Warez got started long before shareware was invented. Indeed, shareware was an attempted solution to warez, which we called "piracy" way back then. Anybody remember the Beagle Brothers? They were pre-shareware and certainly had quite a bit of activity in the area of software theft, mostly in cracking the weak security of the day. Many were the pirate BBS that had cracked copies of various games ("productivity" software quickly became too big to download via 2400 baud modem--yes, I've been online for THAT long). These BBS usually also had phreaking info, credit card theft info, and various pornographic areas. Modern warez sites are just same old same old, but writ far larger.