Talk:Warez

Humanitarian Value of Warez Piracy
If "Warez" is considered a humanitarian distribution of intellectual material, especially to impoverished peoples, its "value" (in losses to the western economy) is many times greater than most sources of food and intellectual/medical aid. The current values by BSA for non-entertainment "Warez Piracy" are OVER HALF the global value of humanitarian aid from ALL SOURCES.

The global estimates for "Warez Piracy" by BSA.Org for non-entertainment software only are listed in the table at SHIP.BAYWORDS.COM with comparisons to global humanitarian aid, the western educational systems, and various other budgets which are all pegged to a standard increase for many years. The docs.google table is linked there, please include to the main page a section on this topic and the EU software patent issues and the International Criminal Court and World Court cases regarding human rights and intellectual freedoms versus these policy claims. Graph Image of Data ... FULL DATA SHEET and I'll hesitate at copying the source data table even though it is clean and public sources due to its size, fully referenced?

Policy Implications
Though "Cracking" is defined as the process of analysis and analytic reverse or operative modeling of a system, typically an encryption or cypher, (where "hacking" is the modification resulting from such an understanding), the historical definitions, especially with regard to the economic or intellectual motivations, relate on legal basis to the derogatory terms "Cracker" as Cracker_(pejorative) and Pirate with significant adverse legal implications.

The American Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and United States Secret Service have determined that the reference to individuals related to the non-commerce distribution or economically unbiased dissemination of intellectual materials as "Software cracker" (Cracker_(pejorative)) or "pirate" is both bigotry and a slanderous reference to these individuals. These references, especially published or in court filings, to the distribution of warez, linguistically derived from "Wares" or marketable items typically pedaled by lesser merchants, has been found not only to be derogatory to the individuals, especially in the American Federal Court cases, but also a higher crime than the majority of claimed acts of economic sabotage purported by the various institutions or large corporations with distinctly commercial motivations.

68.9.69.82 (talk) 22:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

warez sites, Google and malware
I believe there should be a section talking about how nowadays most sites that are returned when someone tries to search for warez on Google will attempt to install malicious programs, or provide bogus files, or be paid sites (or is it not really like that?)--TiagoTiago (talk) 02:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That's more of a subject of spyware. The warez component has very little to do with it, as it is common across porn, warez, video game, and gambling sites.Rurik (talk) 16:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Phaze
This page is the destination for the redirected word "Phaze". The word isn't contained in the body of the article that I could find, and I was actually looking for a discussion of the Piers Anthony science fiction/fantasy world of Phaze, from the book "Blue Adept". Thank You. 71.216.157.222 (talk) 20:22, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The page that needs to be edited is the actual Phaze article. I've changed the redirection to Blue Adept so it should be fixed.  In the future, you can see and edit the redirection by following it, and then clicking in the line below the article's title that states "(Redirected from XYZ)". Rurik (talk) 02:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Grammar error?
"It indexes the warez & gives links to the pages where the download links are available. These often contain massive advertisement and may contain spyware and trojans. They often just infinitely redirect users to other sites." That sentence is messed up!
 * Good eye, that's an atrocious section that has been there since 2007. I just reworded it and I hope it cleared it up. Rurik (talk) 01:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation?
There's currently no pronunciation listed. I've always pronounced it "Where - ez", but it seems likely that some people would pronounce it the same as "wears".Korin43 (talk) 00:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * There used to be one, but it was removed awhile back. I see no reason not to put it back in, and will do so now. Rurik (talk) 21:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Um...how the hell is Juárez pronounced in English, anyway? WTF. I'm confused. D: Paperxcrip (talk) 02:04, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Two syllables: war - ez Rurik (talk) 04:37, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't we come up with a better example than "Juárez".? --87.57.56.236 (talk) 00:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * To indicate that "Juárez" is a mispronunciation is dubious -- the term originated on BBS, IRC, usenet, and other text-only forums. I think it's fair to say that several pronunciations exist, but that one is the 'correct' pronunciation of this neologism can't be proven.Billyphuz (talk) 14:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that the correct pronunciation should be officially where ez. Its what I thought when I first saw it, and I am never wrong.  Plus, Juarez sounds stupid and so does wares  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.105.140 (talk) 19:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

"warez" as adjective?
Under "etymology" the article asserts that "warez" is also used as an adjective "Do you know any good warez sites?" but judging from this sentence alone an interpretation as open compound noun seems more likely to me. If indeed it is an adjective here, "warez" and "sites" would have to be stressed about equally, while in a compound noun the stress would be on the last word. Can someone please check this? – Telofy (talk) 06:59, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd say that the word serves as a noun adjunct in the sentence, but I'm not going to change anything since I can't be bothered to read up on all 'em pretty wikipedia rules. 81.233.211.87 (talk) 22:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Correct, that's not an adjective, any more than "tractor" is an adjective in "tractor parts". 80.235.236.18 (talk) 18:36, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Edit request from 71.94.158.203, 8 June 2010
I want WiiBrew's Policy against warez to be added to the "see also" section of the article to show that some websites don't allow warez.

71.94.158.203 (talk) 01:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Already mentioned under the legalities section. Could be used as a source, not a "see also". Spigot  Map  12:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Parsing fail
"or as an adjective "Do you know any good warez sites?""

That is no adjective it a part of a compound. 'warez sites' is a compund noun!

94.9.44.100 (talk) 22:29, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Not really; it's both. You can analyze it as a compound noun, especially since it's a commonly repeated usage, but it's not a construction that, if taken apart, really changes in meaning or function. Warez is modifying a noun. If you take it out, sites is still valid and means the same (but more general) thing it did with the modifier. Who is like God? (talk) 04:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The main reason for software piracy
Shitty DRM - no one can stand the bullshit especially Ubisoft put into their software. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iffamies (talk • contribs) 00:47, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Price - the average teenager or minimum wage worker can't afford the full retail price on most programs. For example, Maya currently costs about $3500. Adobe CS5 costs about $1600. Products like these are beyond the means of many people.

The software industry needs to realize this. Hobbyists should be given a significant discount. Those who make money with a program should pay full retail price. Everyone else should pay what they can.

The alternative is P2P or services like Rapidshare and the publishers make no money at all.173.58.64.64 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC).

spelling error
This word is misspelled in the final paragraph: "maliciouness". It should be "maliciousness". Tweedly-dee (talk) 14:04, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Since the above comment, I've become autoconfirmed, so I made the correction myself. Tweedly-dee (talk) 17:43, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The page is protected and full of errors nice work wikipedia 94.168.212.159 (talk) 09:12, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 18 April 2012
Keygen : The seriel is usualy of your choosing. Supposes the .exe file has no other kind of protection. and thus does not need patching ! Serials : You don't get to choose. Someone already bought it or keygened it.

ShalowFate (talk) 10:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made.
 * There are also keygens for other operating systems and thus not limited to .exe.  mabdul 18:29, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

"Warez"
Warez hasn't always meant copyrighted works, warez in the beginning meant more to do with blackhat hacking. I think that should be acknowledged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.214.63 (talk) 16:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

"Piracy" is a loaded word, can we use something more neutral?
The term "piracy" is loaded, and hardly neutral, thus not suitable to any article taking a NPOV.

A much more neutral phrase would be "unauthorized copying" (or perhaps even "unauthorized sharing").

This is written up in which essentially makes the point that using the very term "piracy" creates a false analogy to kidnapping and murder on the high seas, presumably activities not normally part of any cracking effort.

Son of eugene (talk) 19:02, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I support that. --TiagoTiago (talk) 01:10, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I support this too Smk65536 (talk) 18:34, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I am also in support 60.243.43.59 (talk) 16:38, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that Warez scene be merged into Warez. The former is poorly written, but has some background information that might be relevant to complete the Warez subsection. Although the Warez scene article is not very short, it actually contains very little original and verifiable information (take a look at it's talk page). Ozhu (talk) 14:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. There is Demo and Demoscene too. The subculture deserves its own article. If you think Warez scene is badly written, start fixing it :). I suggest you have a look at Software Piracy Exposed - Secrets from the Dark Side Revealed and No copy: die Welt der digitalen Raubkopie. Then you'll discover that lots of itis verifiable. But we won't know for sure until someone starts checking it... I did take a look at the talk page and saw comments like this: Should I specifically mention there is no explict connection between warez and the Scene community? Ondertitel (talk) 21:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Point noted. However, I'd like to keep this discussion open, because for an article that is so active, Warez scene contains little to no information that should not also be included in Warez. I understand why someone would want to separate these two concepts, but at the end, "The Scene" is just an online community or group of communities based around the reverse engineering and distribution of warez. I still need to be convinced that this "secret subculture" is notable enough and divorced enough from the concept of warez to merit its own page. Ozhu (talk) 16:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Absolutely not unless you have not intention of condensing the information in the Warez scene article. The people behind warez are just as notable as warez it-self. Icedog (talk) 03:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I would not have any intention of condensing the information in the Warez scene article. There is a lot of redundant information between the two articles, and I feel like the quality of the information in Warez scene article would benefit a lot by being put in the context of discussion of Warez. Many users have complained about the quality of Warez scene. "The people behind warez are just as notable as warez it-self." I interpret that to mean the warez themselves and the community and subculture behind their creation and distribution are intimately linked and equally important parts of this topic. I'd rather have a good, complete, and dense article about Warez rather than have the topic spread over three mediocre and poor articles. Thanks for your feedback.
 * I removed the proposal from both pages. It has been almost a year. This article can be fixed independently of any merge. It seems quite scene oriented though. "Distribution of warez" with one subheading looks strange too. --Ondertitel (talk) 20:39, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Warez and piracy split proposal
In the last section, "Warez and piracy", "Warez sites" does not appear to be limited to "The Scene", as described in the first part of the article. Perhaps this should be merged to articles on file sharing in general, and the part about the Warez scene be merged into that article instead? Smk65536 (talk) 18:34, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Ethymology of WAREZ
Where does the word warez come from ? Why a "z" ? It should be explained: pirate vocabulary often has a "z" to show that it's been pirated ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E34:EE45:ECF0:159D:DEC8:D072:5B38 (talk) 14:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm going to preface my reply and say it's anecdotal and/or speculative, though I'm probably going down the right road toward finding scholarly articles on subject. There is a similarity between S and Z that is generally recognized. The line between the two was blurred in early English, and many other languages have overt links between the two. (i.e. Japanese writes Z-like sounds by putting accent marks on top of S-like characters) Aside from that take on it, in the 1990s it looked both cool and devious at the same time, particularly to the relatively young people in the warez scene. That's probably why it stuck. (but, again, this is just the anecdote of someone who was there in 1994) sarysa (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Move Warez Zero Day stuff into a section of Zero Day
Hey guys, can you guys add your views about merging the three WP zero-day articles attack, virus and warez into one at: Talk:Zero_day. Thank you :)

Made, reviewed edits
As I was coming here to seek a source for some teaching, I reviewed the article, and started out by finding a dead URL in an opening source. I corrected that, then noted several things that defy wikipedia policy and guidelines. The article appears to have stalled, and still bears various article tags dating back to 2008-2009. The things that defy policy include: I hope this can be a start to begin to address the serious violations that have been noted, now, for over a half-decade. Cheers. Le Prof. Leprof 7272 (talk) 14:47, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The lede did not (and still does not) adequately summarize the actual article; in moving some of the prose into the main body, and condensing it in the lede, I have made room for addition of further summary statements that fully capture the article;
 * The structure of the article put introductory and general sections late, and opened with highly detailed sections that used terms it failed to define; i began to address this backward presentation, by moving the terminology section up, and moving the introductory definitions and examples appearing in the lede, into this section (essentially in full, previous form); note, these definitions still need to be sourced;
 * The article as a whole contains many sections, as are now noted, that are completely unsourced (and which have apparently been this way since '08-'09).

Wealth of material available to make this article encyclopedic
I did a search of the title term in Google scholar. These were the opening hits:"The politics of contraband: The honor economies of the warez scene A Rehn - The journal of socio-economics, 2004 - Elsevier Lodged within the Internet's increasingly commercialized webs there exists a thriving subculture that has developed an economy all its own. Specifically, a modern gift economy, a consistent and internally rational structure of actively anti-economic behavior that ... Cited by 65 Related articles All 15 versions Cite Save [PDF] scu.edu

A road to no warez: The No Electronic Theft Act and criminal copyright infringement E Goldman - Oregon Law Review, 2003 - papers.ssrn.com Abstract: This Article examines the No Electronic Theft Act (the Act or the NET Act). The Act represents a significant change to copyright law because it subtly shifts the paradigm underlying criminal copyright infringement. For 100 years, criminal infringement punished ... Cited by 60 Related articles All 7 versions Cite Save [CITATION] Yo-ho-ho and a server of warez D Tetzlaff - The World Wide Web and contemporary cultural theory. …, 2000 Cited by 37 Related articles Cite Save [PDF] scu.edu

The challenges of regulating Warez trading E Goldman - Social science computer review, 2005 - ssc.sagepub.com Abstract This article analyzes the policy challenges of legally conforming the behavior of warez traders. The article discusses the motivations for warez trading, how criminalizing the behavior may counterproductively encourage it, and why legislators and prosecutors ... Cited by 16 Related articles All 13 versions Cite Save [PDF] scu.edu

Warez trading and criminal copyright infringement E Goldman - Available at SSRN 487163, 2004 - papers.ssrn.com Abstract: Warez traders have been blamed as a significant cause of copyright piracy, which has led to several dozen conviction of warez traders in the past two years. The article analyzes how criminal copyright infringement and other laws apply to warez trading. The ... Cited by 26 Related articles All 18 versions Cite Save [PDF] gangsquebec.com

Welcome to the scene: A study of social organization and recognition among warez hackers D Décary-Hetu, C Morselli… - Journal of Research in …, 2011 - jrc.sagepub.com Objectives. This article seeks to describe and understand the social organization as well as the distribution of recognition in the online community (also known as the warez scene) of hackers who illegally distribute intellectual property online. Method. The data were ... Cited by 21 Related articles All 3 versions Cite Save"

Clicking on a sort field in Google Scholar (that shows only recent articles) provides view of 2015-2016 entries, as opposed to these older, but more highly cited articles. As well, temporary placement, while editing, of the "BLP unreferenced" tag make appear links that will automatically do searches of books and news sources. Bottom line, there is no reason this article should continue to be unsourced, and so dated and limited in its scholarship. Cheers. Le Prof. 73.211.138.148 (talk) 15:15, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Please verify and source leetspeak contention, which is unverifiable
Prima facie, looking at the leet article at WP, the term "warez" does not seem to fit the definition of leetspeak. Who says it does? This source must be provided! Cheers. Le Prof 73.211.138.148 (talk) 15:33, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ This was removed from the lede, and expanded in the main article, after sourcing was found that made clear that "W4r3z" was the most common leetspeak version, and that adding a "z" in and of itself was not sufficient to make the warez term itself into leetspeak (slang yes, advertising copy, yes, uniquely leetspeak, apparently not, as W4r3z is how it usually so appears). Change back if a source can be found to justify it. 73.211.138.148 (talk) 18:05, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Please consider merging sections
The "Motivations and arguments" section is completely unsourced, and presents material that is redundant with the adjacent "Legality" section. (These sections were made adjacent in recent editing, bringing this issue of repetition to the forefront.) Please consider merging these two sections, and removing unsourced material and WP:OR, leaving one cohesive and encyclopedic section. Le Prof 73.211.138.148 (talk) 18:09, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

name history
"The term warez, which is intended to be pronounced like the word "wares" (/ˈwɛərz/), was coined in the 1990s;"

The name was used heavily in the 1980's. In fact, for the C64, the warez scene was nearly dead by 1990. Many people (especially in Europe) had moved on to the Amiga by then, or some to the PC.

FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene#History


 * The name "warez scene" probably didn't exist at the time. It could just be referred to as "the scene". Has anyone seen the word "warez" in use before 1990? Ondertitel (talk) 20:43, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:51, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Keygen by MESMERiZE.png