From: justin@hybris.UUCP (Justin Richards)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re:  Pirates and stuff
Distribution: world
Date: 11 Jan 93 16:23:31 CST
Organization: FEC Software Programmers, INC.

In article <4570@sicsun.epfl.ch> guglielmetti@elia.epfl.ch (Philippe Guglielmetti) writes:
>I'm posting this for Andreas Axelsson, who sent me this by e-mail.
>------------------------------------------------------------
>>Hi,
>>In article <ddrumm.0mm2@amiganet.chi.il.us> Daniel Drumm,
>>ddrumm@amiganet.chi.il.us writes:
>>>the Amiga entertainment software biz. In Chicago, there is a fucking
>>>subscription pirate BBS! That's right! For something like $60/month,
>>>you can download all the newest and best Amiga titles before they hit
>>>the streets. These motherfuckers are getting rich on the corpse of
>>>the Amiga. Anybody know who the best people are to contact to blow...
>>
>>I don't believe you can get rich by running such a BBS. I had the
>>pleasure to meet someone who runs a BBS in switzerland. He explained me
>>roughly this:
>>- you need a big (1 Giga) hard disk
>>- you need more than one high-speed (dual standard) modems since people
>>in this "field" call every day and DL everything you'll be limited to
>>about 50 subscribers per modem...
>
>There are sveral ways to get hold of such equipment without paying a dime.
>Credit card hacking ang cheating is very widely spread. Not to mention
>pure
>theft. I know a guy who has a 7 node BBS Dual Standard, he updated 5 lines
>to 16,800 DS in one month!! That's $5000-$6000 (at least in Sweden). And
>I'm pretty sure he didn't pay that legally. He's been caught by the
>police a couple of times, but he's back soon again. They're adicted.
>


I think you are generalizing and stereotyping too much.  Not all "pirates"
are carders or phreakers...


>>- either your BBS gets its stuff by users uploads and you have to test
>>everything to remove fakes and buggy progs, or you have to get the disks
>>from somewhere, i.e. to buy them. Since a "good" pirate BBS is expected
>>to get all the "news" in 24h max (!!!) you should be pretty well
>>organised and spend much time for that.
>
>Most BBS's have one or two Co-Sysops who can help the Sysop with things
>like that. And the amount of different software uploaded per day isn't
>that
>big. A lot of testing is also handled by traders. They dload it and gives
>the sysop a note if they find it faulty or old. A lot of people have
>access
>to hacked AT&T calling-cards so they don't even pay for the call.
>Blueboxing and PBX numbers are also widely spread methods to call free.
>


again, see my previous comment.


>>- most of the BBS sysops are members of cracking groups. Members from
>>these groups usually have unlimited access to the BBS and since you can
>>not really advertise for your BBS and users are supposed to have a modem,
>>a hard disk and to master DMS and such stuff, you are lucky if you have
>>50 paying subscribers and even in that case you won't "earn" (or steal)
>>more than a few bucks.
>>However, you may be fed for free, in jail...
>
>I would say $3000/month is quite a good extra income if you study or have
>a normal job. And I bet they don't pay tax for it...
>
>I've been in the scene, I've seen the inside.
>

You must have seen a bad "inside" to that world.  The few people I knew
more or less buy a game, crack it, and give it to their friends.  Back
when we had our C64's, most of the cracking was done because stupid ass
software compaines made disk protection schemes that would kill the 1541's
alignment.  And some of em just did it because they wanted to see if they
could, a kind of game in its self..

but, thats just the guys I knew.


>-- Andreas Axelsson - Digital Illusions --       We have such sights
>-- Speaking for myself and nobody else! --       to show you...
>------ andreas@gilbert.adsp.sub.org ------       /Pinhead
>              _#      **MMp     g#00   `N##0"    _agN#0P0N#           _#L
>             g##       jN##    j##F     J##    _dN0"      "          g##L
>           _#]##      _0 ##L  jN##F     ###   g#0"                 _03##L
>          gE_j##      #  0## jF ##F    j##F  j##     ______       gE_j##L
>        _0"""N##     d"  J##L0  ##F    0##   0##     "9##F"     _0"""5##L
>      _gF    ]##    jF    ##0   ##F    ##F   `##k     d##     _gF    j##L
>    _g#_    _j##L__g#__   ]N  _j##L_ _d##L_   `#Nh___g#N'   _g#_    _j##L_
>   `""""    """""'""""'    "  """""" """"""      """""""   `""""    """"""

--
As one of my previous articles said, maybe if software companies would
quit trying to get rich off of one game (ie: a stupid game that costs $50)
then more people would buy the games.  I would buy more games, if they were
$15 or so, but I refuse to buy a game for $50, unless it comes with some
gold or somthing.
<what am I saying, support freeware/shareware>
---

                      ---==* Justin Richards *==---
Hybris.UUCP  Amiga500  9600 baud      UUCP:  ..mmedia!hybris!justin
INET:  br365@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu