Draft:Centropy

Background

Centropy was a warez group that specialized in distributing pirated releases of films, many of which were still in or not even released to theatres at the time. Founded in January of 1999, the group was dismantled as a result of Operation Site Down, an FBI initiative conducted to disrupt and/or shut down the leading warez groups in the summer of 2005. Their releases boasted custom logos, apparently for bragging rights.

1st Logo (1999?-2002)

Visuals: In a space background is "CENTROPY" in red, above it are the words "PRESENTS" and the name of the movie they pirated, "CENTROPY" repeatably bounces on "PRESENTS" which bounces back when this happens, above the texts are a orange bar and a blue bar, there's a text in rainbow that goes up and down on those bars slides to the left, which reads "CENTROPY PROUDLY PRESENTS ANOTHER HIGH QUALITY TELESYNC FOR YOUR PLEASURE, THIS TIME WE BRING YOU - (name of the movie they pirated) - WATCH OUT FOR MORE UPCOMING RELEASES FROM YOUR FAVORITE VCD RELEASE GROUP.. GREETINGS FLY OUT TO OUR ALLIES IN CRIME - VCDEUROPE ̠- BAMVCD - THCISO - EVILISO - TFE - FASTEMPIRE - VORTEX - DVNVCD - SMUT - EXXXTASY ...... UNTIL NEXT TIME.. ENJOY THE MOVIE......... - ̟ ̟ ̟ATH NO CARRIER", after that, the logo stops.

Technique: 8-bit animation, styled after Commodore 64 crack intros.

Audio: The theme song for the Crazy Comets videogame composed by Rob Hubbard.

Availability: Even if defunct, seeking out the extent of the availability of this and Centropy's other logos is not recommended due to the group's legally dubious nature.

2nd Logo (2001?-early 2003?)

Visuals: Fading in from back, on a pink sky background with pale pink ground is the text "centropy" zooming up to the center of the screen with flying blue balls and five screens showing various movies distributed by the group flying from all the directions, in the sky background, there's a blue spaceship slowly moving to the right side of the screen, then the "centropy" text turns and slides away, the background zooms in and out to footage of what appears to be people in a office talking about something, it then later cuts to a business man talking to someone on a phone, which then switches to a camera pointing at a Windows 2000 explorer tab with all of the movies that the group distributed during 2001 scrolling down, it later cuts to a Windows Media Player 6 tab playing the opening of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the footage zooms in and out to another Centropy logo, which now has a foggy sky background, the words "centropy" (uses the same font as before but now in white instead of pink) slides from the left side of the screen, sliver balls are seen bouncing around the screen, then, sliver tubes come down from the screen and pulls down five movies the group has distributed, it goes back up again, and the movies goes from the right side to the left, "centropy" moves to the right, the sliver ball goes up, and the tubes go back up as the logo fades out.

Technique: CG animation, live action footage (apparently from a news report), footage from the movies and zooming effects.

Audio: A shortened version of "Nobody Does It Better" by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. When the office footage plays, a male narrator says the following "US federal agencies computers in 27 American cities on Tuesday morning, to gain evidence against the computer hackers, they allege to people targeted in a race, install distributed all types of media, including Microsoft Windows operating systems, computer games, and high quality copies of movies like Harry Potter and Monsters Inc. the race stops hundreds of-" the male narrator's line fades out before he could finish talking and the song plays normal.

Availability: Same as the last logo.

3th Logo (2003)

Visuals: On a black background is a blue rounded rectangle with "CENTROPY" engraved in it. The logo then stretches and the music stops.

Technique: 2D computer animation.

Audio: A snippet of the chorus of "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" by Eiffel 65.

Availability: Same as the 1st logo.

4th Logo (mid/late 2003?-2004?)

Visuals: Fading in from back, on a white-blue background is numerous white-to-cyan and red reflective blobs while the camera moves through them to reach futuristic-esque white reflective text reading "centropy". After reaching the text, the camera pans away to a shot of the background, and two pieces of stylized reflective text reading "FINEST VCD/DVD" and "RELEASE CREW" come from the top and bottom of the screens respectively and briefly spin around before moving off-screen. Immediately after, a Windows XP Internet Explorer window of a CNET article reporting on The Matrix: Reloaded having leaked online a day before official release stretches in, and after a few moments, another section of the article stretches in before the screen zooms in and out to see an excerpt of the article specifically naming Centropy and another warez group, Esoteric. The excerpt fades to black, and 3D orange text reading "CENTROPY" zooms out from the bottom-left corner of the screen while a square containing twelve screens showing various movies distributed by the group comes down from the top of the screen and and a futuristic container holding what appears to be some kind of plant floats to the center of the screen. All of these elements then move off the screen before the screen fades to black.

Trivia: The CNET article featured in this logo can be seen here (dead link, mirror)

Technique: CGI, footage from the movies and transition effects.

Audio: The last minute of the short edit of "The Best" by Tina Turner. A male voice can be heard saying something unintelligible at the end (probably in an Asian language) following a brief period of silence.

Availability: Same as the 1st logo.

5th Logo (2004?-2005?)

Visuals: Unknown

Technique: CG animation and footage from the movies.

Audio: A excerpt of "Return to the Origin" by Mike Oldfield from the album Tr3s Lunas.

Availability: Same as the 1st logo.

6th Logo (2004?-2005?)

Visuals: While under the sea, there is a clownfish swim from the right side of the screen to the left as bubbles containing gold letters making up the group's name float up from the bottom of the screen along with three squares containing footage from three movies distributed by the group. A battleship then cruises from the left side of the screen to the right in-between the bubbles and the squares before the squares and the camera start rising to the surface. Once both reach the surface of the ocean and the camera flies up a bit more while panning down is, in white, cartoonish 3D text, a message from the group reading "Hello folks! Well you would expect the greeting here right? Not this time!", which remains on the screen for some time before sliding down off-screen. Another set of text slides up from the bottom of the screen reading "Seeing as how dangerous the scene has become, it's kinda hard to greet anyone anymore!" before exiting in the same fashion. This repeats for the other sets of texts, which are, in order, "Hell, no one wants to be greeted anymore! Fame is a dangerous thing these times.", "So we will send out some anti-greetings instead to the following evil empires" and "-> BSA, MPAA, FAST, M$, RIAA Until next time!".

Technique: CG animation and footage from the movies.

Audio: A calm, dreamy piece featuring female vocals and synth instruments. This is apparently "The Last Rain" by Kenji Kawai.

Availability: Same as the 1st logo.

7th Logo (early-mid 2005?)

Visuals: There's a computer-generated room with blue walls and some silver spheres, with water splashing throughout. While a scene from Rocky IV is shown on a screen, the camera pans to show other clips from other films, as the large metallic text:

CENTROPY ^{PURE QUALITY MOVIE RELEASING}

comes into view, engraved into the wall. The camera pans to reveal more screens, one of them showing the iconic "bullet time" scene from The Matrix, with the camera panning more into the room. The camera again focuses into the text, as the camera pans into the top of the "O" and cuts to black.

Technique: CG animation and footage from the movies.

Audio: An excerpt of "Millions of Stars" by Jean-Michel Jarre.

Availability: Same as the 1st logo.

8th Logo (early-mid 2005?)

Visuals: Unknown

Technique: 2D flash animation.

Audio: A high beat 8-bit tune.

Availability: Same as the 1st logo.