Centropy

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Centropy stylized ASCII art .NFO header by gf.

Centropy, founded in January 1999, was a warez group which specialized in the piracy of films. Touting many "0-day" and "negative day" releases, Centropy has released and pre-released numerous films. They primarily release DVD-Rips, Telesyncs and Screeners. They've added logos for bragging rights to their releases.[1]

Centropy was a target of Operation Site Down, a major raid conducted by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies on June 29, 2005.[2][3] Centropy responded to this with the inclusion of the following note in their release of Herbie: Fully Loaded:

“ Hey you stupid bitches FBI you FORGOT ME !!! And don't think I'll make it easy on you to catch me :D ”

There have been notices on the internet that the group apparently got caught in Wageningen, Netherlands.[4]

In 2002, the group has been quoted as "going internal".[5][6] Meaning that any future releases they make won't be propagated throughout the internet. Instead they will be limited to close affiliates of the group.[7]

Several years after Operation Site Down, Wicked1, otherwise known as Matthew Thompson, a former member of Centropy, is writing a book on the warez scene at the time. [8]

References

  1. ↑ Ripley, Amanda; Philadelphia, Desa; Forney, Matthew; Horn, Robert; Huang, Joyce; Quinn-Judge, Paul; Rajan, Sara; Rosenberg, Grant (2004-01-26). "Hollywood Robbery: How does a hit movie go from the free market to the black market? TIME retraces the trail.". Time 163 (4): p56–60. "Renegade release groups convert the film into a computer file and may also black out studio identifiers. The groups, such as Centropy or OBUS, then make the movies available online after adding their own special logos for bragging rights" 
  2. ↑ "#353: 06-30-05 JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES INTERNATIONAL INTERNET PIRACY SWEEP". Archived from the original on 2011-05-30. 
  3. ↑ "Justice Department Conducts International Internet Piracy Sweep". Computer & Internet Lawyer 22 (9): p34–35. September 2005. ISSN 1531-4944. 
  4. ↑ "Warez groep Centropy" [Warez group Centropy] (in Dutch). 2005-07-02. Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. 
  5. ↑ "Centropy going INTERNAL". DSLReports. 2002-05-31. 
  6. ↑ "SVCD Undercover Brother: General Discussion". Vcdq.com. 2002-01-06. 
  7. ↑ "VCDQuality Terms Key". VCDQuality.com. Archived from the original on 2004-12-08. "Earlier in the year people referred to Centropy going "internal". This meant the group were only releasing the movies to their members and site ops. This is in a different context to the usual definition." 
  8. ↑ enigmax (2012-05-26). "I Was a Member of Centropy, The World’s Leading Movie Piracy Group". TorrentFreak. 
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