Editing Warez (section)

==Distribution==
{{main|Warez scene}}
[[File:Warez Hierarchy.svg|thumb|Warez scene hierarchy.]]
Warez are often distributed outside of [[Warez scene|The Scene]] (a collection of warez groups) by [[.torrent|torrents]] (files including tracker info, piece size, uncompressed file size, comments, and vary in size from 1&nbsp;k, to 400&nbsp;k.) uploaded to a popular P2P website by an associate or friend of the cracker or cracking crew. An [[.nfo|nfo]] or [[FILE ID.DIZ]] is often made to promote who created the release. It is then leeched (downloaded) by users of the [[BitTorrent tracker|tracker]] and spread to other sharing sites using P2P, or other sources such as [[Newsgroup#Binary newsgroups|newsgroups]]. From there, it can be downloaded by millions of users all over the world. Often, one release is duplicated, renamed, then re-uploaded to different sites so that eventually, it can become impossible to trace the original file. Another increasingly popular method of distributing Warez is via [[one-click hosting]] websites.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-33338-5_9 | title=Paying for Piracy? An Analysis of One-Click Hosters' Controversial Reward Schemes | first1=Tobias | last1=Lauinger | first2=Engin | last2=Kirda | first3=Pietro | last3=Michiardi | series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science | via=[[Springer Science+Business Media]] | year=2012| volume=7462 | pages=169–189 | doi=10.1007/978-3-642-33338-5_9 | isbn=978-3-642-33337-8 }}</ref> In the early 1990s, warez were often published on bulletin boards that had a warez section.

===Rise of software infringement===
{{unreferenced section | date=March 2009}}
Unauthorized copying has been an ongoing phenomenon that started when high quality, commercially produced software was released for sale. Whether the medium was cassette tape or floppy disk, cracking enthusiasts found a way to duplicate the software and spread it without the permission of the maker. Bootlegging communities were built around the [[Apple II]], [[Commodore 64]], [[Atari 8-bit computers]], [[ZX Spectrum]],  [[Amiga]],  [[Atari ST]] and other systems. Entire networks of [[Bulletin board system|BBS]]es sprang up to traffic illegal software from one user to the next. Machines like the [[Amiga]] and the [[Commodore 64]] had an international network, through which software not available on one continent would eventually make its way to every region via [[bulletin board system]]s.<ref>{{cite web |date=April 1997 |title=Warez Wars |url=https://www.wired.com/1997/04/ff-warez/ |access-date=2025-05-08 |website=Wired}}</ref>

It was also common in the 1980s to use physical floppy disks and the [[mail|postal service]] for spreading software, in an activity known as ''mail trading''. Prior to the sale of software that came on CD-ROM discs and after hard drives had become available, the software did not require the floppy disc to be in the drive when starting and using the program. So, a user could install it onto their computer and mail the disk to the next person, who could do the same. Particularly widespread in continental Europe, mail trading was even used by many of the leading [[Software cracking|cracker]] groups as their primary channel of interaction. Software copyright violation via mail trading was also the most common means for many computer hobbyists in the [[Eastern bloc]] countries to receive new Western software for their computers.

[[File:Pftp-99.png|thumb|250px|right|A screen shot of {{Mono|pftp}} logged into several FTP sites. This tool was used by couriers to quickly and easily move large amounts of software from one site to many others. Since couriering was competitive, using this tool was considered cheating.]]
Copy-protection schemes for the early systems were designed to defeat casual duplication attempts, as "crackers" would typically release a copied game to the "pirate" community the day they were earmarked for market.

A famous event in the history of software copyright policy was an [[Open Letter to Hobbyists|open letter]] written by [[Bill Gates]] of [[Microsoft]], dated February 3, 1976, in which he argued that the quality of available software would increase if "software piracy" were less prevalent. However, until the early 1990s, software copyright infringement was not yet considered a serious problem by most people. In 1992, the [[Software Publishers Association]] began to battle against this phenomenon, with its promotional video "[[Don't Copy That Floppy]]". It and the [[Business Software Alliance]] have remained the most active anti-infringement organizations worldwide, although to compensate for extensive growth in recent years, they have gained the assistance of the [[Recording Industry Association of America]] (RIAA), the [[Motion Picture Association of America]] (MPAA), as well as [[American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers]] (ASCAP) and [[Broadcast Music Incorporated]] (BMI).

Today most warez files are distributed to the public via [[BitTorrent (protocol)|bittorrent]] and [[One-click hosting|One-click hosting sites]]. Some of the most popular software companies that are being targeted are Adobe, Microsoft, Nero, Apple, DreamWorks, and Autodesk, to name a few. To reduce the spread of illegal copying, some companies have hired people to release "fake" torrents (known as [[Torrent poisoning]]), which look real and are meant to be downloaded, but while downloading the individual does not realize that the company that owns the software has received their [[IP address]]. They will then contact their [[Internet service provider|ISP]], and further legal action may be taken by the company/ISP.{{clarify|date=August 2016}}
<!--ummm, if the torrent is fake, then no copyright infringement has taken place, and therefore there are no grounds to sue. Also, if a representative of the company is distributing these goods, then copying it may be authorized, as a company or person cannot violate its own copyright.-->

===Causes that have accelerated its growth===
{{unreferenced section|date=August 2016 }}
Similar to [[televisions]] and [[telephones]], computers have become a necessity to every person in the [[information age]]. As the use of computers increased, so had [[cybercrime|software and cyber crimes]].

In the mid-1990s, the average [[Internet]] user was still on [[dial-up]], with average speed ranging between 28.8 and 33.6 [[Kilobit per second|kbit/s]]. If one wished to download a piece of software, which could run about 200 [[Megabyte|MB]], the download time could be longer than one day, depending on network traffic, the [[Internet Service Provider]], and the server. Around 1997, [[broadband]] began to gain popularity due to its greatly increased network speeds. As "large-sized file transfer" problems became less severe, warez became more widespread and began to affect large [[software]] files like [[animations]] and [[Film|movies]].

In the past, files were distributed by [[Point-to-point (telecommunications)|point-to-point]] technology: with a central uploader distributing files to downloaders. With these systems, a large number of downloaders for a popular file uses an increasingly larger amount of [[Bandwidth (computing)|bandwidth]]. If there are too many downloads, the server can become unavailable. The opposite is true for [[peer-to-peer]] networking; the ''more'' downloaders the ''faster'' the file distribution is. With swarming technology as implemented in [[file sharing]] systems like [[eDonkey2000]] or [[BitTorrent (protocol)|BitTorrent]], downloaders help the uploader by picking up some of its uploading responsibilities. There are many sites with links to One-click hosting websites and other sites where one can upload files that contribute to the growing amount of warez.

===Distribution via compromised FTP servers===
Prior to the development of modern peer-to-peer sharing systems and home broadband service, sharing warez sometimes involved warez groups scanning the Internet for weakly secured computer systems with high-speed connections. These weakly secured systems would be compromised by exploiting the poor [[File Transfer Protocol|FTP]] security, creating a special directory on the server with an unassuming name to contain the illegal content.<ref name="Koziol 2003 72">{{cite book | last = Koziol | first = Jack | title = Intrusion Detection with Snort | url = https://archive.org/details/intrusiondetecti00kozi | url-access = limited | publisher = Sams Publishing | year = 2003 | isbn = 978-1-57870-281-7 | page = [https://archive.org/details/intrusiondetecti00kozi/page/n92 72] }} ([https://books.google.com/books?id=W2xN6XmedWIC&dq=warez+compromise+ftp&pg=PA72 View cited page] using [[Google Books]])</ref><ref>Software Piracy Exposed: How Software is Stolen and Traded Over the Internet – By Paul Craig, Ron Honick, Mark Burnett, Published by Syngress, 2005, {{ISBN|1-932266-98-4}}, Chapter 7 – The Distribution Chain, Pages 144–145 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=cA3qL9PBR0kC&dq=warez+IRC&pg=PA145 View cited pages] using [[Google Books]])</ref>

A common mistake of early FTP administrators was to permit a directory named /incoming that allows full read and write access by external users, but the files themselves in /incoming were hidden; by creating a directory inside /incoming, this hidden directory would then allow normal file viewing.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} Users of the compromised site would be directed to log in and go to a location such as /incoming/data/warez to find the warez content. Messages could be left for other warez users by uploading a plain text file with the message inside.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}

Hackers would also use known software bugs to illicitly gain full administrative remote control over a computer, and install a hidden FTP service to host their wares.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} This FTP service was usually running on an unusual port number, or with a non-anonymous login name like "login: warez / Password: warez" to help prevent discovery by legitimate users; information about this compromised system would then be distributed to a select group of people who were part of the warez scene.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}

It was important for warez group members to regulate who had access to these compromised FTP servers, to keep the network bandwidth usage low.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} A site that suddenly became very popular would be noticed by the real owners of the equipment, as their business systems became slow or low on disk space; investigation of system usage would then inevitably result in discovery and removal of the warez, and tightening of the site security.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}

===Automated warez distribution via IRC bots===
As the ability to compromise and attain full remote control of business servers became more developed, the warez groups would hack a server and install an [[IRC]] bot on the compromised systems alongside the [[File Transfer Protocol|FTP]] service, or the IRC bot would provide file sharing directly by itself. This software would intelligently regulate access to the illicit data by using file queues to limit bandwidth usage, or by only running during off-hours overnight when the business owning the compromised hardware was closed for the day.<ref name="Koziol 2003 72"/>

In order to advertise the existence of the compromised site, the IRC software would join public IRC ''warez'' channels as a ''bot'' and post into the channel with occasional status messages every few minutes, providing information about how many people are logged into the warez host, how many files are currently being downloaded, what the upload/download ratio is (to force users into contributing data of their own before they can download), which warez distributor is running the bot, and other status information.<ref>{{cite book |title=Software Piracy Exposed: How Software is Stolen and Traded Over the Internet |author1=Paul Craig |author2=Ron Honick |author3=Mark Burnett |publisher=Syngress |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-932266-98-6 |chapter=Chapter 7 - The Distribution Chain |pages=[https://archive.org/details/softwarepiracyex0000crai/page/145 145–148] |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/softwarepiracyex0000crai/page/145 }} ([https://books.google.com/books?id=cA3qL9PBR0kC&dq=warez+IRC&pg=PA145 View cited pages] using [[Google Books]])</ref>

This functionality still exists and can still be found on IRC ''warez'' channels, as an alternative to the modern and streamlined [[Peer-to-peer|P2P]] distribution systems.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Goldman|first=Eric|date=2004|title=Warez Trading and Criminal Copyright Infringement|journal=SSRN Working Paper Series|doi=10.2139/ssrn.487163|issn=1556-5068|url=https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/facpubs/185}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ericgoldman.org/presentations/roadtonowarez.htm|title=A Road to No Warez: The No Electronic Theft Act and Criminal CopyrightInfringement, 82 Or. L. Rev. 369 (2003)|website=Eric Goldman|language=en-US|access-date=2019-02-23}}</ref> The opportunity to find and compromise poorly secured systems on which to create an illicit warez distribution site has only increased with the popular use of broadband service by home users who may not fully understand the security implications of having their home computer always turned on and connected to the Internet{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}