppy disks he was so scared that police would knock on his door, he had a plan to throw floppies outside the window if they came to his door, very funny.

LOL

Well, I think he could have bought another 600 floppies for backups and hide them away safely, e. g. under a loose board or so (yeah right like crooks hide their money in bad detective stories)
So the police could have taken away his disks, and he just had to act "shocked" enough ("OOOH! MY DISKS! PLEASE!") so that the police think they really hurt him.
So once the police are away, he can grab his backup set from its idiot-proof hiding place.

Positive side-effect all those days before the police arrive: if he accidentally formats one of his disks or uses the wrong one to write to (oooh the memories!! ) he can just revert to one from his backup set!

[Predseda]

I remember swapping disks here with one police man, an Amigan at those times ;-)

[Mr B]

At least here, "private copies for personal use from a (presumed) legal source" was legal. That included pirate versions of games you owned. So, if someone owned a legal game, and lend me a copy, i could copy it, since the copy i loaned was indeed legal. This made MY copy legal, and i could lend it to anyone... So on, so fourth. Technically, you couldn't make the copies for someone, and give em away, but nobody ever cared about it. No, pirated copies have i never been "at risk" for. There was a incident with cops and moonshine, where the guy i sold happiness to came knocking during his work hours, and i was slightly upset with him leaving his mate in the squad car, while he went up the stairs to buy moonshine... I guess cops had a crappy paycheck, and couldn't afford the government issued moonshine. But i sort of wasn't to happy seeing a uniform outside my front door, so to speak.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Claw22000

Oh who hasn't got 2 or 3 of those. Trick is to only get them once a year or so.

I never got such a thing!
In my country, copying software wasn't illegal until the 2000s or something. Every computer shop would copy software. it was the only way to get software, actually.

[ufo]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I didn't get caught, but stopped using calling cards after a few influential mates were tracked down using them.

Out of all the scene groups who was actually busted?

Did they ever do jail time/have to pay any big fines?


Did I read somewhere a long time ago that 'The Black Cat' got busted for something?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by ufo

Out of all the scene groups who was actually busted?

Did they ever do jail time/have to pay any big fines?


Did I read somewhere a long time ago that 'The Black Cat' got busted for something?

Maximilien/Paradox, do a Google search, he was probably the most famous one, I don't think anyone could top what happened to him.