The Life, Addiction and Insight of a Reformed Pirate
As many of you may have heard there was another piracy bust targeting the well known piracy group RiSCISO. I had the opportunity to talk with a reformed pirater about his life as a pirater, his addiction to his craft and finally his views of the recent crackdown on the scene. The interview in its entirety will be posted in two parts and if anyone wishes to ask questions he will address as many as he can. He has also stated that he WON'T shy away from any tough question as long as the answer wouldn't reveal his identity.
TG: For starters what would you like to be called for the article?
WS: I don't want to give out too much about myself . How about just 'WS?'
TG: How deep were you in the scene?
WS: I was pretty deep although I tried to stay away from the extremely touchy areas of piracy, which I considered to be movies and music. Simply put, I knew that the MPAA and the RIAA had the money, and therefore the power to put some major pressure on what the scene was doing. So I kept my focus on small time applications, shareware and the likes and various games. Those market don't have a lobby group or simply one that isn't strong enough to force the FBI to do anything.
As for my depth I was the leader and founder of a mid level courier group and then moved on to being the leader of a shareware/applications releasing group which also had smaller branches to release TV shows and even a few DVD rips. I know a lot if not most of the names from all the big name busts but most of those people probably didn't know me, I would place myself in the middle of the big picture, even though the shareware groups was at the top for a time.
TG: So exactly what was it that got you into your addiction and how old where you at the time it started?
WS: Let's see the first time I really remember pirating is back at a friends house and we were just messing around online. I couldn't have been more than 11, and we were just running around chatrooms causing immature havoc. We stumbled into 'warez' (this was before AOL locked the channel) and that is about were it all began. But all of that was casual stuff, just messing around, I didn't have a computer in my house until I finished middle school. In my eyes I didn't truly start pirating until October 1996.
TG: Wow, well how long did it take you to go from 'casual stuff' to what you call pirating, and why so accurate of a date?
WS: Like I said I stumbled into pirating at a friend's house, because at the time I didn't have a computer. It wasn't until, lets just say years later, that I got my own computer, truly mine, not my parents or my brothers that I was able to do whatever I wanted. The reason I know the exact date is because that is when I founded a lame piracy group on AOL, we began serving and massmailing 'our releases' and not say UPS' (a big AOL group at the time).
TG: When did you realize that it was truly an addiction? What caused the realization?
WS: Although I started the group way back in 1996 I was a very casual pirater in my eyes. I never spent money on it and never really made any (I did at one point but quickly stopped when I realized just how wrong THAT was) either. I would just do what I had to do during my free time, it never took precedence over school or sports or girls for along time.
The addiction began once I left AOL (I was actually banned because someone was using a stolen account when they requested a MassMail, when the real user logged in and found all the mail they reported me) and moved to the IRC world of things. This is were the REAL piracy is coordinated and therefore I got deeper into the scene. The group changed from a kiddie AOL group to a courier group, courier groups are largely the reason that files reach AOL, KaZzA and things of that nature. It all really starts on private FTP sites. The shift to IRC started the addiction and it wasn't until years after that that I realized it was an addiction, the first time I thought that I was a little to into it is when I told my brother "Damnit, I can't eat a new release is out."
TG: Looking back why do you think you became addicted?
WS: Oh thats simple, the competition is what got me. I have been a very competitive person for as long as I remember, actually my whole family is. This is what led me to try and be the best at what I was doing. After I began getting respect, mainly in the United States scene, as a courier I tried to find new ways to get ahead of the game and to make things easier.
It was at this point that I began playing with release groups, that the people who actually crack the software and are the first ones to put it on the private FTP sites that I mentioned before. After being in a few of them I finally resurrected one that one of my couriers had started a few years earlier and began getting competitive in that scene. It was the combination of these two groups that caused the addiction, they helped each other grow and sucked me in deeper and deeper and took more of my time. It was at this time that my sleep, which was already at less than a few hours a night due to some weird insomnia, was cut down into the minutes category, I began gaming less, I didn't go out as much as I used to and when I had a girlfriend I didn't pay enough attention.
TG: What helped you break your addiction and how long would you say the addiction lasted?
WS: The FBI broke my addiction for me. I had to go cold turkey after a close call when someone I was VERY close to got raided. It was different than before, there were numerous raids performed, such as the famous bust of DrinkOrDie (DOD), and many people were busted that I knew or had even been grouped with but the last one was just too close. Once I found out that he was raided I immediately shut everything down and told everyone to go away. I also realized that this was a good time to just make my exit and walk away, I went cold turkey from there. My addiction only lasted a few years, I would hazard to guess from about 1999 to 2004.
TG: What impacts, financial and social, did the addiction have on your life?
WS: Well for the most part I didn't gain anything from pirating, it was done for the competition and recognition, which is why most piraters do it, and also why it will be so hard to stop them. The only money I really spent was the occasional larger harddrive, which I would have purchased anyways but I probably got it a few months earlier than I would have if I wasn't pirating. I didn't really save any money either, I still purchased video games and software all that time. Although one program that I never purchased and I probably should have was CDRWIN, I used that a lot and when I liked I game I would buy them, but I never bought the program that enabled me to have the 'unlimited demos,' kinda ironic.
TG: Have there been any lasting effects from your addiction?
WS: No not really. I did realize that I had a problem before I stopped pirating but there haven't been lasting affects that I could point out. I personally believe that pirating has taught me a lot about management and people in general. Its not easy getting dozens of people to work together when they are essentially gaining nothing.
TG: What, if anything, has replaced your addiction?
WS: I have re-found my love for video games, which I was very into when I was younger. Due to the erratic scheduling of pirating I had lost most of the free-time I had for them when I became a 'hardcore' pirate. I have returned to my love of Real-time strategy games such as Warcraft III and also the action adventure titles like the Prince of Persia franchise and the Zelda franchise. If there's anything that has replace my addiction in the gaming realm it would certainly be World of Warcraft.
For some brownie points I would also have to say that I spend a lot of time with my girlfriend, the person who probably felt the most pain from my addictions.
TG: Do you believe that addictions, no matter what type, physical or mental, have any differences?
WS: From the people I knew in the scene, to people I know in real life addictions can come from anywhere. The links that I had in my little network of people were so strong that they compelled me to keep working even though I knew it was wrong and was eating up my life. That was also partly due to my extremely competitive nature though.
I know other people feel the same way, I am sure you guys have heard stories of gamers who have become addicted to various MMOs. The parent who left their child in a car to go do something in Everquest. The Korean player who died of heart failure from a World of Warcraft binge. The player who killed his friend after his friend sold of his equipment. Most of these people became addicted for the same reasons I was, the social ties or trying to be the best.
Those two examples are both mental addictions though and I highly doubt that they are hardier to break than a physical addiction. People coming off of a Counter-Strike addicted aren't going to get the 'kicks' like a cocaine addict would. So I would think that a physical problem is certainly a stronger addiction, and thus that much hardier to break (although I can't speak on that from experience).
Stay tuned for the follow-up piece on WS's views of the RiSCISO bust and its implications.
Continue to the follow-up.