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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Gravenreuth
What exactly did this man do as a lawyer ?
Any clue why he shot himself ?
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Mason
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 459 |
The same stuff as in the 80s - lawyer with speciality in copyright.
He got his previliges taken as lawyer after he got 14 months of prison because of fraud. |
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Jon
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2005
Posts: 247 |
Could someone clue us non-Germans in as to why this guy seems to be considered such a villain? What is his connection to the C64 scene? I ran a translator over his Wiki page and that news report, but I am still in the dark over who and what this guy was.
J |
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Mason
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 459 |
He was the guy who busted several sceners in Germany in the 80s and 90s. Most famous for the Tanja letters where he asked to swap and if people responded they were busted |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11108 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCxz-V-WYTI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6nTR148JfE |
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Marauder/GSS
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 224 |
According to Steffen Wernery, one of the founders of Chaos Computer Club, he committed suicide due to financial problems, the 14 months of jail he had to go, the possible cancer, relationship problems and the lost of his "social environment"... |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11108 |
or in other words: life fucked him from behind with a strap on.
finally.
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Marauder/GSS
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 224 |
yep... maybe conscience-stricken... :P |
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Count Zero
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1821 |
Non germans might like the trivia:
Gravenreuth was one of the very first (early 1986 I assume) lawyers in germany messing(*) with copyright issues on a large scale and even sent letters (of course no disks) to potential swappers and ask them for game copies. Adding girlie pictures and letters making answers more likely - which of course led to a notice you had to sign and pay for the efforts. If you refused you'd be taken to court. Something many will never forget are the luring wrong letters in the first place though.
In his "career" he was a true scener indeed and attended several parties though he didnt release much.
C64, Amiga, PC and net community - to me it seems he just left out consoles.
* messing = getting doubtful laws apply to early copyright infringements, have it fixed by a smaller courts (references) and such - when these issues were so new mostly that very early laws just didnt apply or were insufficient
And my personal opinion if anybody cares: rot in hell, bastard! Even catholics can hardly speak against that since suicide is a sin. :)
He let the cops bust my board 17 years ago and ever since I had to resist from making illegal backups of software just to stay clean. Busted for Amiga AGA *Patches* - pffff!
No - he didnt get any money from me but the defending lawyer got a little.
l8r
Count Zero/CyberpunX/SCS*TRC |
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iopop
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 317 |
Count Zero: Thanx for the 64'er scans.
Quite impressive and scary that he continued with the 'tanja' letters on the c64 in 94, even after 64'er had a large article series about him in 93.
Two dutch articles covering that "holland-connection"
http://www.trouw.nl/krantenarchief/1994/07/23/2642540/_Nou_doei..
http://www.trouw.nl/krantenarchief/1994/08/11/2645659/Duitse_co.. |
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Marauder/GSS
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 224 |
ha, never saw this Kill Guenni before... must be 90's or?
guess he was faster then... |
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The MeatBall
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 363 |
There's also the group Gravenreuth Abolishing Youth (Gravenreuth Abolishing Youth), that released Kill Gravenreuth back in 1989, so I gather Günni wasn't too popular in the scene :D |
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goto80
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 138 |
Eternal Fame for whoever puts English subtitles on the MWS-video! I wanna knoooow. Or. Eternal Glory for whoever dubs it :) |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11108 |
its really not that interisting as it looks like. basically its
mws: "crackers are cracking for fun and fame"
and
günni: "crackers are the source for warez and therefor evil"
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r242
Registered: Jul 2007
Posts: 90 |
Listen to the audience when Günni talks about having busted German Cracking Service. They are REALLY impressed ... haha |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11108 |
wasnt even one of them in the audience? |
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Stone
Registered: Oct 2006
Posts: 168 |
Thanks for the info in this thread, guys. I thought it curious that a man's suicide was applauded to such a degree. I tried looking around the 'net but my school-german is a lot rustier than I thought ;-) |
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Catweazle
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2021
Posts: 8 |
I also know a very talented coder/cracker who was punished hard by Günni and some smaller swappers in our town. He nearly destroyed a family with this act. He did not seem to have a soul being more like a demon than human.
At the old Radwar parties he was often invited and I also drank 1-2 times a beer chatting with him. He did not appear to be trustful or honest to me and was only driven by easy money without much work. A single letter without any "approval" usually led to at least 2000DM punishment with a signed "Unterlassungserklärung" adressed to the parents of those swappers. So he was especially aiming at <18 years old children.
He often gathered adresses by catching them with the help of a swapper hunter who himself called "Syndicus" (perhaps he was it personally? I´m not sure) contacting potential money sources for swapping requests. A positive feedback to be willing to swap alone was enough reason for him to send the mails. Sometimes he did not even had a personal contact.
On the other hand we (I and a friend) got in contact with some parents of swappers who were not willing to pay because of the "Jugendschutz" and he gave up rather quickly without any hard evidence. So the only thing you had to do to get out of it was usually not to pay and to insist on (often non-existant) approval.
Later he lost all of his mandats from the companies and was trying to get money from online companies who have some missing information or using special "expressions or trademarks" on their webpage where he claimed to get the rights on. This was the beginning of his end. In the end he was sued by several companies, lost and also had to go to jail for a while as I heard.
As much as I know he kept his promise not to collect adresses there to catch the people. At least I didn´t hear from my contacts that they became bigger problems with him afterwards. He also had my adress and he never showed up. On the other hand I heard everywhere that he has been very active throughout germany.
He also was near a heart attack after the football game and overall I don´t think he never was in a good healthy state - physical and mentally. It´s a wonder he still lived that long with this strain.
He was the most hated person in the scene and country wide known as a moneymaker without the right on his side. Perhaps he did not stand this anymore, he had more expenses than income and this led to his suicide? I don´t know. But I also noticed that he didn´t really felt well at the cracker meetings. |
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hedning
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 4595 |
(From Pirates #13.). |
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CreaMD
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 3034 |
We had dude in Slovakia using similar tactics. Ľudovít Wittek. He was founder of Ultra soft mostly producing for ZX Spectrum but also distributing for Ocean. Currently Louis Wittek. |
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Doc Snyder
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 8 |
Letter by Gravenreuth (ASM 02/1989):
https://www.kultpower.de/showpic.php3?backurl=asm_feedback.php3.. |
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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2062 |
<Post edited by TheRyk on 30/10-2021 00:04>
In RapidNews #20 you can read how some members of Black Bolt (which later became EX/GER) were trapped in early 90s by GvG papermag ads resulting in police raids resp. pre-emptively burying all disks in forests to hide them... almost unbelievable in retrospect but why should anyone invent such stories, as they are rather nothing to boast with. Good read, anyway! |
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Count Zero
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1821 |
For germans https://sauhun.de/gravenreuth.pdf |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1714 |
Quote: For germans https://sauhun.de/gravenreuth.pdf
Last page: Nearly every country was better at pirating than Germany. Spain ruled the scene apparently. :) |
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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2062 |
Quoting tlrLast page: Nearly every country was better at pirating than Germany. Spain ruled the scene apparently. :)
Read that as well, though some months ago...
Asked myself: WHO invented that statistics for the source Süddeutsche Zeitung (never and especially not in the 80s a medium that was trendy, rather tells you what your grandma might think about dem new no good computers) Some 20% illegal copies next to 80 % originals... ROFL... even the other way round would be a joke
Seriously, that bar chart seems minimum doubtful but rather total made-up hoax.
PS: personally, as a German, I tell you not even 1% of my games were originals, and I think that was true for the average German kid |
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balsi
Account closed
Registered: May 2016
Posts: 20 |
Since my first job back in 86 i bought originals.most of my friends in this time had done this.but the main people here in germany had only cracks and don't know what an original was.that was the truth here. |
