“Jeff, Lazer Night has been shut down. The FBI busted him this morning.” The words rang empty in my head. I knew they meant something important but I couldn’t wrap my teenage brain around what. Little did I know how much those simple words would shape my thoughts on information, piracy, and life.
It was the early ’90s and the internet was still young. The common folk, the riff raff, the normal people of the world didn’t know about the internet. Even the computer geeks still used modems to dial into bulletin board systems or BBS for short. BBSes functioned much like a bulletin board at the grocery store or student center at a university. Users would post notes and other users could respond. Unlike physical bullet boards BBSes did not have a size limit. You could post a note that contained the entire script to Monty Python sketch or schematics of a device to make free long distance calls.
As a young geek this was my first real exposure to a community. These were my people. They enjoyed the same topics and suffered the persecutions. I need to thank BBSes for my fascination in networking. I quickly learned to harness the power of the masses. If one user had a problem, technical or personal another user would have the answer. Beyond that we discovered that it was extremely easy to share information. I could upload my research on a topic and hundred of other geek could access that information. It didn’t matter what their gender, race, or location was.
I was a very enlightening time in my life. I could literally learn about any subject. If I wanted to find the specs for a new processor then I could get it. If I wanted to learn about nuclear explosive I could find out about that as well. Armed with this knowledge we realized that it wasn’t just information that could be shared but anything that was stored electronically. This meant we no longer had to pay for our software. We could share the cost over the entire collective.
Everyone knew it was wrong but nobody cared. You could sign on to several local BBSes and find pirated software. Sure it wasn’t blatantly obvious where the good stuff was hidden. A lot of times you had to know where to look or be invited to the secret areas. The process to gain access usually involved the user filling out a form saying anything they uploaded was “only for educational purposes” and that they were not a member of a software company or a law enforcement agency. The user would also re required to upload software to the BBS to prove they are not part of any law enforcement agency.
It was at this time that I took a leadership type role. Not only did I participate in these bulletin boards but I run one. It was a hive of piracy. I took pride in my 0 days warez. The quality of the BBS was measured in the speed they made new products available. Releasing software on a board the same day it was released i store was the gold standard.
All was good and life continued. I had traded access to my board for access to other BBSes in the area and a few across the country. I was then that my life almost crumbled. It was then when I received that fateful phone call. I remember the day vividly. I was working in the illustrious fast food industry. It was around 10:30a. The breakfast crowd had cleared out and it was too early for the lunch crowd. My boss came back and said my brother was on the phone and there was an emergency. I rushed to the phone and to my surprise it wasn’t my brother but one of my best friends. He explained that he tried to logon to one of the local bulletin boards. He was greeted by a sign saying the BBS had been shut down and was n ow under control of a major software company based not too far away. the stickler was this BBS only had one of their products and that product came from me.
I told my boss there was a family emergency and I needed to go home. This of course was true. If was arrested that would constitute a family emergency. I ran home, grabbed the hard drives and all my illicit floppy disks, and then quickly proceeded to my friends house. When I arrived I was greeting by a strange buzzing sound. I walked down the stair to a very strange sight. My friends had piles of floppies and a devices that looks like a small clothes iron. When I walked in they told me it was a bulk video tape eraser and to stack anything I wanted wiped next the the rest. We spent the rest of the afternoon paranoid we would get busted. Hours went by, then days, then weeks and nothing happened. The sysop of the BBS even showed up to school* but he wouldn’t talk about it.
I would like to say I didn’t pirate any software or media after that point. That would be a lie. I was a poor technologist. I needed to feed my craze for everything computer related. It wasn’t until I started producing content of my own that I found a new respect for software, music, and videos. It is true that pirating doesn’t take money directly out of the content producers pockets. It is not like I was steals CDs or DVDs, items that took resources to produce. Instead I was stealing the incentive to create. I wasn’t taking money away but I wasn’t contributing either. It is this sort of attitude that causes media mogul to only produce artists that will sell millions of albums. They cannot afford to take risks on unknowns.
Luckily, today I can say I am a hundred percent legal. I do not pirate software, music, or videos. I take every opportunity I can to tell others of the evils of piracy. Sure the super-mega-companies survive regardless of piracy but it is the little guy that gets hurt in the end.
