History
The new RIAA Council (who have attempted to usurp the existing MP3 Council) issued a nice summary of the scene to date with the 2013 ruleset:
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Dear MP3 scene,
For much too long have we been looked down upon as being thoroughly
inconsistent alongside highly retarded in what are known as our releasing
standards. Now time as finally come for us to bid farewell to our collective
ruling inability and embrace what shall forever be known as the most brilliant
polished set of MP3 scene rules to ever see the ...
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Since the inception of this site several years ago, we have become overly familiar with the idiosyncrasies of early scene releases. One particular observation is the disproportionate abundance of releases from 1999; far more than from 1998 and earlier.
Below is a breakdown of our release archive by years. It is also worth noting that many insignificant releases from 1999 have been intentionally excluded from our database in an attempt to somewhat 'curate' the content on offer. Without this filter, the number of releases from 1999 would be far greater ...
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Mergers and splits have always been commonplace within the warez scene; discontent members leaving one group to form another or release groups combining forces under a new name.
With the exponential increase of new release groups forming in 1998, keeping track of mergers/splits became a difficult job. As part of our ongoing archiving, we've been attempting to create an accurate document of these events in the form of a timeline.
This is still very much a work-in-progress and many minor groups are still missing, but think of this ...
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Since the inception of the mp3 scene in 1995/96, packaging methods have changed drastically. Initially groups had their own quality standards/rip methods and it wasn't until late 1998 that 'official' scene rules were established.
This article outlines the packaging methods & standards utilised throughout the history of the scene.
1996: In The Beginning
The first organised mp3 groups - CDA, DAC & RNS - initially packaged mp3's in a similar way to the 0day/app scenes; releasing a single track at a time, split into 1.44MB RAR files which ...
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Article that originally appeared on dmusic.com, written by Chad Hart on Sep 27, 2000. Part in a series that covers 96-99.
1997 was a year shaped by the accomplishments and efforts of the energetic early adopters, who forged a path for those that would soon follow.
MP3 was an IRC-only phenomenon for much of 1996 and 1997 until people started to construct websites dedicated to the format. These early websites described the format, and made the tools needed to create and play the files available to all those that ...
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