You're Stealing it Wrong: 30 Years of Inter-Pirate Battles

Computer historian Jason Scott recently gave a talk at Defcon 18 about the history of software piracy. Now, you wouldn't normally sit down to think about software piracy, but Scott has, and managed to put together an hour-long presentation on the subject. It's well worth a look, and not just for computer nerds -- Scott starts with some digital ephemera (including the previously linked 1929 LOL Cat and Chicago Gang Business Cards), then sets into the core of his talk on the history of piracy, the history of anti-piracy, and battles amongst the pirate groups. Have you ever pirated a piece of software? Are you interested in history? Are you cool with hearing a few f-bombs? Okay, then this talk is for you. Here's Scott's description of the talk:

Historian Jason Scott walks through the many-years story of software piracy and touches on the tired debates before going into a completely different direction - the interesting, informative, hilarious and occasionally obscene world of inter-pirate-group battles. A multi-media extravaganza of threats, CSI-level accusations and evidence trails, decades of insider lingo, and demonstrations of how the more things change, the more they still have to keep their ratios up.

Warning: brief nudity at one point late in the video. But I guarantee that if you've watched the talk for long enough to see the single nude frame, you won't be bothered by it.

You're Stealing it Wrong: 30 Years of Inter-Pirate Battles from Jason Scott on Vimeo.

(Via Waxy.org.)