Confessions of an Ex-Pirate: Part One

 
I was a pirate. There. I said it.
 
I still remember my first piece of warez. It was the Winter of 92. This was before the internet hit big times. Back then, the internet was still fledgling. There were only a few nation-wide carriers, mainly Compucom, Prodigy, and GENIe, but the way to go back then was with a local carrier. They would usually offer you the best dollar per minutes deal. Yes, that's right.... there was no "unlimited" plan back then, we paid for minutes, roughly $35-50 for 20-30 hours a month. 
 
But I'm getting ahead of myself with all this fangled internet talk. The internet was for rich people. The rest of us had BBS.
 
The BBS systems were pre-internet.Local PC stores used to carry these PC newspapers for free, and in the back of the newspapers you found telephone numbers for local BBS systems. The systems were setup for people to exchange ideas, theories, communicate online, much like an internet forum. I remember grabbing one of these magazines, rushing home, sitting in front of a 386 and basking in the light of my 14.4k modem as it screeched to lands unknown. I had no idea what was to come. 
 
During one of my frequent calls to random BBS systems, I befriended one of the operators, who let me in on a secret: The BBS systems were not only for communication between people, but filesharing. Namely, illegal filesharing. "I will give you three days to heaven" he said. A new menu appeared in the front page. A secret warez menu. I delightfully clicked. 
 

 
I was a pirate. There. I said it.
 
I still remember my first piece of warez. It was the Winter of 92. This was before the internet hit big times. Back then, the internet was still fledgling. There were only a few nation-wide carriers, mainly Compucom, Prodigy, and GENIe, but the way to go back then was with a local carrier. They would usually offer you the best dollar per minutes deal. Yes, that's right.... there was no "unlimited" plan back then, we paid for minutes, roughly $35-50 for 20-30 hours a month. 
 
But I'm getting ahead of myself with all this fangled internet talk. The internet was for rich people. The rest of us had BBS.
 
The BBS systems were pre-internet.Local PC stores used to carry these PC newspapers for free, and in the back of the newspapers you found telephone numbers for local BBS systems. The systems were setup for people to exchange ideas, theories, communicate online, much like an internet forum. I remember grabbing one of these magazines, rushing home, sitting in front of a 386 and basking in the light of my 14.4k modem as it screeched to lands unknown. I had no idea what was to come. 
 
During one of my frequent calls to random BBS systems, I befriended one of the operators, who let me in on a secret: The BBS systems were not only for communication between people, but filesharing. Namely, illegal filesharing. "I will give you three days to heaven" he said. A new menu appeared in the front page. A secret warez menu. I delightfully clicked. 
 

Love that video. "there's not a lot of cursing or swearing. There's not a lot of personal cuts. There's not a lot of put-downs..."
 
I'm sure a lot of us used to pirate before we understood the ethics of it, and occasionally still do. When I was 13-14 or so I played a lot of games on my SNES emulator; sometimes I owned the games on the cartridge but they stopped working, sometimes I had never heard of the games before.

We all have done it a few times, hell my first pirated game was Command and Conquer.

While were on the subject, how do you all feel like sites that host copyrighted material like Megavideo, megaupload, and youtube? Isn't that piracy?

That was fantastic.

" I never pirated a game its wrong and illegal "

Great post and introduction! Very interesting read, can't wait for the next installment!

" @toast_burner said:

" I never pirated a game its wrong and illegal "

Downloaded any CD's lately? "

" @Azteck said:

" @toast_burner said:

" I never pirated a game its wrong and illegal "

Downloaded any CD's lately? "

nope "

Awww, I hoped you have a wooden leg and an eyepatch.

Lock this thread.

" I've never pirated a game, but I used to pirate music until one day I just said, "nah" and have always paid for music since then. "

To reiterate the previous posts I'd like to state how high quality your writing is and how interested you've made me in your next posts.

In my opinion about piracy I see nothing wrong with pirating games at all.Now maybe some games like new games that just came out but I don't think there's nothing wrong at all with pirating games that are as old or older than like a decade like the PS1 and SNES games.

" @toast_burner: Is it lonely up there... on your pedestal? "

I used to pirate music, I don't anymore, etc. I don't watch things illegally uploaded on Youtube either. 
 
I think it is completely fine that I buy music (See how far we've come?). But I don't attack people who pirate either, I understand their perspective, and attacking them isn't going to change anything.

If this story doesn't end with you Bel Airing the Giant Bomb user base, I'll be disappoint. 

I download games but only ones I already own (My poor Crysis CD...*sob*) or games that are So old that finding a place to torrent them is hard.

Didnt bother to read it.  mostly because i wanted to be validated in asking....
 
Were you an ass pirate?

Interesting.  I didn't get a modem at all until 1996 (and unlimited internet access flat rates were finally about), but I'd wanted one for a long time.  No assholes or fanboys on BBSs in 1993?  I find that hard to believe.  By the time I got on the net in 1996 there were tons of assholes and fanboys everywhere!  People were arguing about shit on newsgroups since the 80's.  No, human nature hasn't changed.

Ahh I remember the wonderful days of BBSes! One of my favorites was Tiger's Domain (not that anyone would have heard of it, it was a local Victoria BS run by some gal in her basement), but it had LORD with all the addons, woo! LORD was so rad. I remember sort of partaking in pirating as a kid and not thinking much of it -- my dad and his other computer geek friends would swap Sierra adventure games all the time; we'd buy the King's Quests and another friend would buy the Police Quests or Space Quests and we'd trade and play those ones while they played the ones we bought. 
 
I also remember totally "hacking" the "child safety" in Leisure Suit Larry when I was like 5 or 6 by just answering the questions enough times to find out the right answers and memorize them. I still remember there being a question about Reagan starring in "Bedtime for Bozo" with a monkey. Oh and giving the poor hobo a rose in the back of the bar. Poor guy looked so sad and lonely :(
 
I had completely forgot about the fact that services like Prodigy charged by the minute until you mentioned it. Damn, that really did suck (though it was my dad paying the bill, haha!)  and that BBS users were definitely more polite and it was such a simpler time. Ahh well, I like the Internets as it is now even with its flaws. Looking forward to reading more :)

I love people who say that pirating is ethically wrong and hurts the dev of the game and when finished the sentence they fire up DC++ and start downloading single songs. Sure is hypochrisy in here.
 
Cool story, though, OP.

I remember BBS.  It sucked.  Although at the time I was 3 or 4 when I was using the damn thing and I was illiterate.

I heard that pirates spend more money than people who acquire it in a legit way. I don't know and I can't remember where I saw that article.

Interesting story, looking forward to the next part.

" I heard that pirates spend more money than people who acquire it in a legit way. I don't know and I can't remember where I saw that article. "

actually....this was very informative and i must say it has peaked my interest in how the internet used to work. I was to young to remember this but it sounds like the internet was once a much cooler place to hang out. 
 
on the issue of piracy, i'm with the guy who said he doesn't have a problem pirating games that are hella old and you can't even find them. The reason being is that most of that old stuff you can't find and if you do find it somehow, the original people who made it don't even own it....which i'm not gonna support some corporate company cause the thought they should by a hot game and then run it to shit. basically don't pirate anything you can easily buy.

pretty crazy with internet. i remember first getting onto the internet when i was younger. i remember playing flash games and waiting like a hour for the game to load. i would read harry potter book when i was doing this as it would take a long time.

Dude you were 10 when you did this? That's badass. 

aaaw, the memories.... i remember online rates for downloading warez in germany being so expensive that it would be usually only cheaper than buying the real thing if you went online between 9pm and 6 in the morning... still didn't stop me... :)

I can see why people pirate, and if you can live with the fact that you are stealing im ok with that, but when someone tries to justify pirating is when i have a problem, you CANNOT justify stealing movies, music, games, programs etc.

Never pirated in my life and i never plan on it, but great post.