Talk:The Scene

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The intro to this article just plain sucks.

"Members of this scene are often unaware that the expression "the scene" is also used by members of other social groups to describe their community(who cares about this statement?), for example in the arts or music or literature(should be "for example, in the arts, music or literature) . This use of the expression "the scene" has been in continual use in English for a long time before software even existed("...long before software existed" might work, but again, what is the point of this statement?) . Members of a social group know what "the scene"(the Scene or The Scene, but quotations aren't useful). refers to, and most members of the software community use it to refer to all the software-related communities listed above. In the rest of this article "the scene" means the software scene(no shit.)."

I really think this needs to be rewritten. Not only does it go off into pointless directions, but it sounds like it's written by a kid. I don't want to rewrite it because I'm not familiar enough with the material, but I would hope someone well informed could do better.

I just had an idea... why don't we incorporate into this article a list of various sets of scene rules? For example, we could have different headings, SVCD, VCD, Software, 0-day etc and give some of the rules, where rule is defined as something that must be followed to avoid nuking. For example...

This whole article (including this talk section) is so full of misinformation that it is hard to know where to begin. Maybe the only real way to learn is to be a part of the scene. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.134.34.208 (talk) 10:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

SVCD Scene Rules

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- Movies must be in BIN/CUE format
- BIN/CUEs should be packed in 15MB RARs
- Valid resolutions are 480x480 NTSC or 480x576 PAL
- Bitrate must be minimum 2250.

and so on...

68.239.174.81 22:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

If you know the rules then surely add them and any other information you think to be useful. This article is a stub after all and could use more descriptive information to help people better understand the topic. --Kamasutra 20:43, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 This Article is purposely cyclical 2 but there are other scenes as well...? 3 ANTIP2P 4 The Philosophy of the Scene 5 What's the motive? 6 Complete info 7 Mixing apples and oranges 8 No rules? 9 Requested move

[edit] This Article is purposely cyclical

In the same way users constantly tried to cover up OiNK.cd's existence on wikipedia, we see it here. Misinformation, as another user put it, is prevalent and is sickening. Also, one of the most popular interests is the scene in music and pre-releases. This article skirts around every mention. I know people love the scene, and everything it provides, but wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and this IS supposed to be informative. I suggest a dialogue about this article. I realize, in the same way acquaintances of mine dealt with AfD's fot shot down and hit the news stands, I would be fighting an uphill battle in editing this page heavily without conversation first. Please discuss and offer opinions.

66.71.40.153 (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] but there are other scenes as well...?

The Scene as described here is narrowly defined, right? I'd see other scenes that would name themselves like this, the gay scene, the art and scupltures scene, whatever, and whatnot. Am I misunderstanding the stuff to be described here? Or would a {{disambiguation}} tag do? :confused: --Vintagesound 11:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I completely agree, this should be a disambiguation page. Almost every scene (local music scenes, clubbing scene, graffiti scene, etc) calls itself "The Scene", and it is typical for wikipedia to be skewed towards computer-related subjects. 86.80.147.155 21:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I sympathize with this, but in the minds of the users of the phrase The Scene, the meaning is quite particular and distinct. It's unfortunate that over time, this term came to be used to name the world of organized piracy and distribution, as it is annoyingly difficult to use and understand correctly, such as the commenter above points out. The frequent capitilization of the name is an attempt by users of the word to indicate that they dont merely mean "our scene" in the "art scene / music scene / etc" sense, but instead that it is a specific name that has arisen. Think of it as naming a new religion "church/the church/The Church" or "religion/the religion/The Religion." This has the infuriating effect of making the use of the phrase annoyingly unclear (which I suspect people in the scene are quite happy with). Dxco 18:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no other scene. The music scene, the graffiti scene, the sculptures scene, etc, are all generalizations of the kinds of lifes people live or generalizations about a hobby/job. THE Scene, is what this article is about.

No, I agree with the people who mention disambiguation. Wikipedia is a global effort, and 'The Scene' even in capitals evokes all kinds of things for different people. It can be general shorthand for many kinds of scenes, and having no disambiguation page is taking wikipedia further away from the public. The slant on this site makes sense; of course people who are deep into computing subcultures are also the ones most likely to be contributing to a digital encyclopedia, but you should keep in mind Wikipedia's philosophy and aims. Most who benefit from this resource either have no clue about or aren't much interested in The Scene of this article. It is apparently worthy of a page, and the phenomenon has a name that isn't going anywhere, but do you really think the term isn't "particular and distinct" for other reasons in most people's minds? R.Tempest 07:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The term requires both definition and disambiguation. The term should be defined as an idiom rather than a proper noun. "The Scene" in a musical context is usually used to describe a specific genre, like "the jazz scene" or "the punk scene", and refers to the social and professional community that supports the musical genre. For example, the punk scene is made up of people, record companies, parties, nightclubs, magazines, photographers, artists, and musicians. The software trading scene (or bootlegging as some called it) is made up of people, file servers, search engines, sharing software, and other things organized in a various ways. Both scenes refer to themselves as "The Scene"; people will say things like, "she's really working hard to make the scene," or "I'm spending a lot of time maintaining my reputation in the scene." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.245.192.47 (talk) 06:22, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Your examples support not having a disambiguation page. In what scene is the girl on the make? The porn scene? The tennis scene? That comment has no meaning without context. If I ask someone, "How is the scene around here?" will they think I am talking about the punk rock scene? The swinger scene? A person searching for information on a particular scene, say, the French film scene, will not search for "the scene" on Wikipedia. Many people want to know what the scene is and search for it by that name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.134.34.208 (talk) 10:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ANTIP2P

If they ban anyone who leaks a release why does every single tvshow/film/album/software, that anyone cares about, make it to regular P2P networks? Surely all leakers would have been banned by now? Maybe someone can clear this up. --84.67.30.155 15:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Simply put, the idiot who wrote this wikipedia article does not know shit. Everything is leaked. It ends up on torrent sites. FxP boards. DC++. It spreads like wild fire. --216.59.246.148 20:40, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I think a more important question is: is there an insistence on internal releases only or is leaking to the outside world punished somehow? NeoThe1 05:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Philosophy of the Scene

Can someone write a little about the philosophy of the scene? For example, what is the point of piracy if it is not (in theory) supposed to get out to the public? Private use by members of the scene? Could someone please clarify this sort of thing and/or drop me a note on my talk page, please? NeoThe1 05:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Point of scene is competition. You can get something done, before anyone else does it. Wether it's releasing new software, movie, cd or just racing releases by others from server to server more often and faster than anyone else.

Point of scene is respect. You gain it, when you release something first that works and follows defined guidelines, or you are simply faster than anyone else and win every race you take part in.

Point of scene is support. Offer what you have to those whom you know to share what they have in return. If everyone else is really caring and sharing to everyone else, why is there famine in world? Why aren't everyone feeling safe at home? World is a bad place, you just have to grab what you can, and keep it hidden. Don't leave it out in the open to be stolen.

Point of scene is getting stuff early. You're not sharing your data or wasting your time for nothing. The credit system gives you access to something that no-one else has yet access to. Scene is worldwide, and companies lack the capability to release material globally. Scene can release material globally to its members.

Point of scene is security. You can safely transfer data from place a to place b without fear of damage to material while transport or material mystically vanishing from the load. You can also increase security by imposing friend of a friend rule. If you know and trust everyone involved, there are no unknown security risks, but it's still better to hide from where you are connecting from/to.

Point of scene is paranoia. You always fear the worst that could happen, and have accepted that it can someday happen. This means you are prepared to face any consequences or just to avoid them by covering some/all of your tracks.

Some disagree about the use of word pirate. I'd suggest replacing it with term "unauthorized librarian", since most of the material would be available eventually from any public library.

These private ones just have them available much sooner than the ones down the street.

That's just how I see it. I hope that's any help.

S33k3r 22:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, S33k3r. Of course, it's nothing earth-shattering, but it still was very interesting to me. I particularly liked "unauthorized librarian"; I really like this idea of freedom of cultural information.

Here's one more question, if you are up to it: Who sets the rules for Scene releases? Some sort of shadowy figures at the very top? Is it different for every group, or is there some sort of super-policy that is understood by all? NeoThe1 05:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

The scene rule process is roughly described at Standard_(warez), but it's pretty vague, basically rules are defined by council.

First councils were formed during BBS era, and members were sysops and group leaders.

0day standard dates back to that era and is still used today affecting the form in which 0day is being distributed.

The groups often follow evolution of audio and videocodecs closely. Good place of reference would be hydrogenaudio forums.

These people aren't involved in scene, but they often compare new versions of codecs against other codecs and older revisions of same codec.

Councils today are formed usually by members from different involved groups. If they come across something revolutionary(things like mp3 or vbr encoding) members from different groups, which release that type of material are asked to join in the draft process.

This council (maybe 10-20 people) then creates a draft for a new standard. This draft is then reviewed by other members of the groups and any suggestions are considered and possibly parts are added or removed from the draft.

Once the draft appears to be in order, groups sign it, and release it as new standard. From that day(roughly 2 weeks transition period), all new material should be released under the new standard.

Sometimes these standards are disputed and someone writes rebuttal against them, listing reasons why the new standard is bad/invalid/incomplete. This often means reverting back to the previous standard.

Compatibility is often an issue when choosing new standards. The resulting file should work in as many system as possible, including standalone devices such as xvid capable dvd players.

S33k3r 12:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's the motive?

Why do these bright kids risk 5-15 years in prison? Do they make money or something? They risk their lives just so they can see a movie a few months before everyone else? (Bjorn Tipling 07:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC))

a) No, they don't make money off it.

b) It's the prestige of the endeavour, plus it's the fact they're sticking it to the man, would would like to sell them a bunch of shitty content at a set rate.

c) Media piracy assures that media producers are held accountable to continuing to make high-quality content: when the quality drops, they should go out of business immediately. Warezing assures this goal.NeoThe1 07:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

On point 'b', why is prestige worth risking prison time? I could think the talent displayed by 'scene' people would be prestigious no matter how it is employed. I think more information on this would be useful, as it is so unique and risky. Are there any decent books about the 'scene' that go into its culture? On point 'c', I have to say this seems like pure speculation. I would like to see evidence that warez activity has influenced content production. Thanks for the information though, very interesting. (Bjorn Tipling 18:01, 9 June 2006 (UTC))

What prison time? Most nations don't see copyright infringment such important issue that it should warrant penalty of imprisonment.

Worst getting caught scenario would be millions of dollars in fines. And unpaid fines expire if you are unable to pay them, or you can file personal bankrupt.

Throwing people in prison doesn't solve anything. Hell, if I was in prison, I'd live better off than I do right now and jails arent like the ones described in OZ etc. Atleast not here.

One pro-warez argument which isn't listed on the warez article is unemployment.

If you have person with skill levels of an engineer sitting idle for extended periods of time, they need something to do during their spare time.

Some code open source projects, some do warez.

Unemployment isn't probably listed because it's not definite reason. You can be in The Scene and still be employed like any other person.

Perhaps good example why piracy exists is a movie called Tarnation. Total manufacturing costs for this movie were $218 dollars. Yet licensing took the budget over $400 000.

Shortly put, media companies are just too damn greedy when comparing quality of material they produce to the price.

For those who don't want to pirate stuff, theres luckily internet.

It's full of material licensed under creative commons which you can download and listen/watch/burn for free.

S33k3r 21:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

"These bright kids" see no motivation in gaining money. The Scene, despite all that is written here, is no american invention of digital organized crime, it is a global community of creative programmers who are really good at what they do. They can outsmart the game and protection makers any time, so they do. Who cares if it's illegal when you are the moral victor? That is the motivation driving all the segments of The Scene and that is what made it what it evolved to be. --89.212.75.6 21:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

They're simply sharing value with their friends! It starts in the same way as you might invite friends around to watch a new DVD, and grows when you want to see DVDs from other people's collections too. No one sets out to rip-off media companies... 153.111.226.201 02:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Morals is certainly not the reason its done. The scene is all about the race and showing off skills, and sharing with the rest of the sceners and nothing else. Some generalizing isnt a good idea, a lot of people in the scene do make money out of it.

(Many years ago, when I young and pirating software, it was because the warez were expensive, I had little money, and lots of software sucked. Today, as an adult, I download and share some TV shows, because I do not own a TV.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.245.192.47 (talk) 06:31, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Complete info

Here is an external link with a lot of info about the scene.. maybe it can be added to external links: http://www.aboutthescene.com/

Correction Contrary to popular belief The Scene does distribute to p2p networks should be "Contrary to popular belief The Scene does NOT distribute to p2p networks" --65.12.196.204 22:03, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mixing apples and oranges

1. What's up with the whole warez stuff? -- The scene is not all that much about warez as this article makes it to be. While modern groups do form by wanabes who distribute warez, the original Scene had nothing to do with it. Saying The Scene was all about warez is like saying dynamite is all about terrorists... e.g. It's Simply Modern Misuse. ... as is evident from the unclear relationship between the evolution of the demoscene from the Scene and all these anti-warez arrests taking place.

2. EFNET = The Scene?! What the... -- The Scene if anything is not limited to any one network nor does the majority of it belong to a specific network. Yes, EFNet is a technical network where you do have a fair chance of meeting a member of The Scene (asif there was an explicit defenition of such a person), the community is made of People and is not bound to any particular Internet protocol, much less IRC ... as is obvious from the unclear transition between BBSes around the world and a relatively young Internet IRC network like EFNet.

3. Distribution -- If we're talking about crack&keygen-makers, let the one most important thing be perfectly clear: They DO NOT distribute what they make. Period. If you ever see a group out there working on distributing the stuff, know that they're wannabees who rip other people's work and distribute it online as their own. The respect for authorship of software/artwork of individual groups has always been a core element of the rules in all aspects and varieties of The Scene.

4. Demoscene & Abandonware -- Obvious inconsistency. Demoscene is about creating compact digital artpieces, abandonware is about distributing old software, would somebody please explain to me in who's wild fantasy could these two things branch off the same thing? The entire text under that subsection isn't even making sense: What exactly are "cracked executables" supposed to be.

I recall that the demo scene really took off after the Amiga's "bouncing ball" demo. Until that time, moving many bytes around on the screen caused a lot of flickering, and the Amiga demo didn't flicker. People were inspired. (It wasn't the first demo, though. There was a cool multicolor Atari logo demo.) What really made the demos take off were the improved graphics capabilities of the Amiga and Atari ST computers - before them, video games really pushed the limits of the hardware, but by the late 80s, the systems were powerful enough that fewer and fewer games required the programmers to really squeeze performance. Demos emerged because programmers focusing on performance, could produce artwork that surpassed video games' multimedia. Additionally, demos usually involved collaboration between programmers, musicians, and artists.66.245.192.47 (talk) 06:43, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

5. Credits & megabytes -- The whole point of making software or art in The Scene is in making it as small and compact as possible (this is why most of the cracks and keygens out there use runtime compression)... it's an artform of it's own to make a compact piece of software. Why in the world would therefore credits (being tokens of credit) be counted in megabytes? Razor 1911 wouldn't earn half a credit in all of history, by this logic! Also: Topsite networks aren't torrent nets, hence no accounts to store credits in.

Obviously whoever wrote this stuff didn't have half a clue about what he or she was writing about. This article desperately requires a rewrite and I intend to do one ASAP. Place your objections here. --DustWolf 16:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

There all done. Please somebody correct my spelling. --DustWolf 19:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this article that it has no references at all. If it had at least some, then we could regard this article as something other than one person's opinion or conception. Mstuomel 12:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

One problem: How exactly does one cite references in the describtion of a community that makes a point on not providing them? --89.212.75.6 17:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Various well known news sites have atleast mentioned the demoscene and the warez scene. There's been TV documentaries, magazine articles etc. Finding them from the Internet is unlikely. What you can find in English and on the net are for example Slashdot news and press releases and documents released by the agencies that have done busts related to warez scene in the past. There's been statements taken from busted people that might contain something referenceable, finding these might prove challenging though as it was many years ago I saw these. Place to start digging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Copyright_enforcement —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.93.183 (talk) 02:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Should I specifically mention there is no explict connection between warez and the Scene community? Anyway, I'll look for something sometime I guess. --89.212.75.6 17:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No rules?

"The scene has no central leadership, location, ruleset, or other conventional distinguishing marks of existence" Uh, I see a whole lot of rules in the piracy scene. The demand of releases in BIN/CUE format rather than ISO, splitting releases into 15 or 50 MB Rar archives, .nfo content descriptors, and a number of other clearly set rules of release and habit that failure to obey will result in ostracizing by the rest of the scene and the release marked as "nuked" on most websites and sources of releases. Saying the software scene lacks rulesets or distinguishing marks isn't really correct, wouldn't you say? 71.175.122.95 (talk) 08:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

There is more to the scene than piracy... as you might have noticed if you ever read the article. While your favorite warez site may have admins, The Scene, the abstract notion that it is, does not. --194.249.198.32 (talk) 19:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The rules are not very abstract at all -- see Standard (warez). If you want to say that there are no rules for membership, that is different than saying there are "no rules". Besides, while the Scene itself might not have rules for membership, most of the groups in the Scene do. But that's also a different matter. Ham Pastrami (talk) 11:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move