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From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Call these BBS
Message-ID: <25111@usc.edu>
Date: 5 Jun 90 03:42:03 GMT
References: <12186@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Sender: news@usc.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
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In article <12186@shlump.nac.dec.com> j_manning@csc32.enet.dec.com (John Manning) writes:
|I don't know why so many people think the "secret service" or FBI are the least
|bit interested in pirate boards.  They don't give a flip about pirate boards.
|You have never read about a purely pirate board getting shut down by any legal
|agency.  The only boards that get in trouble are the ones that post credit card/
|calling card numbers or other types of illegal information such as how to break
|into government systems and what not.  Piracy is not considered enough of a 
|crime in and of itself to interest federal agencies.  You may occasionally hear
|of Lotus/Microsoft/Ashton Tate or some other large software house threatening
|to sue the sysop of a pirate board but that is all.

I guess you're not up to the latest info. The FBI "used" not to care about 
such things as pirate boards. That has changed quite a lot during the past 
couple of years, partly because the SPA (The Software Publishers Association),
which is mostly made up of big guns like Lotus, etc... has set up a toll free
number where *anonymously* one can report telephone numbers of pirate BBSs.
I can assure you that pirate sysops have gone to jail because of it, and had
all their computer equipment confiscated for good.  Something I personally
highly applaud.

-- Marco
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"Xerox sues somebody for copying?" -- David Letterman
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