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Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

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Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#51

Post by vintermann »

malermeister wrote: post #5
teodorlu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to recommend a video to start with?

If you're talking about the demoscene in general, here's demos sorted by popularity on one of the most important community sites: https://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?order=views Most of them have links to yt videos.

That sorting is pretty odd, and not really the thing for someone who doesn't know about the demoscene. For instance LFT's safe VSP demo was really high up. I understand why, it was a really important technical proof of concept and it explained something that had bothered demo coders for decades, but it's not a terribly interesting demo to watch. What impresses demo coders isn't necessarily the same that impresses the rest of us.

Some of my favorite classic demos are "Sound Vision" by Reflect, "Desert Dream" by Kefrens and "Enigma" by Phenomena. All demos that were popular enough in the 1990s that they reached me and my brother's Amiga by way of modems and swapping. They're all very enjoyable without knowing much about the coding challenges.

I'd say my favorite modern Amiga demo is "Eon" by The Black Lotus. For C64 the good modern demos are too many to count (and by comparison, the 80s era demos aren't terribly interesting), but I think maybe "Lunatico" by LFT is my favorite. Again it's one that doesn't require coding knowledge to appreciate.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#52

Post by cortesoft »

sedatk wrote: post #26

I'm pretty sure that I'd have stopped with just probation, yes. Having the feds raid your house, confiscate all your gear, and put you through the hell of their investigations for a year was enough of a wake up call for me. The gap between a sufficient punishment and what he actually got is the harshest reality in all this. It's very similar to what people have gone through for small marijuana related offenses.

This is why I never understand people who get mad at ‘lenient’ sentences for crimes. There are no crimes I would commit where, say, 1 year in prison wouldn’t be a deterrent but 5 years would be.

If the point of prison is to deter crime, then adding longer sentences isn’t going to change anything.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#54

Post by nunobrito »

20 years later I still use a copy of the Starcraft I from them.

The original version requires a CD and a CD drive just to boot. Maybe it could be emulated but as a kid I wouldn't have money to buy the original in my country. Blizzard eventually made a young kid happy, I've later bought the games to support them.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#55

Post by jakswa »

Takes me back to my BF1942 days, careening around maps in planes and tanks. I was dirt poor. I usually had to get a ride to the video rental store to rent console games. I'm thankful to have kept busy thanks to these groups. It kepted me interested in computers and exposed (a little) to software dev. ...and awesome music! Man, the music...

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#56

Post by GuB-42 »

guybedo wrote: post #9

wow i hadn't heard about Razor 1911 in a while. In the 90s they released so many cracks

Razor 1911 still has some presence in the demoscene. But though they share the same origin and may know each others, they are distinct from the cracking group.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#57

Post by orangepurple »

varispeed wrote: post #50
danschuller wrote: post #15

It doesn't serve society at all for this type of non-violent crime to result in prison time.

But it serves corporations that governments work for. and it's ironic that we pay for it while big corporations can avoid paying taxes as they please.

I'm the last person to defend corporations. That said, US corporations definitely don't avoid "paying taxes." The corporate income tax rate imposed by the federal government is 21%. Employees pay income and social security taxes on top of those earnings after. From the moment a company earns income until it lands in the hands of employees the government can take as much as HALF of it. This includes everyone on salary. Execs would be wise to issue themselves stock so they "ONLY" have to pay 15% or 20% (LTCG) as their "income tax." Companies can reduce their tax burden by engaging in behaviors which the federal government has deemed worthy or risky and incentivizes those behaviors with preferential tax treatment. For instance the R&D tax credit. It means that organizations that invest in qualified research and development activities to incentivize innovation and growth (as defined in Internal Revenue Code section 41) may be eligible for a general business tax credit.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#59

Post by mdaniel »

tpmx wrote: post #18
DeathArrow wrote: post #14

What was the crime he was sentenced for?

https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-re... [2003] > announced today that Shane E. Pitman, age 31, of Conover, North Carolina, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison by the Honorable James C. Cacheris, United States District Judge, for conspiring to violate criminal copyright laws as the former leader of the oldest game software piracy ring on the Internet. Btw: Coming from Europe - this who…

I would guess a lot of that happens in the public for transparency reasons; if one reporter (or otherwise just curious citizen) notices that (as an example) the Honorable Cacheris starts sentencing more harshly than their peers, or letting off CEOs in their courtroom with a "stern talking to," then that would be worthy of an investigation

I'm sure the Justice Department's point of view of press releases is one of deterrence: "do the crime, do the time" or perhaps even "your tax dollars at work"

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#60

Post by reassembled »

cruntly wrote: post #20
sigg3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cracking software doesn't warrant hard prison sentences. That's a double negative for society.

He ruined the lives of many hard-working software developers who relied on selling their code to feed their families. This was back when programming was a highly skilled and difficult job that only a few could do, so cracking was even more harshly targeting people.

Is that quantifiable and verifiable? Are there interviews with software devs whose business was measurably effected by piracy to the point where their life was “ruined”? Genuinely curious to know.
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