Warez and the Crack Factor of Internet Piracy Can Piracy Law Stop Crack Addiction?
Warez often originates from hackers that crack a code for the thrill of the challenge. But “crackers,” those in the hacker world who crack and profit from software program piracy, have capitalized on the efforts of hackers and their cracked codes – successfully developing a billion dollar international underground economy. This underground community of “cracker” pirates thrives on international software program and World wide web piracy.
Litigators, copyright holders, and media giants are working together with law enforcement agencies to beat down the doors of the pirates’ virtual underground warehouses. New copyright laws and international piracy treaties are on the table at nations across the world, awaiting rewritten code to revitalize existing piracy laws and keep up with the swift currents of World wide web technologies. FBI operations go undercover by names such as the 2001 Operation Buccaneer, Operation Bandwidth, and Digital Piratez, and the far more recent Operation Web site Down, Operation Copycat, Operation Jolly Roger and Operation Fast Link. Warez Operation Buccaneer resulted in 58 search warrants worldwide – which was the “largest” crackdown of 2001. Operation Bandwidth corralled the pirates by setting up a fake warez software program piracy internet site. The Digital Piratez operation resulted in only 9 warrants. This was just the beginning of the Warez crackdown and the FBI’s foray into the world of crack addiction.
The warez pirates continue to circumvent the piracy laws that are on the verge of crumbling down their underground economy. As they continue their overseas pirating escapades – so to does the FBI continue their undercover operations. A 2008 United States Department of Justice report summarizes the statistics of the warez operations Sitedown and Fastlink – which resulted in 108 felony convictions, confiscation of over one-hundred million dollars worth of pirated software, and 200 search warrants that traveled to over 15 countries. Far far more than the 58 search warrants that served the pirates of 2001. In 2007, there were 217 intellectual property circumstances filed. Letters from hackers under investigation litter the World wide web – warning their co-conspirators to “get out” before it is too late.