zy's blog.

the history of digital piracy: how we got here

so you want to know about digital piracy huh? buckle up because this rabbit hole goes deep.

before we start, obvious disclaimer: this is just educational stuff about history and how things work. im not telling you to go pirate things or break laws or whatever. just sharing some interesting tech history.

the early days (1970s-1980s)

digital piracy is actually older than most people think. back in the 70s and 80s, when personal computers were just becoming a thing, people were already copying software.

the whole thing started pretty innocently - friends sharing floppy disks with cool programs they found. no big deal right? except software companies started getting mad when they realized people werent buying their stuff.

fun fact: the first major anti-piracy campaign was by bill gates himself in 1976. he wrote this angry letter basically calling hobbyists thieves for sharing his basic interpreter. guy was not happy.

bulletin board systems (1980s-1990s)

then came bbs (bulletin board systems). these were like the internet before the internet existed. you'd dial up with your modem and connect to these local servers where people shared files, chatted, played games.

this is where piracy really started getting organized. people would upload cracked games and software, others would download them. it was slow as hell - downloading a single game could take hours or even days with those ancient modems.

the scene groups started forming around this time too. these were organized groups of crackers who would compete to be the first to crack new software. they had cool names like "razor 1911" and "fairlight" (some still exist today btw).

the internet explosion (1990s)

when the world wide web became mainstream in the 90s, everything changed. suddenly you could share files with people across the globe instead of just your local area.

this is when we got things like:

downloading was still painfully slow though. getting a single mp3 could take 20+ minutes on dial-up. wild to think about now.

napster and p2p revolution (1999-2000s)

napster changed everything. suddenly your mom could pirate music without knowing anything about irc or ftp servers. just search, click, download.

the music industry absolutely lost their minds. lawsuits everywhere. but it was too late - pandoras box was open. even after napster got shut down, alternatives popped up everywhere: then came bittorrent in 2001. this was genius - instead of downloading from one person, you downloaded little pieces from tons of people at once. faster speeds, harder to shut down.

the streaming wars begin (2000s-2010s)

companies slowly started realizing that maybe, just maybe, they should make their content easier to access legally. netflix started streaming in 2007. spotify launched in 2008.

for a while it seemed like piracy might actually decrease. why bother torrenting when you can just stream everything for cheap?

the modern era (2010s-now)

plot twist: streaming services got greedy. now we have netflix, hulu, disney+, hbo max, amazon prime, apple tv+, paramount+, peacock, and like 50 other services all wanting $15/month.

surprise surprise, piracy is back. people arent gonna pay $200/month to watch everything legally. streaming sites are getting more popular again, vpn usage is skyrocketing.

the technical side has evolved too. modern piracy is way more sophisticated:

why does this matter?

look, piracy is a symptom, not the disease. when content is expensive, hard to find, or locked behind 10 different paywalls, people will find other ways.

the most successful companies figured this out - steam made pc gaming piracy way less common by just being convenient and reasonably priced. spotify did the same for music.

but when you have 47 different streaming services all trying to create their own exclusive content... well, the bay still sails strong if you know what i mean.

final thoughts

digital piracy has been around for almost as long as digital content itself. its evolved with technology, adapted to every attempt to stop it, and probably always will exist in some form.

companies that embrace convenience and fair pricing tend to reduce piracy. those that dont... well, they keep the scene groups busy.

anyway thats your history lesson for today. pretty crazy how far weve come from trading floppy disks to downloading 4k movies in minutes.

stay curious (and legal i guess), zy