I was checking a few links that went to our site and found one called iSONews (http://www.isonews.com/)

Our new game RotaDim was listed there along with a lot of other games. Alongside the title is a text file. I clicked on it and a load of information popped up on the screen. The first section said -

iSONEWS removes serial and keys from NFO files.
The serial/key listed here will NOT work with the release

Then there was all our info about our game along with a load of other text. I had a look around the site and in the forums a lot of them are talking about copying games etc. Funnily enough if you click on 'Releases' on the top menu bar there is a link to 'Rip Games'.

I did a search from the 'Misc' menu and managed to find Fitznik, Aargon Deluxe and a few others.

Is this something to be worried about??
The text above does say "The serial/key listed here will NOT work with the release" - so why list it anyway!?!

Anyway, thought I'd let everyone here know - unless of course everyone knew about it already!!

You know, I'm not really sure what that site is. It looks like all I could find are the nfo files. If you don't know, nfo files are usually text files that are contained in a zip file alone with a crack or keygen. Sometimes they contain a serial number, but usually they are just descriptive text of the exe they are with.

I did a quick look and saw the nfo file for the Arcade Lines crack. Oddly, enough, in the middle of the file is says:

"bloody addicting game! for christ sakes! buy the damn thing!! its only $15. you cheap bastards! ;)"

I thought that was ironically delicious.

I'm not really sure what to do about this site (if anything). My gut tells me somehow they are distributing something, but I'm just not sure how. You could try the standard route...notify their ISP and get them shut down. On the one hand, it doesn't seem like there is much to go on, but if you look I'm sure at least one of the nfo files has to have a serial number in it. That might be enough to convince the ISP to shut it down. They deal with these type of sites all the time, so they might not even take more than a quick glance at the site before closing it.

However, the flip side of this is that they might be a perfectly legit site. I didn't find anything strictly illegal, just warning signs that set off a few alarms for me. By the looks of their forums, it seems they have quite a big community going on there. If it were to be wrongfully shut down, that would be a shame.

I'll have to take a better look at that site when I get a little more time.

I don’t know, they look legit to me. If you go to their forums the admins are really upset about people trying to use their site to acquire warez, so much so that they ban anyone posting in a thread requesting file names so they can go eDonkey them.

ISONews (and a number of other similar sites) tracks releases from various groups who release pirated software(warez). It's basically a website that people use to see what has been released and just generally keep up with things. On the flip side, authorities and copy protection companies use it to track who's doing what, what's working, and what's not working. For example, I had a conversation with a LaserLoc (they make copy protection) employee at E3 a couple years ago and he mentioned ISONews a number of times. If you look at the NFO for a particular program you'll notice that they usually list the copy protection present.

Anyway, ISONews is a pretty major site that does an extreme amount of traffic. On an old website I ran I did an interview with a guy who made PS2 mod chips and we got about 10x's as much traffic being linked in the ISONews forums as we did from getting linked at VoodooExtreme, Blues News, and GamingGroove combined. Overall they're fairly despised. Publishers and developers don't like them because of the information they carry(which is legal, Sega tried to bring them to court a couple years ago), and the cracking groups don't like them much because of all the attention they bring to their releases.

All in all I don't think I would worry too much about it. Someone seeing your game in the release list is not going to show them how to get it, they would have to know that already. The possible upshot to it is that some people might actually find out about your game. I keep track of things on the website for story ideas (their forums are a fascinating insight into the underground culture), and their game listings are a good way to find out about games you may have never heard of (I found out about Crumby & Co. through their release list).

Originally posted by Dan MacDonald
I dont know, they look legit to me. If you go to their forums the admins are really upset about people tring to use their site to accuire warez, so much so that they ban anyone posting in a thread requesting file names so they can go eDonkey them.

They used to have a lot of issues with that. People would request information on what IRC channels, newsgroups, or websites they could get free software in then the lawyers would come knocking.

They're about as legit as a magazine like High Times is. While they're not doing anything illegal, they help to serve and promote the community they cater to.

Hey remember this isonews site? check it out now...


http://www.isonews.com (http://www.isonews.com/)

taken from gamedaily.com...

DOJ Cites Copyright Piracy, Seizes Site [2/26/2003
5:18:49 PM ET]
More videogame piracy news today courtesy of the U.S. Justice Department, which has seized an Internet website that sold mod chips for Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox.
The website in question (www.isonews), was operated by 22 year-old David Rocci, who agreed to the take over of his website as part of a guilty plea. For a two month period in 2002, Rocca sold 450 Enigmah Mod Chips in the U.S. through his website. The chips allowed Xbox owners to play illegally obtained game software on the system.
According to the U.S. government, IsoNews was also “providing information about copyright infringement and piracy, and included pages with news on the illegal warez scene, discussion forums on piracy, and up-to-date listings of all of the latest pirated products that were available.”
The site had over 100,000 users and garnered more than 140,000 hits a day.
Rocci now faces up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $500,000 as a result of being in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. His sentencing will take place on March 7.
Almost comically, Reuters reports that some Internet users can still access the site, since the domain name points to two different Internet addresses and the government controls only one of them. Users who access the government-controlled site will see a proclamation explaining that the site is now the property of the U.S. government



22 yrs old and a potential $500,000, thats tough!

<edit> in reading the description of the law, it appears as if its 500k per instance of copyright violation. Hope that's not per modchip or he's gonna really be hurtin.

22 yrs old and a potential $500,000, that tough!


What a shame... ;)

Seriously, iSONEWS is about as harmless as can be these days. If you guys are worried about protecting your game from being copied or cracked, maybe you should go take a peek over at http://www.gamecopyworld.com or something that has actual info and tools that people use to warez games. Still almost all the cracks and patches on GCW require an installed version of the game (which usually requires a serial #, something not provided by GCW), so I guess that helps protect them legally.

I used to visit iSONEWS quite often when it first opened shop about 6 yrs ago. Back then they actually still had the serial #'s in the .nfo files (oops). I think that lasted all of about 10 months before they went and X'ed them all out. :)

- Air

Interesting - just saw this on CNN's site: Feds take over bootleg game, movie site (http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/02/27/industry.copyright.reut/index.html). Seems isonews.com made the wrong people angry!

"Rocci [owner of isonews.com] faces a prison sentence of up to five years and fines up to $500,000 at his sentencing on March 7, the government said. The Customs Service and the Justice Department launched a wide-ranging investigation into Internet piracy in 2001, resulting in 17 felony convictions and sentences that range from probation to nearly 4 years in prison."

Yeah I think in this case the wrong people would be Microsoft. I wonder if they made a sizable political donation and called in the favour? I doubt anything would happen if the people being ripped off were small time developers. Perhaps I'm being too cynical?

The site is still around, I guess only the domain name was hijacked. Slashdot has a thread on it.

Warez will always be around. The same thing that lets freelancers sell their games on the web without big corporations lets pirates distribute cracks to the world.

Originally posted by Davaris
Yeah I think in this case the wrong people would be Microsoft. I wonder if they made a sizable political donation and called in the favour? I doubt anything would happen if the people being ripped off were small time developers. Perhaps I'm being too cynical? I agree. People have been selling modchips online for sega and sony systems for years. While I know there have been a few crackdowns on some of those people, they were the direct result of legal actions filed by Sony, and not interventions of our US Gov't.

But clearly when Microsoft's XBOX in involved along with a MS-friendly republican gov't in power, modchippers have reason to be wary.