I've seen a few throughout my life at friend's houses as a kid during the age of Limewire. Typically they were pretty good quality even though you'd see the odd person get up from their seat or hardcoded subtitles. Lately I've been curious about the history behind them and how they came to be.

Have there been well known release groups similar to the game cracking scene?

Have they always been mostly from one region?

Are they released strategically for one reason or another?

Have there been hidden methods to bust groups after a release such as steganography?

I'd be down to hear any facts about it you find interesting, stories, and if you have any articles or videos about the subject.

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[–] FartSmarter@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hijacking to pose another legacy piracy question. My dad would often buy pirated DVDs at the barbershop. You know, with the sharpeid title on the disk. Occasionally we would get a DVD with an unfinished movie in it. It would often have a watermark saying something like “Property of Universal “ and some scenes, especially CG heavy ones, would be incomplete. I assume these were leaked from editing houses or the sort but is this a type of release that’s seen in modern pirating?

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Those were from test screenings. From a group screening, or from copies that were sent to people.

The For Your Consideration copies that you'd see sometimes are from copies sent to things like the academy awards and Oscars