maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to TSI Gabe
Re: The only true way to block piracy
said by TSI Gabe  :Is to cut the cable. Which obviously defeats the point of having access to the Internet. You may be too young to remember.... or too old that you passed it  - But in the early nineties, when the CD burner was invented, but the internet wasn't quite there yet.... spreading stuff around on "warez CD's" in schools, offices, etc was immensely popular.
Since a single CD-R cost something like $5 by then, and burning one on 1x or 2x speed took 30 or 60 minutes, people were often selling these CD's, full of the latest apps and games, for like $10.
Paper lists used to go around, what each release of a CD contained. Often the CD's and its contents were released by known release groups, some of which are still known today, complete with cracks, etc. Often, games were "ripped" so that the videos were taken out, which reduced the game size significantly.
These kind of distributions were very popular in 90ties, but slowly died out after 2002 or so, with the rise of broadband, and the low price of a CD Burner and CD Discs. Disc copies were still made of course, but people just started copying individual games and software packages. By then, a game release contained a FULL CD, sometimes more then one.
If the Internet were re-designed in such a way that would make piracy impossible.... I will guarantee you that CD/DVD release mechanisms and illegal trade in schools and offices will leap and take off.
It can't be stopped. We used to copy cassette tapes in the 80ties, my parents even had one of those big spool machines and could copy music by connecting it to another one, and we're talking the 60ties here..... |
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b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA
·Comcast Formerly ..
3 edits | said by maartena : my parents even had one of those big spool machines and could copy music by connecting it to another one, "big spool machines" 
It's called a reel to reel tape recorder.
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djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
 ·PHONE POWER
 ·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T CallVantage
·Time Warner VOIP
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to maartena
Good times, good times.
Back then, software was mostly distributed on floppies. So, you could collect an absolutely massive amount of software on a single CD-R.
The internet wasn't there, but dialup BBSes were. Access to pirated content was granted on a sort of invite/code word system. You generally had to politely ask a sysop for "elite" access, and/or be referred to by another member with access. There were usually up/down ratios that you had to maintain. That's where most of the software on those CDs came from.
My first CD burner was a huge external Philips CDD521, I got it as a hot deal at about $2,000. It was the size of a large AV receiver. The first blank I burned on was around $35 per blank. What was especially sucky about that was buffer underruns and failed burns were really common - made for some REALLY expensive coasters.
The price went down to the $12-ish range for quite a while before it fell to the almost nothing that it is today.
--
AT&T U-Hearse
Your funeral. Delivered.
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TSI Gabe
Premium,VIP
join:2007-01-03
Chatham, ON | reply to maartena
Oh I'm old enough to remember the days of sharing files over BBS |
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dadkins
Can you do Blu?
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
·Comcast
| reply to b10010011
Reel to Reel...
--
Think outside the Fox... Opera |
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b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA
·Comcast Formerly ..
1 edit | said by dadkins :Reel to Reel... Doh! Thats what happens when I post before coffee, the spell checker does not question homonyms as long as they are spelled right. |
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maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to dadkins
said by dadkins :Reel to Reel... Heh 
Although I consider myself fairly fluent, English is not my first language. Reel to reel tape recorder it is. |
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maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to djrobx
said by djrobx :Good times, good times. The internet wasn't there, but dialup BBSes were. Access to pirated content was granted on a sort of invite/code word system. You generally had to politely ask a sysop for "elite" access, and/or be referred to by another member with access. There were usually up/down ratios that you had to maintain. That's where most of the software on those CDs came from. Yup, I remember those. I had access to a few of them.... my parents would be mad because I was tying up the house phone line, and increasing the phone bill as local calls were not toll-free where I lived.
Nowadays.... I walk around with a 4 Gb USB flash drive on my key chain, always carry it in my pocket. Very handy |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
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| reply to b10010011
said by b10010011 :Doh! Thats what happens when I post before coffee, the spell checker does not question homonyms as long as they are spelled right. Yeah, don't you hate it when you own yourself.  It happens to us all.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA
·Comcast Formerly ..
| reply to maartena
said by maartena :said by djrobx :Good times, good times. The internet wasn't there, but dialup BBSes were. Access to pirated content was granted on a sort of invite/code word system. You generally had to politely ask a sysop for "elite" access, and/or be referred to by another member with access. There were usually up/down ratios that you had to maintain. That's where most of the software on those CDs came from. Yup, I remember those. I had access to a few of them.... my parents would be mad because I was tying up the house phone line, and increasing the phone bill as local calls were not toll-free where I lived. Nowadays.... I walk around with a 4 Gb USB flash drive on my key chain, always carry it in my pocket. Very handy Ah the memories of downloading 10 zipped floppy images at 9600 baud...
Then getting that 28.8 modem and say WOW it will only take 5 hours now! |
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TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium
join:2000-11-08
Brooklyn NYC
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to TSI Gabe
Yeah, I ran a FidoNET bbs, had 3 lines 1200bps, but we had email (netmail) way back when. Everything got shared, it was the culture..... it's where all this originated.. SHARING
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Motor Vessel - Tamara B.
43' Long-Range Trawler
Cape Elizebeth ME.
See her Here. |
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elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO | reply to maartena
IRC and privet FTP was also big in the 90s
^.~ |
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b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA
·Comcast Formerly ..
| said by elios :IRC and privet FTP was also big in the 90s ^.~ Don't for get Usenet |
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