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For other meanings, see Scene (disambiguation).

The Scene is a term used to refer to a collection of communities of pirate networks that obtain and copy new movies, music, and games, often before their public release, and distribute them throughout the Internet (and previously through BBSes). Each specific subsection within The Scene has its own community and rules governing releases, and are made up of many smaller groups. These communities are referred to as scenes as well, for example the MP3 Scene, the DVDR Scene, etc. Groups gather in private and IRC channels where they can easily coordinate with other members to "pre" and distribute releases. EFNet, a popular IRC network, is where most scene activity takes place today, although DALnet was also once used. This has been the case for ten years.

Contents 1 History 2 Subsections 2.1 MP3 Scene 2.2 Demoscene 3 Distribution 4 See also 5 External links

The Scene started emerging in 1980s on privately run BBS systems. The first BBSes were located in the USA, but similar boards started appearing in Australia and Europe. The BBSes advertised their dial-in numbers openly in group nfo's or semi-hidden, so that anyone interested had to use a war dialer to actually find the real number of the BBS box. The BBS systems typically hosted several megabytes of material. The best boards had multiple phone lines and up to one hundred megabytes of storage space, which was very expensive at the time. Releases were mostly games and later applications.

The Scene didn't work with a fixed ruleset, they assumed that end-users would know what they were getting either based on the release name or nfo.

On December 11, 2001, Operation Buccaneer occurred and changed the scene drastically. Law enforcement agencies from six countries arrested 62 people suspected of software piracy. In the United States alone, 130 computers, holding an average of one terabyte of data apiece, were seized. After these raids occurred, piracy groups congregating on EFNet began guarding their channels by requiring a password, or "key," for entry. They also put their channels in "secret" mode, effectively making them invisible to anybody that is not inside them. People operating servers holding pirated data began taking security much more seriously. Almost overnight, registered users were required to log in from a specific ip address. Similar raids have followed since Operation Buccaneer, and paranoia has gripped the scene as a result.

Talented coders who cracked games often included 4 or 64 kilobytes long cracktro to express their skills as a coder, artist or a musican.

The demoscene grew especially strong in Scandinavia, where annual gatherings are hosted even today. Warez distribution played only a minor role during the modem/BBS era since the transfer speeds were extremely slow.

MP3 releases began appearing in the mid-90s. By 1999, MP3 groups had implemented a formal set of rules and guidelines for the ripping and packaging of MP3 releases. Releases were required to come from a CDDA source, be encoded at 160 kbit/s, have proper filenames and directory structure, and include a playlist, an SFV file and an NFO file. In recent years this rule has been amended, allowing the source to be from DVD (including DVD-A) or VHS, live recording, vinyl, or tape, and stipulating that all MP3 files must be encoded with LAME, using the APS (alt-preset standard) variable bitrate setting. In 2004, a rule was added that all non-retail releases be tagged as bootleg.

During the 1980s what is now known as the demoscene began to branch off from the warez scene. Sometime in the late 1990s there was also the branching off of the abandonware scene. Today, PC gaming groups such as RELOADED, DEViANCE and recently Razor 1911 still place what sometimes look like Commodore 64 cracktros alongside their cracks on the ISOs. Unlike the original cracktros, these are separate executables and do not run with the cracked executables.

Members involved in the scene are generally well-organized in their behavior and cautious with their identity. They maintain a private network of FTP sites called topsites that get new releases first. Releases are distributed from topsites down to smaller and smaller sites, and eventually may find their way onto peer-to-peer networks.

Users who distribute releases are called couriers and must earn credits by uploading files from other topsites. Credits, usually counted in megabytes, allow a user to download files. For example, many sites allow a user to download 3 megabytes for every megabyte uploaded. A credit balance is persisted with each user's account.

Releases containing problems (for example, poor quality, duplicates, etc.) are nuked; a permanent mark is placed on a release, and the user responsible for uploading it is fined credits. It should be noted that competition amongst courier and release groups is the primary driving force behind the distribution of releases.

• Artscene
• Demoscene
• Ebook scene
• Warez
• Standard (warez)

• Welcome to the Scene - A fictional series about The Scene.
• The Shadow Internet
• The Scene Exposed