The latter group has not been very successful in convincing the big labels to change their anti-piracy strategies, but when MC Hammer says STOP they will have to listen.

In a recent interview Hammer commented on the industry’s struggle with piracy and the future of music in the digital age. In Hammer’s view, the RIAA’s legal battles against file-sharers have only alienated buying customers. ”The approach that the music industry took to fight piracy was the wrong strategy,” he said.

Aside from going after individuals, the entertainment industries have also targeted ISPs, for enabling their customers to pirate. The most prominent case at the moment is that of AFACT against iiNet, where the anti-piracy group wants the Aussie ISP to disconnect repeat infringers.

Using a murder and gun analogy to appeal to his fellow rappers, Hammer argues that AFACT is going after the wrong party by targeting the ISP.

”When there is a murder done with the gun, do they go back to the guy who sold the gun at the store and arrest him? No they don’t. They arrest the person who did it. So in this particular case, somebody is stealing content using the freeway. You can’t go back and sue the construction men,” Hammer said.

In addition to calling for a stop to the legal battles, Hammer thinks the music labels should focus more on digital content instead of trying to sell plastic to a generation of people that have never even owned a standalone CD player.

‘Digital files are no doubt not just the future, but the present. I think that it’s [the CD format] on its last legs, it’s on an artificial respirator,” Hammer commented.

“I don’t know what would turn them on about having to go through that terrible exercise of trying to open the packaging – it’s unbelievable when you’re trying to open a CD, right? You need a box cutter … it’s a tough deal to get it open. And once you get it open … you go and upload it to your computer,” Hammer added.

Hammer has a fair point there. Digital sales are breaking records year after year in terms of revenue generated, while the decline in physical CD sales is more likely to be a sign of the times rather than a side-effect of music piracy.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The situation revolves around that oddest of characters, Direct2Drive (D2D) – an online games store, owned by IGN, selling games over the Internet as protected downloads. Game code is modified to prevent the standard retail DRM from inhibiting game play (as there is no actual disc to check for) with Trymedia activation utilized instead. More importantly, since the code around the DRM has been modified and changed to a different system, regular patches from the game developers can’t be used. Instead, patches must be reworked by D2D to accommodate these changes. These changes are not always quick, a point D2D does try and defuse in its FAQ.

Thus we come to Rainbow Six: Vegas2 (R6V2) which, since its release in March, has had three patches released for it. The third, 1.03 provides a lot of changes, including new play modes, so legitimate purchasers of the game were eager to try it. The problem is, those that bought it via D2D can’t use it. This is the problem inherent in DRM. Those that buy the product are the ones affected, not those the DRM is designed to defeat.

After lots of complaining and attempts to fix things themselves, one Ubisoft employee found a solution. A zip file was uploaded to the help/support site, named “R6Vegas2_fix.zip”.

If D2D users patched to 1.02, then replaced the EXE with this one, they could then update to the new patch. However, someone ran a hex edit and it appears the fix was not Ubisoft code but actually a ‘no-cd’ crack released by the Scene group RELOADED, as shown here.

Since then, the zip file containing the fix has been pulled from the Ubisoft support site, so we’re unable to verify. The game’s community is as baffled by this as everyone else. Since the claimed origin of the fix, 10 days ago, there has been no word on it officially from Ubisoft, beyond a ‘Community Manager’ who states

We’re looking into this further as this was not the UK Support team that posted this, however if it is an executable that does not need the disc I doubt it has come from an external source. There’d be very little point doing so when we already own the original unprotected executable.

As soon as we find out more about this we’ll let you know.
_________________
Ubi.Vigil
Community Manager
Ubisoft UK

Although it is not unknown for a Scene release to be used to ‘fix’ a retail product, it’s certainly rare to have that fact promoted. That the ‘no-cd’ patch works, might have some relation to how brutal the Scene is when it comes to the quality of their work, especially in games. Whilst this is a validation that the Scene isn’t as bad as the lobby groups would have you believe (they fixed the game, and did it for free) you can bet that Ubisoft won’t be smiling at E3, and that they, and Direct2Drive, will continue to use DRM to annoy and inconvenience paying customers.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

This is why Tape It Off The Internet seemed like such a good idea until you actually started trying to use it. There are just not enough good shows being made to justify something as complicated and involved as TIOTI. Enter all your favorites and share them with strangers ‘just like you’ and discover… what? That there are only seven good shows in the world at any one time, you were already watching six of them, and they’re all in the Pirate Bay’s Top 100 anyway. When you strip away the hours of dross and advertising, the truth is that the world’s mighty entertainment infrastructure is only capable of producing half a dozen hours of passable content a week. Maybe it’s because they spend the rest of their time on lawsuits.

One of these rare hours is The Wire. If by some small chance you’re not mainlining it already, think yourself lucky. You have four back seasons to enjoy, of what is quite possibly the last great show television will produce before it’s entirely superseded by — well, by whatever is coming around the way.

I’m not sure anyone has ever attempted to make a show of this scope: The Wire’s by-all-accounts-not-very-nice creator David Simon (Homicide, The Corner) has said his theme over the series’ five years has been ‘the decline of the American empire’ — which means decay of its cities through poverty, of traditional jobs, of the education system, of the police force and of the media. For those getting restless at the back, the show’s also got the slickest, nastiest drug slingers you’ll see on screen and is so realistic that the Baltimore Police have apparently complained it reveals too much about how crimes are — or are not — solved; apparently real thugs love it as well.

Find it and download it — though probably David Simon doesn’t want you to and neither does HBO, which has been actively poisoning Torrents of its other shows. Tell everyone you know about it. Maybe those of them still rocking TVs will raise the show’s increasingly dismal viewing figures.

Or maybe that’s no longer the point. While I sympathise with the plight of the David Simons, David Milchs (Deadwood, John from Cincinnati) and Joss Whedons (Firefly) of this world, and would like to help them in future endeavors, I specifically do not sympathise with the plights of the craven, dim-witted, played-out producers that surround them on all sides. And by ‘playing fair’ and buying the DVD or the cable package, besides the fact that most of our money is not going to the creators and their families, aren’t we really saying we accept the meshwork of shit in order to get the two or three gems that occasionally sift through it? Aren’t we signalling the industry that there’s something we still find acceptable about their way of doing business?

Now I suppose this could seem a bit extreme to some. But again and again in blogs and comments about shows like The Wire you hear ‘I’d pay for this if…’ — if it wasn’t DRM’ed all to hell like HBO’s own online offering, if it was freely shareable, good to be watched whenever, wherever, on whatever, without constant interruption by adverts. The kicker is that we’re not only unable legally to liberate and re-distribute shows from the broken, corrupt mechanisms of television and DVD distribution: we also have no way of supporting creators like David Simon and crew outside of it.

This means that right now, people still stupid or unfortunate enough to sit in front of TVs watching months-old shows or paying massive cash-or-attention premiums for the new ones are heavily subsidising us P2Pers. This is genuinely immoral, because we’re really exploiting people less fortunate than ourselves. Instead, we should be helping them out of the wasteland, and thinking of new ways to get the creators we like creating outside the prison of mass distribution. It cannot be that we are able to figure out how to make GNU-Linux – a world-class operating system — together, but not to make a dozen decent shows a year.

The irony is that TV series really feel like they’re coming into their own, just as the media that spawned them is dying. From the ‘high art’ of Deadwood and John From Cincinnati to the epic modern-day myth of Lost to the (dare I call it) Beckettian dark comedy of Trailer Park Boys, the drawn out tales of our series (often consumed a ’season’ at a time: I know at least three people waiting for The Wire to finish before downloading it) are an undeniable core of our emerging P2P culture.

We are the most passionate viewers ever, talking and writing profusely about the media we love, analysing, promoting, hosting free screenings… And they need us as much as we need them — all of these shows, without exception, enjoy their primary life on the networks, through our blogs, comments, reviews, remixes and fan fiction. Lost in particular has learned that incorporating online feedback can make a great (if utterly Shaggy Dog) story.

Can we find a way to get the shows we want made without buying the goddamn DVD? I remember this guy talking really sensibly a couple years ago about how Joss Whedon could get to make another season of Firefly, and we got this project back up his musings. Why didn’t Whedon try it? Because someone else owned his ideas? Perhaps it could have worked otherwise, and maybe it could work for the future. If you’ve got ideas, throw them in the comments box below. And if you have time in between catching up on The Wire, read this by the venerable guru of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly — I’m going to try to get him into the next installment of STEAL THIS FILM. See you around. I’ll be back in two weeks to pick up the pieces.

TorrentFreak welcomes Jamie King as our new bi-weekly columnist. Jamie is the Director of STEAL THIS FILM I & II and a member of the League of Noble Peers. He is currently working on a cinema release of STEAL THIS FILM and prototyping an experimental, post-P2P remuneration system for creators.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Recently, TorrentFreak published a translation of an interview between a journalist and a member of the German warez Scene. Although the article was well received, it generated quite a lot of controversy. Some readers felt that the questions should’ve probed deeper, others that the responses could’ve been more informative. Some questioned how much the Scener really knew while others even questioned his authenticity. At TorrentFreak we try to write interesting articles but we also listen to our readers when you say you want to see something.

To that end, we conducted our own interview with an established ‘Scener’ – and we asked him those questions we believe our readers would’ve asked him.

The Interview

There are many ideas of what ‘The Scene’ is. Some people say it’s a place, others say it’s a collection of people, some say it’s a combination of both. Can you tell us about your definition of ‘The Scene’, how it operates and the kind of people involved?

For me like many others it’s a place to go and chill with your friends, not unlike the current craze of social networking. It also represents the core fundamentals of the internet – the net should be free – and not governed. If I had to put a location or a name for the scene I would say its a haven for Geeks (sometimes arrogant with their extreme talent), enthusiasts, people who need to feel part of something and people who like a challenge and like to be kept on their toes. I suppose its full of criminals but not in the true sense of the word. What I mean by this is people who like a challenge, who get a buzz or a hit from breaking these so called laws, being hunted by and keeping one step ahead of authority. It’s also a place where the `Geek` rules all. He is not frightened by the big guy who plays football, the boxer down the road or the bullies at school because he knows he has the power to take the access away. Once you have been given access and trust, to have it taken away can be devastating for some. Same as money I guess – I suppose it’s all about power.

Some people believe that the ‘true’ Scene has its roots many years in the past. When did you become aware of its existence, how long after this did you become a member and what were the events that lead up to your joining?

The `true` scene goes back to the early 80’s, some think it goes beyond that. Unfortunately the groups of old have all grown up, had kids and now have nice jobs at the companies they used to pirate !!!!! (ironic or what?). In relative terms I could be called a newbie Scener, having only been in it a little over 10 years. My scene started with some hacking and infiltration which led me to meet some people, who in turn put me into the scene. Once I was involved I gave up hacking and cracking as it is generally frowned upon in the `true scene`, plus you don’t want to get caught for something stupid if you are doing bigger and badder things !!!

The Scene is viewed by many as almost mythical, only for the chosen few. What were your first impressions and experiences of being involved and how did they compare to your preconceptions?

The scene can be seen as a magical place where a lot of information is available and you get consumed by the amount of stuff you can lay your hands on. It can also be a dark place with a lot of people ready to screw you over for some access to somewhere or someone or starting a rumor simply because they don’t like you. This can be damaging. You see a lot of Release groups doing this to make the other group look bad and in my opinion, it’s pointless but thats just my opinion! My first impression of the scene was an overwhelming desire to download the entire internet! I suppose for me, who didn’t have a lot growing up, I felt I had hit the jackpot but as you soon realize, nothing comes for free.

How long was it before you felt you’d gained the trust of the other members and how did this manifest itself?

Personally I don’t trust anyone. You can only ever rely on yourself in the scene and in real life. It’s more true in the scene because no-one has any honor for so called friends (they will all sell you out to save their own skin) so the best bet is to protect yourself in anyway possible, so they never have information about you they can use for whatever they may need.

Being involved in the Scene in certain countries can lead to your arrest. Were you briefed about security before making contact with the servers and if so, what measures were you advised to take?

I always knew the risks when I entered the scene. I had a shady life growing up being dodgy and wheeling and dealing, so I suppose it came naturally to me to be alert and paranoid. For me it was natural evolution to take crime from the streets to the world of computers and the internet. I was already fairly versed in security from my exploiting days so I just researched the new protocols a bit more and took some steps to ensure i was more protected. I switched from Windows based computers to Unix, encrypted everything on every piece of hardware, turned off all logging, changed my irc/email frequently, always connected through proxies when checking email and used dynamic IP addresses as much as possible. For instance, to boot up and logon to my main computer you need 10 different passwords to get through the various layers of encryption and security I have in place and no-one on earth is going to break those!

I feel quite secure and at the touch of a command I can format the whole lot and write zero’s to the data drives so no-one can ever retrieve data from them. A lot of `topsites` are like this (maybe not as paranoid as me – but thats what has kept me from prison or the hint of it), but they certainly are clever and paranoid about getting caught.

Without warez release groups, the Scene would have little content to offer. Did you ever hold a position in a group, what did that entail and how did it affect your standing in the group and the Scene as a whole?

I did and still do hold a position in one of the top groups in the scene obviously naming it is stupid so I won’t! To be honest I don’t know if my fellow members would like or dislike this interview. Being an affiliate (a release group) certainly ups your standing in the scene but a lot of my friends in the scene don’t know who i am affiliated with or what groups I work with/for. It’s better this way.

Most people are aware that Scene access means easy access to warez. What range of material is available, who supplies it and where does it come from?

There are so many releases in the scene, maybe 2000 a day ranging from games, movies, TV shows, mp3, anime, dvd, music videos, wii, xbox, xbox360, ps3, pda, psp, docs, ebooks, comics and every type of porn you can imagine! All of these are available in pretty much any language or subs are available.

The stuff comes from anywhere people can get their hands on it. Most of the pre-release stuff will come from a silver or a screening of a film, the TV shows are usually `capped` from an HDTV station or a DSR link. The TV series as a DVDrip will probably be bought from a shop or ebay, then ripped into whatever format that group releases in. They will then sell the original DVD at say a flea market or ebay or something or take it back to the shop to trade for the next release or a refund.

Can you tell us about the structure of the Scene, it’s hierarchy, expected etiquette and the politics involved?

There isn’t really a hierarchy in the scene. There is a council for releasing standards kind of like the w3c a list of people or groups who all virtually sign a document saying “this is how we should release a film or whatever” it describes codec types, packing methods, what the nfo should state, what languages are allowed and how it should be tagged. The people who write these so called guidelines are generally considered to be the best at what they do, i.e if you looked at the game release guidelines then the best game crackers would be writing the guides between them, and agreeing. Next is the part that makes me laugh – if your release doesn’t adhere to these guides or say its slightly out of synch or has missing info or whatever you get whats called a `Nuke` – which is like a bad merit and states the release shouldn’t be downloaded as it’s basically crap. While I agree with this in principle what is strange to me is this; the scene is around because of people’s disregard for laws and antiestablishmentarianism, yet they have a set of rules to govern it! Madness!!

Some of these `Nukes` are bullshit nukes, i.e nothing wrong with the release, just some group having a war or some kiddie with nuke access being a dick, so I rarely take notice of them. There are a hell of a lot of politics in the Scene, mostly due to paranoia. For instance, if you use P2P or use or even help torrents, you will get banned. On some sites if you don’t use a bouncer to hide your address you’ll get banned and so on and so on.

In recent years there appeared to be a conflict between members of the Scene and certain elements of the BitTorrent community, especially certain trackers who offer Scene-releases just a few minutes after the Topsites do. What are your thoughts on P2P and BitTorrent releasers such as aXXo?

Personally I don’t like P2P/BitTorrent as it gives unwanted press to a small scene and it makes piracy real in the eyes of the law. My personal view is “so what?” if a few geeky kids want to swap a few movies and a few applications around, they probably don’t have the money to buy them anyway. With stuff like operating systems – Microsoft for example, it’s so buggy that who in their right mind would want to pay for it? I mean, would you pay for a dud microwave? I know I wouldn’t.

I think if the torrent / p2p community was locked down a bit more and they had to do work to get the releases it would stop a lot of this warring. For me, I work hard to be in the scene and I feel my downloads are justified by the work I do on the releases my group makes. But P2P doesn’t have to do that work because it is already done – but thats just my view. I don’t think that P2P or torrents will ever stop getting it’s releases from the Scene, so I feel the war is pointless. In my opinion, if a known torrent group is operating , the topsites should (and do) make a group ban on that particular group, but not all sites adhere to this – due to no-one actually knowing how many sites there really are in the world.

Most file-sharers don’t hear accurate information about the Scene because good sources are few and far between. Do you have anything further to tell us about this fascinating subject?

No matter how hard the Feds try to stop the scene there are always people smarter than them out there. What they should be doing is leaving us to it and catching pedophiles, rapists and psychopathic killers rather than wasting resources on a few geeks.

The scene spreads deep into businesses, software houses, record companies, cinema owners, application houses and websites and I think once you start to uncover it, it starts to become a big tangled mess (same as the internet really!). As it evolves – as all things do – i’m sure that it will become more secure and disappear deeper into the underground.

Do you have one final message for our readers?

Yes! About people who sell the warez that we release; This is WRONG and should never be done!

Thank you for taking the time to speak to TorrentFreak. Stay safe.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.