I remeber that you were even availible to buy Dynamin Publisher stamps for your "illigal" copied disks.
Stamps for almost every game you can imagine!
Those packets of stamps were sold at MSX fairs and there were even advertisement in several dutch MSX magazines
This was even a push to copy games and print out the label and if you wish you could colered them.

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Do you remember the crusade of Frank Druyff/MCM against "illegal"....

Frank Druyff OMG....
I remember a couple of years ago, when we just started up with the MCCW (http://www.mccw.aktu.nl/) I had a "small" issue with him.
During that time, the MEP Software databse passed some nice amount of downloads (Don't remember the exact number, but I think it was 500.000 or so). I wanted to make a short article for the maiskoek on the MCCW, but he told me I should make it a negative piece, since it was very illegal and stuff... So he wanted me to write a piece on how bad my own activities were.... As if!!!
Ended up with writing some nice e-mails back and forth. It ended up with me quiting MCCW. Ah well
Kinda wonders what he is doing nowadays

@DemonSeed :

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@Pat, SMA was French, not Dutch... Do you have to be this abusive?

Yep, I knew, it stand for something like S... Mayer Association(?). Did the S stand for Scott? But I was surprised that the Boss is Dutch from origin. So I just wondered if other groups(like SMA) also had a dutch origin.

Did these crackers have direct contact with Japanese stores, to obtain fresh material?

Yes, the Boss is certainly Dutch and I believe Marcos and SMA also had direct connections to Dutchies.
Most of them indeed obtained the software (by snail-mail back then) directly from Japan.
Simply by letting a friend or relative buy it and send it back to Europe.

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Kinda wonders what he (= Frank Druyff) is doing nowadays

Me too ! And what about Wammes Witkop (besides PC-Active) ?

they both had some fun judging our cool, great, crappy, weird, etc. challenge entries once...

Idd. Frank Druijff occasionally writes an article for PC-Active, or a photography related magazine (forgot its name). I think it's no secret that he has Multiple Sclerosis, something he was struggling with quite a bit at the time he rated the entries to the Under Water Challenge, which is why it took so long before the results to that challenge game in. Rikusu and I had a great day at his (formerly) MCCM basement, where he had a Sony MSX2 with an Eggerland cartridge plugged in, ready to be played

And Wammes, well... apart from PC Active he collects military radios, field telephones and f.i. radiation meters and other electronics. I got the impression PC-Active consumes a lot of his spare time, so he probably won't be doing a lot of side-projects...

ah, Wammes likes the military stuff?

*tries to visualise Wammes in uniform ^_^

I remember one way that lot of MSX spanish users used years ago to obtain MSX japanese games. There was a private MSX importer user that makes a little club: some MSX people (including me) paid a little quote and games were imported. Then, games where copied and original was bought by an interested user of the club. Sometimes games were cracked (if needed) by a person and returned to us. There was the only way to see these japanese games at this time. Theoretically, it was not a lucrative club, quote was only paid to bring the game and for other things, like diskettes.

Now, I have the most part of this games in original format (lot of money at Ebay!) in compesation by the past illegal activity . I think this was one of the most important ways of japanese imported software... and, MSX in Spain had not been the same without it, because MSX already was dead there.

Well, in the NL there were those importers as well. Amsterdam, Gouda, MSX-Engine, ...

wolf: Wammes just likes the technology, I suppose

Thanx for the interesting info on Frank & Wammes, Snout !

and that other guy...sontvliet? (ehhh that guy whose name was an anagram or something?)...what does he do nowadays?

Geert van Sonthoven? Well, his realname is Steven Vanhetgoor. He's back in the Netherlands and does many things at a time, like working on theories behind music, writing books, helping refugees from various countries. He also raised a foundation by which he hopes to achieve some of his ideals.

that the one ! the agitator

What about Wammes, does he have some 2+ or turboR with Space Manbow ready to play?

uh... that's Space MaMbo .. ^_^