MikroBitti 4/1990, p. 69
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Software Pirates' Paradise

Niko Palosuo

** Young computer hobbyists in West and East Germany take ruthless advantage of East Europe's political changes. They copy computer software like there's no tomorrow.

Thilo Geisler, a youth worker from West Berlin tells about his first touching visit to an East Berlin hobbyist club: "I hardly believed there was still something like that, I felt like I had gone five years back in time." In the cramped cellar Geisler, an enthusiastic micro pioneer himself, had met several small groups that were casually copying piles of floppies. "They were copying Western stuff with a bang!"

In the middle of it all Geisler also met a few Western clients hard at work. They were perfectly aware that there is no sofware copyright legislation in East Germany. In 1979 a court in Leipzig made a policy decision, according to which in the DDR software programs are not subject to copyright as scientific or creative works. Thus, there is effectively nothing you can do to stop illegal copying.

As the iron curtain is breaking down, West German software pirates are increasingly moving their operations to East Germany. There they are safe from West German prosecutors.

Representatives of the software industry are worried and try to hurry modifications to West German copyright legislation. The situation is undoubtedly catastrophic to the federation of German software developers. Werner Paul from Bayer bureau of investigation pessimistically predicts that companies specializing in illegal copying are being founded in East Germany.

To get started you need just a little capital, a used Commodore 64 floppy drive costs about 350 marks in the West. The C-64 is currently the most popular microcomputer in the DDR. On Western computer magazines' marketplaces East German messages have become a staple (Who could help - preferably for free?), with regard to old Western microcomputers. Empty floppies cost about 1.20 marks each at Western supermarkets, whereas genuine software costs 50-250 marks. Copying programs is a simple process.

In West Germany and West Berlin, the pirates that got caught have been given notable sentences ranging from fines to even jail in extreme cases since 1985. That's enough of a reason for the West German computer youth to move their sport to the Eastern comrades' turf.

Pirates enjoy a newfound feeling of legality at their DDR copy events, particularly in East Berlin. "Supreme" is the first product of German-German collaboration, who utilizes its good connections and provides a large selection of software to East Germans - freshly copied from the United States. Supreme consists of eleven West Berliners who go with the name Shut and four East Berliners who form the group Marcelli. Copying usually takes place on a single computer that churns out approximately 10 floppies per hour, with help from appropriately German Radeberger Pils and Kaulsdorfer Kräuterlikör.

East German demand for cheap copies is almost endless. Games with plenty of shooting are particularly popular.