Editor’s note: This is part two in a three-part series. The third part will appear next Monday. Names of students have been changed to protect privacy.

From server to server, a premiered, pirated movie flashes across the topsite networks. Couriers transfer the files from site to site so everybody can get a taste. For those anxiously awaiting the latest release, this is the miracle of five barley loaves and two fish that feeds the masses. For the entertainment industry, this is a nightmarish hydra that refuses to die.

“If a movie gets pre’d at a topsite, then a racer starts racing it to other sites and starts transferring it at incredibly fast speeds,” said Robert. He has seen 700-megabyte files go from site to site in five minutes; 4.7-gigabyte DVDs move from server to server in under half an hour. At this level in the distribution chain, the servers are all legitimate and privately owned. Some are located in people’s homes or rented from companies that don’t care about what they are used for.

“A lot of people who own a business, they hide them under things. They’re sort of like bandwidth launderers,” Robert joked. “That tends to lead to problems.”

As shocking as it might seem, this is where the topsites and their users prefer that distribution is stopped – and with good reason.

“They want to protect themselves because they know what they are doing is illegal. So, they are very anti-FXP scene, the Web sites that are posting movies on hacked servers,” Robert said.

In the FXP scene, the game is different. Scanners and hackers search IP ranges for vulnerabilities. Once an insecure site is found, they install FTP servers called “stros” that can later serve as a drop point for future releases. The topsites generally frown upon FXP groups and their high-risk practices.

“That’s what gets you caught in their eyes. In their rules, they only allow transfers to legitimate servers,” said Robert. “Obviously, somewhere in there the chain breaks because it’s all over in the FXP scene in minutes.”

After a movie hits the FXP scene, it eventually dwindles down to the p2p level for widespread release. It doesn’t take very long.

“If it’s a good movie, it can be there in six hours,” said Derek, a graduate student.

Derek first entered the scene looking for The Simpsons episodes. Currently, he is no longer an active participant, but his access to topsites leads to an unimaginable amount of files.

“We have a large database, which is like a million different files. If it’s not in there, we can do it. There might not be any demand for it, but we can do it,” said Derek, calmly.

Derek has been in and out of the scene since 1996, but things have changed. Back in the days of the dial-up modem “it was just small applications. Every now and then someone would get Photoshop 1 or something.”

Over the years, his level of involvement has varied from capturing broadcasted television to ripping and releasing classic films. The topsites he was involved with and the work he does aren’t the quick and easy way either.

“We do quality over anything else,” said Derek. “If it’s not looking good, I can spend a week on it.”

It’s this mentality that determined topsite groups can and will produce quality releases of anything under the digital rainbow that has the entertainment alarmed and itching to take the fight to the courts. On Jan. 26, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) launched another wave of lawsuits aimed at file-sharers and file-trading Web sites. Derek feels that these latest round of lawsuits won’t affect him at all.

“They’ve been targeting people on peer to peer networks,” said Derek. “But that’s not stopping the supply. When they took down Napster, that affected nothing. It made a lot of people whine, but those are just the people who didn’t know what they were doing. The people on the top don’t care, and they are still getting that music and putting it out there.”

Robert doesn’t worry much either. He feels relatively secure in his position in the FXP scene.

“I tend to only try to get stuff from people I trust. I tend to limit myself to channels I’ve been in before,” said Robert. “I feel like I’m a little bit secure.”

“I don’t think it’s really doing anything,” said Brian, who also has his doubts about the “sue ’em all” tactics of the Recording Industry Association of America and MPAA. “They just pick a handful of people and sue them. It’s not really stopping anyone.”