Talk:The Scene

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article should lead to a disambiguation page, the term "The Scene" is used for every single interest group and not this computer-related one in particular. Someone please change it. 81.206.86.123 10:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

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...

HISTORY SECTION IS TOTALLY WRONG ... fuckings to that article writer!

SVCD Scene Rules

---

- 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 but there are other scenes as well...? 2 ANTIP2P 3 The Philosophy of the Scene 4 What's the motive? 5 Complete info

[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.

[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.

[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)