{"id":902,"date":"2015-12-01T02:11:21","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T02:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/?p=902"},"modified":"2025-11-09T00:21:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T00:21:32","slug":"martyradwars-house-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/?p=902","title":{"rendered":"Marty\/Radwar’s House Search"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s hard for contemporary demosceners<\/abbr> to imagine, but back in the 1980s, when much of the scene<\/abbr>‘s activity evolved around pirated games, and the separation between “illegal” and “legal” scenes was far from complete,<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> sceners<\/abbr> were always conscious of the potential for unwanted contact with the police – at least in countries like Germany, where software pirates became a target for law enforcement as early as in the mid-1980s. Even those who defined themselves as “legal guys” were not completely safe from an unpleasant encounter with the police: Copyparties<\/abbr>, potential targets for police raids, were attended by demo<\/abbr> coders just as much as by crackers and swappers<\/abbr>; a contact address of a musician or an intro<\/abbr> programmer in a scrolltext could be easily mistaken by law enforcement for that of a “dangerous” pirate; and, after all, who didn’t own at least a few cracked games? Nearly everyone knew someone who was “busted” but, of course, every scener<\/abbr> was convinced that they would not be the next. As an Amiga<\/abbr> BBS<\/abbr> veteran put it recently: “It was like being on the surface of the Moon: Sometimes a meteorid strikes here and there, but one still feels safe.”<\/em><\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Some sceners managed to stay “unbusted” during their whole career, even while being knee-deep in the “illegal business” – but many didn’t.<\/p>\n

Since proceedings in the 1980s against alleged and real software pirates took place in a very recent past, it’s not really possible to explore the events from the perspective of law enforcement through archival work. However, some veterans kept the documents that were handed to them in the course of investigations. We are highly indebted to Marty <\/strong>of the (in)famous C64<\/abbr> cracking<\/abbr> group Radwar Enterprises 1941<\/em> for providing us with documents from the investigation against him in late 1989.<\/p>\n