Interview with warez website owner - how much he earns

Anyone who is interested in the Internet has certainly heard about warez services - websites where you can download pirated copies of the latest software, music or movies. A few years ago it seemed that they would disappear from the web with the popularization of P2P technology. However, it happened differently - "warez" from pirated distribution centers turned into catalogues of links to multimedia and software, willingly visited by Internet users and bringing quite a lot of income to administrators. Our American PC World colleagues have managed to talk to the owner of such a website - interestingly enough, he says that he is not doing anything wrong (and even protecting underage Internet users from pornography). From our interview you will find out how much you earn on "warez", whether it is a risky job and why big companies advertise on websites with pirated files.
Steve Bass, a journalist of the American PC World magazine, managed to contact the owner and administrator of one of the popular warehousing services - we present an interview with him. However, the website address and the name of our interlocutor will remain secret - only under this condition did he agree to talk to the journalist.

PC World: To begin with, the most obvious question. How much money can you earn on running such a website?

Website owner: Currently, this is not a significant income - I do not maintain the website for profit, but for the community around it. I now earn about $20 a day on it - it is money generated from advertisements. Once it was much better - before Google blocked me from using the AdSense advertising system, I was able to draw from $150 to $200 a day. These were good times.... I think he lies. Warez websites get huge traffic 30k uu visitors daily for small services is normal.  So if you monetize warez website through popunders you will make on average 30 x $2= $60 a day ($2 CPM, but you can even reach $4 CPM).

What made you decide to create such a website?

I wasn't the one who founded it - a few years ago I bought it from my friend for 3000 USD. He earned it about 10 USD a day, but I knew that if you fine-tune your ad selection and display system, you can increase this profit to at least 150 USD a day. And this was indeed the case, so my investment paid for itself in less than a month. I managed to do good business: -)

The main purpose of this website is to enable internet users to download pirated copies of a wide range of copyrighted material - from electronic versions of books, through films and music to software. And you have placed an annotation on it to warn users of the distribution of copyright infringement material. Is it rather ironic, is it not true?

It is simply a standard TOS formula[Terms of Service, or "Terms of Service" - ed. But note that I don't distribute and store any copyrighted material on my servers - all files are stored on other sites. I only make available links to them.

This is true - but you will admit that you are contributing to a drastic reduction in profits for many companies. How would you feel if someone were to break into your website and reduce your profits by half?

Of course, I do not like such a scenario very much. But Internet users visiting my site have a choice - they can buy the software they need or download free of charge from some warehousing site. If they don't pick it up from me, they will surely download the file you are looking for from some other page....

Is there any kind of material that you do not agree to distribute through your website? If so, what are your criteria?

I'm not the one who publishes posts on the website[references to files available through the service are published in posts on forum-editor. There are also a group of moderators who view new positions and "download" the most interesting ones on the homepage. The only restriction relates to advertising - I know that we are visited by many teenagers, so there is no advertisement for pornographic services or products.

Do you think that this protects young people from the bad influence of pornography? But at the same time you make it easier for them to access stolen materials.... Do you not think that this also affects their morality?

Maybe I would not call what I do, something completely honest, but it is certainly not bad either. This is because I'm not the source of pirated copies - things that appear on my website are also available on many other sites. I also think that websites like mine provide consumers with the opportunity to test the product fully before spending their money on it. I am sure that many people who downloaded a movie or programme through me later bought it legally. Even if I had closed down my website, there are thousands of sites that would not have changed much.