See also: People And Personae | Cracker | Warez | Piracy
AKA: Warez Kiddie
One who illegally distributes warez – cracked commercial software – on a large scale. Many Real Hackers consider warez dudes to be lamers, calling them “Warez Kiddies,” but for many users, warez dudes have helped stock hard disks with games and utilities they would otherwise never have purchased.
Also excellent researchers, users seeking a hard-to-find software, song, or digital item might call upon a Warez Dude.
Warez Dudes and the Industry
Software companies have gradually increased the price of software over time both in response to wide-scale piracy, which has taken software out of the reach of low-income computer users and students. As a result, a given Warez Dude often has a certain small amount of power, knowing where to get needed software that is also not Virus-infected, as are the case occasionally on file sharing networks and also the full, registered version.
In legitimate organizations, this increase in the cost of software has been a boon to the Free Software movement (such as Linux), helping to increase their user base. While software companies often donate to charitable organizations and students, or present special offers to non-commercial use of their software,
Warez Dudes are often related to the demoscene. Many of the groups released warez, mods and demos.
Famous warez groups
- The Dream Team (TDT)
- Razor 1911
- Phrozen Crew
- Radium
- Fairlight (FLT)
Related
- EUDAH – a more extreme form of the Warez Dude
TakeDown.NET -> “Warez-Dude”