Although Newzbin2 anticipated the result and had already prepared circumvention software to enable BT users to carry on using the site, it still has a key vulnerability – its US-seizable .COM domain. According to the site’s operators, that weakness is now being addressed.

“Newzbin is leaving the American Internet. In a couple of weeks we will cease to use the newzbin.com domain and move to newzbin2.es,” says the site’s Mr White.

“We regret the need to do this but, thanks to the retards in the US Government and the MPA, a ‘.com’ address is no longer viable. Really, any domain controlled by the US government proxy Verisign isn’t viable.”

No exact date has been given for the switch but it will be during the next few weeks. For “legal reasons” the old .COM domain, which Newzbin2′s operators say is currently rented from a 3rd party, will not redirect or even provide a link to the new Spanish domain.

During 2012 it’s expected that the site’s unblocking tool will see wider use as other ISPs are also expected to begin blocking Newzbin2. But according to the site, thus far censorship has had the opposite effect.

“I can’t give exact figures but an executive summary would be that, from our Apache logs, traffic grew steadily over 2011 with a big spike about the time we were blocked; down a little since then, but still at higher levels than ever before,” Mr White told TorrentFreak.

“Overall the MPA’s web blocking has had something of a Streisand Effect on our traffic levels. It seems that they are driving users to us. Our best friend is our worst enemy,” he notes.

Nevertheless, Newzbin2′s operators aren’t simply cruising. Mr White told TorrentFreak that they intend to use the trust they’ve built up in the community to launch a secure VPN service which will not only allow anonymous Internet use, but will also defeat site-blocking measures.

But surprisingly, especially given the astonishing MegaUpload-related developments of the last week, they also intend to launch a cyberlocker service.

“Our reaction to Megaupload and the fallout was twofold. On the one level this is a very important case because if New Zealand extradite Dotcom to the US, which is where the smart money is I reckon, it will be a fascinating exhibition of the MPA’s legal strategy against cyberlockers. It may be the feds prosecuting but we all know that the MPA’s hand is up their puppet ass,” says Mr White.

“The shame for Dotcom was only that he didn’t spend his money on politicians & cops rather than godawful pink Cadillacs. And how INTERESTING that the FBI have shown publicly that they really can backdoor Skype,” he added.

Mr White described the ensuing pandemonium in the cyberlocker market as “like a herd of elephants being frightened by bees” and advised site operators who have done nothing wrong to “man up and show some spine.”

Newzbin2 assure us that their forthcoming service will be “legal from the ground up” but predict their service will receive “sniping from the malodorous content dinosaurs.”

In an uncertain world and even more uncertain cyberlocker market, that last prediction is probably the most certain we’ve heard all week.

Source: Newzbin Dumps .COM, Promises VPN & Cyberlocker Services

Despite an earlier statement which indicated that Newzbin2′s owners would hire lawyers to fight attempts to have them blocked by ISPs in the UK, the site was not represented at this week’s hearing nor did they have any type of input.

Today, through site spokesman Mr White, Team R Dogs denounce what the team feel are the pointless efforts of the “Copyright Dinosaurs” at the MPA and bemoan the site’s lack of input at the High Court proceedings.

“A Newzbin2 themed costume party, with horsehair wigs, and no-one invited us. The MPA didn’t invite us, BT didn’t invite us, the court didn’t invite us. Team R Dogs would have loved to have had some say,” Mr White explains.

Nevertheless, although the input of the team would have been useful, their absence from the proceedings shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, despite their enthusiasm.

Not only would their involvement represent a huge financial cost to the site, any official contribution would almost certainly require that the site’s ownership break their carefully crafted cover. As observers of file-sharing litigation will recognize, that kind of exposure can open up unwanted and painful fronts when fighting an entity such as the MPA.

The importance of the action, however, is clear to Newzbin2.

“If the MPA get this injunction they will certainly, in the mould of the Internet Watch Foundation, start to add to the list other sites that offend them, e.g. the Pirate Bay. All of this will probably also be secret and, like us, not subject to an appeal or any due process,” Mr White explains.

“What happens when some bunch of quackpot frauds like homeopaths decide that instead of suing Simon Singh and losing, it would be easier to force BT to block access to any website referring to his debunkings?”

But of course, getting a site blocked either by injunction or via some other private company-run firewall service is one thing, getting a site white-listed again is another matter.

Mr White says that even if Newzbin2 began operating in an MPA-approved manner in the future, it is doubtful that event would signal the lifting of any granted injunction or ISP blockade, something that would prove unpopular with site subscribers.

“The injunction will be hated by our users – none of whom have asked for the site to be blocked: those trying to access our content, much of it legal, will simply be denied access to a site they have paid a membership to. Web blocks only ever work where people bump into a site accidentally; our users will simply use Google to find us by some other method: probably a method provided by us.”

As noted in our earlier article, BT was selected by the MPA not only because it’s the largest UK ISP, but because it already has blocking technology in place. Known as Cleanfeed, the system is used by the ISP to block images of child abuse.

Whatever readers may think of Newzbin2′s actions, those of the MPA, BT, or any decision coming from the High Court, blocking images of exploitation has to be a good thing. The problem here, however, is that along with blocking technologies come unblocking technologies, and they will only become more prevalent as more people need them.

Currently only a small subset Internet users need to know how to evade blocks to get to child porn; giving millions of others trying to access sites such as Newzbin2 the ability will eventually tear a hole through the originally well-intentioned Cleanfeed, and that can never be good. The copyright war continues to cause collateral damage, the “unintended consequences” so often spoken about.

“Newzbin2 is currently evaluating methods to defeat Cleanfeed without the need to adopt radical technological changes (although we are looking at those too for the future).

“Blocking us is futile and the MPA have made Cleanfeed technology a target to be defeated by those determined to counter censorship technologies. How unfortunate if that allows perverts to prosper. Perhaps the MPA should have thought of the kids?”

The Newzbin2 team also criticize the words of MPA Euro head Chris Marcich when he said this week that Hollywood had “explored every route to get Newzbin to take down the infringing material” and was ultimately “left with no option but to challenge this in the courts.”

“Two things have obviously never passed the lips of Mr Marcich: the truth, or the tongue of a loving woman,” says Mr White.

“Newzbin2 has never heard a peep out of the MPA; not so much as a Christmas card let alone a DMCA takedown notice.”

Going on to differentiate Newzbin2 from the original Newzbin (the site battered by the MPA in a 2010 legal victory), Mr White says that the latest incarnation of the site “respects copyright and acts on DMCA notices: [the MPA] just haven’t sent us any.”

Of course, DMCA notices are from the US legal system and don’t mean very much in a UK court. Furthermore, Team R Dogs say they are not UK-based and therefore are not bound by UK copyright law. The site itself appears to be hosted in Sweden. Such is the nature of the Internet; are we here, there, or somewhere else when using it?

Nevertheless, ISPs in the UK are required to take action against direct infringement when they become aware of it which brings us full circle to the very point of the MPA’s demands for an injunction against Newzbin2. But does the MPA’s request go too far?

We will have to wait for that decision. Yesterday Mr Justice Arnold said the court will make a formal judgment soon after July 12th, pending the outcome of another case involving the sale of counterfeit products on eBay.

The ruling in that case, i.e whether eBay is responsible for illegal products being sold by 3rd parties via its site, will have a bearing on the Newzbin2 case.

Source: Newzbin Speaks Out On MPA High Court Blocking Action

The celebrations following the site’s demise were to be short-lived. Newzbin was quickly resurrected under new management as Newzbin2, and the MPA faced the prospect of taking on new legal action against the site’s new owners. Rather than tackle Newzbin2 head on, Hollywood tried a different approach.

During September 2010, TorrentFreak learned that the MPA were developing plans to take leading UK ISP BT to court and by December we had solid proof that was indeed the case. The MPA went to court seeking an injunction against BT in order to force them to block Newzbin2.

“In launching this case, the MPA is aiming to secure an order that will enable BT to block Internet access to the site, thus preventing the site from using the Internet to make money through infringement,” the MPA informed us in a statement.

This week the MPA are back at the High Court again, hoping it can get an injunction to force BT to block the site for its 5.6 million subscribers. According to an MPA spokesperson, BT was selected for two reasons.

“BT was chosen because it’s the largest [ISP] and already has the technology in place, through its Cleanfeed system, to block the site,” she said.

Developed by BT at an estimated cost of £500,000, Cleanfeed is a content blocking system that has been operational since 2004. In conjunction with information supplied by the Internet Watch Foundation, it is used by BT to block child pornography sites.

Traffic destined for a blacklisted URL or IP address is intercepted by Cleanfeed. At this point BT impersonates the destination web server and returns an HTTP 404 status code, causing a subscriber’s web browser to show a site “not found” message.

It is unclear how much development work has been done on the system since its inception, but early versions of Cleanfeed had a number of limitations. The product only worked on the standard port for regular browsing, port 80. It was also unable to block encrypted or proxied web traffic, unless the proxy itself was on the blacklist.

Interestingly, according to comments made in 2004 by Mike Galvin, then Director of Internet Services for BT Retail, the company already had concerns that outsiders would attempt to widen the purpose of Cleanfeed. Another ISP, Wanadoo, was apparently approached by the BPI to use a system similar to Cleanfeed to block music piracy.

In response, Galvin said that if the pressure to “extend the scope” of Cleanfeed became too great, BT would cancel the project. BT has made no recent public comment to that effect in connection with this current action by the MPA.

“The MPA application to engage in censorship of the Internet for their own petty interests would, if granted, set a dangerous precedent in a Western democracy,” Newzbin told TorrentFreak in an earlier statement.

“‘Drive-by’ litigation such as this will cut off access to substantial legitimate content and is entirely unwarranted & disproportionate.”

Newzbin have already taken steps to mitigate any site blocking measures by using the TOR anonymity system.

“The MPA’s lame attempt at censoring us in the UK won’t be permitted to cut Brits off from us if it happens,” concludes Newzbin’s Mr White.

Source: Hollywood Force ISP To Use Child Abuse Filter Against File-Sharing Site

However, if website blocking should prove ineffective at reducing infringement these requests would become pointless even if authorized. So, to ascertain the effectiveness of blocking, Secretary of State for Culture Jeremy Hunt asked communications watchdog Ofcom to look into the matter and report back by spring.

But as the wheels and processes slowly turn, accompanied by calls from the Open Rights Group for citizens to challenge the proposals, those unencumbered by layers of bureaucracy are acting quickly.

As widely predicted, a way around website blocking has been found quicker than it has even been assessed, let alone implemented. First up, one the MPAA’s primary blocking targets – Usenet indexing site Newzbin2.

“Since web blocking seems to be the new DRM for the Dirty Half Dozen and our name has featured high as a prospective victim of a domain name grab or a block, we thought we’d address the problem by the use of the free speech tool Tor,” Mr White from Newzbin2 told TorrentFreak today.

“We have set up a hidden Tor service accessible at http://sc3njt2i2j4fvqa3.onion,” he added.

Without going into huge amounts of detail, what Newzbin2 have done is set up what is known as a ‘hidden service’ with the world-famous TOR anonymity network. This means that by using the above URL with a TOR-enabled browser, anyone can access Newzbin2, even if its domain name is blocked or seized.

For those that don’t want to install TOR there is also another solution. By exchanging the .onion pseudo-TLD with tor2web.org (e.g http://sc3njt2i2j4fvqa3.tor2web.org), .onion URLs can be accessed from a normal browser with no addons whatsoever.

“By running a hidden service we make the MPA’s attempt to knock our name off the web entirely futile,” says Mr White.

“Newzbin2: 1 Stupids: 0,” he concludes.

Source: Newzbin2 Uses TOR To Kill Domain Blocking Before It Even Happens

Having lost its legal battle with the MPA in March 2010, in May it collapsed under a mountain of debt, only to resurrected under new management as Newzbin2.

The site has gone about its business ever since, continuing in pretty much the same manner as it did before the closure and indexing the same content – including Hollywood movies. One would think, therefore, that in common with dozens of torrent sites, file-hosting services and even search engines like Google, Newzbin2 would be overwhelmed with DMCA takedown requests. Not so, says Mr White of Team R Dogs, the group behind the site.

“Oddly we seem to get very few DMCA notices and when we contact the sender we are ignored. I’ve sent any number of email replies to email addresses which state ‘we monitor this email account’ only to receive no reply,” Mr White told TorrentFreak. “Why, it’s almost as if they are just sending them without caring if anything is done.”

Since the DMCA takedown notice is one of the most powerful weapons for removing content, or in the case of Newzbin2 mere links to content on the Internet, it’s strange that the site doesn’t get many. Even more so when the site, in Usenet terms, is Hollywood enemy #1. So are the MPA interested at all?

“We’ve had /one/ DMCA notice since December & even that wasn’t from the Hollywood Dirty Half Dozen but a software maker,” Mr White explained. “We emailed them and they totally blanked us. We’d be perfectly happy to take it down if they’d identified the posts.”

Of course, while DMCA notices can be a useful tool, they’re by no means the only one available to use against file-sharing sites. Currently the MPA are locking horns with ISP BT in the UK in an attempt to have Newzbin2 blocked there.

“The MPA’s lame attempt at censoring us in the UK won’t be permitted to cut Brits off from us if it happens,” insists Mr White.

However, with the recent domain seizures in the US ringing in everyone’s ears – not least the operators of Newzbin2 – there may be a more direct way of reducing traffic to the site on a worldwide basis, but Team R Dogs don’t appear too concerned.

“We are making sure that the site is going to be around for the long haul. Given the shenanigans of the US government, with its unlawful domain seizure project, we may need to change domains to non-US ones: we have solutions for that in place, with backup domains,” Mr White assured us.

With the future in mind, Mr White told TorrentFreak that there are plans to upgrade the site to make it more reliable and improve coverage of Usenet content.

“While we have backup servers and databases in several global locations we plan to migrate systems to fully distributed & redundant global databases & webservers so that any one server going AWOL won’t bring the site down, or even need backups to be brought manually online.”

Source: Hollywood Usenet Enemy #1 Never Gets DMCA Takedown Notices

The first tip said that the movie industry would try to force UK ISPs to block Newzbin in the UK. The second was more specific – that target would be one of the leading ISPs, BT.

After trying to gather more information, we contacted the MPA with what we knew and asked them if they could confirm our suspicions. At that stage, no information was forthcoming and Newzbin were also in the dark. The trail ran cold but in the last 24 hours the picture clarified somewhat.

Yesterday, the MPA went to court seeking an injunction against BT in order to force them to block Newzbin2, the resurrected version of the original Newzbin which lost a High Court battle earlier in the year.

In a statement sent to TorrentFreak, the MPA explain the process it has undertaken.

“The law which the Court referred to is Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which provides for possible injunctions against internet intermediaries. Article 8.3 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive, of which S97A is the UK implementation, has been used successfully in Denmark to block rogue sites hosting illegal material, with further cases pending in Germany, Holland and Belgium.”

“In launching this case, the MPA is aiming to secure an order that will enable BT to block Internet access to the site, thus preventing the site from using the Internet to make money through infringement,” the MPA adds.

In order for the MPA to obtain an injunction under section 97A it is believed that they must have approached BT already with a request to block Newzbin, but had it denied.

At this stage, BT have confirmed they have received paperwork but refused to comment further.

John McVay, Chief Executive of Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT), a UK trade association representing and promoting the commercial interests of independent films and television, welcomed the news.

“PACT supports today’s announcement. It is a shame that a legal action has to be taken, but illegal websites such as Newzbin2 pose a grave threat to our membership who do not have the resources to combat online copyright infringement.”

In a response to the news, Newzbin state the following:

“This is just an application and not yet a decision of any court. We will be looking to instruct lawyers to fight this on behalf of our UK users. The MPA application to engage in censorship of the Internet for their own petty interests would, if granted, set a dangerous precedent in a Western democracy.

“We don’t want to engage in a polemic but we have fully cooperated with DMCA requests from content owners and we are careful to act lawfully: ‘drive-by’ litigation such as this will cut off access to substantial legitimate content and is entirely unwarranted & disproportionate.”

Source: MPAA Takes Legal Action To Force ISP to Block Newzbin

The same can not be said about the fall and subsequent resurrection of Newzbin, the site which turned over £1 million from its 700,000 members in 2009. For those struggling to keep up (and yes, that includes us too) here’s a brief recap with some existing facts, some more recent ones, some you probably didn’t know and others you definitely didn’t.

After a battle with Hollywood earlier this year, Newzbin collapsed early May under a mountain of debt. Previously run by admin Caesium, who actually left a few months before the court case, the site ceased to exist. Sort of.

Later in May news broke that Newzbin had previously been infiltrated by Team R Dogs, an entity which appeared to be run by a Mr White. Apparently without the knowledge of Newzbin, some time ago the ‘Dogs had the foresight to swipe the site’s code with the aim of bringing Newzbin back to life should it somehow suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of the MPA.

Team R Dogs fulfilled this promise a few days ago when Newzbin2 was born. Ex-users of Newzbin didn’t have any problem finding the site though, since it came back under the old domain name. The apparent mechanism for this feat is as amazing as the rest of the story.

Some time ago, under the pressure of mounting debts – the £360,000 profit the site made in 2009, gone – Newzbin needed to raise some funds. They say they did this by selling the domain names Newzbin.com and Newzxxx.com to a Seychelles-based company but then, as they obviously still needed them, leased them back. After Newzbin1 closed, Team R Dogs say they bid against several other NZB sites to acquire the Newzbin domain but eventually came out victorious.

From previous reports, rumors, speculation, crystal ball viewing and a statement from an unnamed ex-director of Newzbin, the conclusion was that when Team R Dogs brought back the site it would be with an old version of the site with old databases. In fact the site returned with the databases bang up to date from the day Newzbin went down, user payments and credits intact.

This feat was partially explained by Mr White in a recent interview. His implication was that although they gained access to the site’s databases some time ago, the staff at Newzbin never noticed, which allowed them to take copies of all necessary data right up until the site died.

So what does Chris Elsworth, ex-owner/director of Newzbin think about this drama and how does he feel about Team R Dogs bringing the site back to generate profit for them just as Newzbin1 faces liquidation?

“Well I’m not going to lie. If they go on to make millions out of it I’ll be a bit miffed that I’m not the one earning it – lets not beat about the bush, we’re all interested in making enough money to be comfortable in our retirement,” he told TorrentFreak.

“But at the same time, I think I had done about as much as I could for Newzbin, my interest in it was waning even before the MPA poked their noses in if I’m honest, it’s unlikely there would have been many more shattering breakthroughs with me running it. So maybe if they can keep it up then good things will come out of it,” he added.

As for the future, Chris told us that he’s taking a breather first then he’ll be off to pursue some opportunities being offered to him at the BBC.

But there was one other little mystery we wanted to ask Chris about. While it’s well known that Newzbin was found guilty of copyright infringement, what about Team R Dogs – if they stole the Newzbin code and databases are they guilty of theft and/or copyright infringement?

“I had some contact with the new owner [of Newzbin1] for a while during the handover [referring to when Chris left Newzbin months ago] and from what I gather, the rights to the code/IP were sold to another company before the [MPA court case] verdict was out,” he explained, adding, “This may or may not be the same company [WCIS Limited] the domain was sold to.”

So while the quiet life beckons for Chris, the same cannot be said for Team R Dogs. They have taken on a site that Hollywood was determined to crush and spent a huge sum of money in doing so. The complete return of the site hasn’t gone unnoticed.

From a source that was proven reliable in the past, TorrentFreak has learned that work against Newzbin2 is already underway. The site will not be allowed to reappear “just like that” and legal action is already being prepared and measures taken to take down the site.

Newzbin2 currently appears to be hosted in Sweden, although Team R Dogs have suggested that the move there might not be permanent. However, with the original Newzbin verdict in hand, the studios have a powerful tool. Already this week a Dutch court relied heavily on the UK Newzbin verdict when it handed a defeat to Usenet community FTD.

TorrentFreak contacted Mr White from Team R Dogs for his reaction to this news but at time of publication we’ve received no response.

Source: Movie Studio Lawyers Eye The Amazing Resurrection of Newzbin

That news was quickly followed by the revelation from an ex-director of Newzbin that the site’s domain names had been sold to a Seychelles-based company in order to clear debts. A couple of days ago the company, WCIS Limited, told TorrentFreak they did not wish to tell us about their intentions for the domains.

Run by an ex-Newzbin editor, the DeepSharer blog has now managed to secure an interview with Team R Dogs boss Mr White. Here are the main points, plus those from the later Q & A.

After reiterating that they are nothing to do with the original Newzbin staff, Mr White said that since they already had the Newzbin code, bringing the site back after their legal problems was just the opportune thing to do.

At least to begin, the site will be a “straight clone” of the old site, but a redesign is on the agenda. This process could carried out with the help of users who could be asked to vote on the inclusion of new features. There is even talk of adding non-Usenet search features such as BitTorrent and Rapidshare. And the porn will return on Newzxxx too.

As for retention, the aim is to reach at least 400 days as soon as possible and then move to 600+ days within 9 months from launch.

So will ex-users of Newzbin return to the site? Team R Dogs certainly hope so as they say the whole thing is costing a fortune and quite frankly, they need the money.

“I have personally signed cheques for an $22,000 Sun server and 2 x $9,000 Sun servers to help run this site and I expect to sign more. I have hired a fulltime coder on good salary, I am recruiting another expensive geek to keep the site up,” explains Mr White.

Although the site will probably launch for free for a week or two, the site will revert to a pay venue.

“Let me be clear. We have a profit motive in this. We haven’t tried to ‘steal’ from Newzbin1 guys – they got shutdown by the MPA, not by us. The MPA have given us an opportunity to make money. Thanks MPA,” he continues.

“Does this mean we intend to shit on users & ex-Newzbin1 members? Fuck no. We want to provide a good service and take the same profits the Newzbin1 guys did. Yea sure we are using their works to do so but they have abandoned their works and they have SAID so themselves. There is no moral ambiguity here: they have dropped out of the scene and we are replacing them.”

Part of the support for ex-members will be the continuation of any credit they had on the site, although how far back that will go will remain to be seen. For those adding new credit, a 3rd party payment system will be used.

But let’s not forget about the fate of Newzbin at the hands of the MPA – how will Team R Dogs fend off that inevitable attack?

“We’ll just do a Piratebay on them,” they say. “We can run faster than them and shapeshift.”

Source: Newzbin Resurrection: Interview With The Mysterious Mr White

Fans and supporters of the site soon found reason for optimism though, when it was revealed that someone had previously hacked the Newzbin servers and grabbed the source code and several databases.

Adding to the intrigue, a group calling themselves Team R Dogs/Newzbin2 contacted ex-members of Newzbin last week with a message claiming that they would soon bring back the site.

“The crew got most of the original Newzbin source code and the main databases,” said Mr White from the group. “We loved it too much to let it die.”

So it seems that Newzbin could be making a comeback, but the mystery doesn’t stop there. Both the Newzbin.com and Newzxxx.com (Newzbin’s sister adult site) domains have been transferred to Seychelles-based WCIS Limited as can be seen via WHOIS here and here.

As readers will be aware, The Pirate Bay was also transferred to a Seychelles-based company when it had legal troubles.

To shine some light on these developments, the folks over at UsenetShack managed to catch up with an anonymous ex-director of Newzbin to ask a few questions, to which they received some interesting responses.

In respect of the domain name transfer, the unnamed source says that due to money problems and the need to appease company creditors, Newzbin raised funds by selling the site’s domain name but continued to have the use of it “on a leaseback basis”. The ex-directors of Newzbin categorically deny that they are behind the Seychelles company.

As for the liquidation, the source says he finds it “difficult” to imagine who would want to buy the remaining assets of the site with a view to bringing it back “unless they have big clanging balls of steel or they want to transform Newzbin into a legal NZB service”.

So what about Team R Dogs? The source claims that the code they acquired is probably an old version of the site, leading to an assumption they could have been in possession of it for some time. Furthermore, the source speculates that since a number of outside contractors had access to Newzbin’s code, it could be that Team R Dogs are one of those and the hacking claims could be just a cover story.

If all these threads collide and Newzbin eventually comes back under its old (current) domain name, that would be quite a feat and a massive annoyance to the MPA who did a huge amount of work to bring the site to its knees.

At the time of publication, WCIS Limited did not return our request for comments.

Source: Newzbin and Newzxxx Domains Have New Seychelles-Based Owner

Run by an ex-Newzbin editor, the DeepSharer blog quickly reported a rumor that someone had previously hacked the Newzbin servers and grabbed the source code and several databases.

“The Newzbin source code is in the wild,” confirmed Caesium, ex-owner of Newzbin. “Someone has it. I don’t know who, and I don’t know what they’re going to do with it, and I don’t really much care…[...]…whoever obtained it didn’t get it through me – how did they get it? I don’t know.”

Sure enough, in the last couple of days someone called Mr White from Team R Dogs/Newzbin2 has contacted ex-members of Newzbin with an interesting message.

“Good news: we are Newzbin Two, and we have glad tidings: NEWZBIN IS BACK! and we are the new management. The crew got most of the original Newzbin source code and the main databases. We loved it too much to let it die,” says Mr White.

“We are nearly there but it is very complicated. We reckon we’ll up very soon,” he adds.

There can be little doubt, this group have the customer database at the very least since they contacted ex-members of Newzbin using the addresses subscribers used to sign up on the site. Time will tell what other data they have acquired but if the full NZB database is one of them, things could get very interesting indeed.

Source: Hackers Set To Bring Newzbin Back Online

While the major BitTorrent sites were in Hollywood’s spotlights as the major source of copyright infringement, Usenet sites such as Newzbin remained untouched.

This changed, however, when the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the MPAA’s big brother, sent a threatening letter to the site’s operators in 2008.

This letter was followed by an official announcement of a lawsuit against the Usenet indexer early 2009. The case eventually went to the High Court in February of this year where Newzbin was found liable for copyright infringement.

The court ordered the company that operates the site to stop indexing movies and TV shows to which the Hollywood studios own the copyrights. In addition, Newzbin was told to pay court costs for the MPA, which apparently bankrupted their operation.

“Regrettably the Newzbin website has to close as a result of the legal action against us,” the site’s visitors can now read on Newzbin’s homepage.

The Usenet indexer is linking to a blog post which has additional details on Newzbin’s troubles.

“Apparently Newzbin has been put into administration yesterday because it couldn’t pay its debts. Word is that they owe the MPA £230,000 just in interim costs, and that’s without a full costs ruling or a decision on damages. Apparently they also owe a software development house over £500k,” it reads.

Thus far we haven’t been able to verify the legitimacy of these claims with the Newzbin team, but since the post is linked on the homepage we assume it holds some truth. We will update this article when we find out more.

Update: The following statement was released by former Newzbin owner Caesium.

There’s a lot of questions being asked of me in the last few days, many of
which I simply can’t answer either through legal responsibilities or because
I plain out just don’t know.

Source: Newzbin Usenet Indexer Shuts Down After Court Defeat

Newzbin was found liable for copyright infringement and will later this week discover the terms of an injunction which will forbid it from indexing movies and TV shows to which the above complainants own the copyrights.

“We are very disappointed with the judgment,” said Newzbin in a statement emailed to TorrentFreak. “Regrettably the court has accepted the distorted and flawed evidence that Hollywood presented.”

Newzbin says that contrary to the findings of the court, the site has not deliberately indexed infringing material and it did not assist its members who use the site for that purpose.

“The site provides a generalised search facility for binary content found on Usenet and not infringing material. Any of the material we index can be found on any one of a thousand sites on the Internet so pursuit of us is a futile waste of everyone’s time and money,” they added.

TorrentFreak asked Newzbin about the implications of this negative result for other UK-based Usenet indexers.

“They will clearly need to consider this judgement carefully,” the company told us. “We are unique in using editors and that formed a significant basis for our liability, but even absent editors, Usenet indexing in the UK is much more problematic.”

Newzbin then went on to launch an attack on the MPA, who they say are an organization stuck in a technology stone age.

“Rather than addressing their own broken business models & monopolistic commercial practices they seek to curtail innovation and freedom on the Internet.”

Noting the recent heavy lobbying of the UK government by the entertainment industries in respect of the Digital Economy Bill, Newzbin say that the MPA are a sponsor of attempts to bring “Chinese internet censorship” into the UK.

“Perhaps if they used their energy providing what people want rather than buying laws to sustain their own house of cards their might have a stronger future. We certainly reject their attempt to use this decision and our site as an excuse for rushing through undemocratic laws in a wash-up just before an election.”

Echoing the complaints of dozens of file-sharing orientated sites before them, Newzbin went on to criticize the imbalance in resources when contemplating a legal battle against the combined might of the movie studios, noting that this was the only reason for their win.

“Ultimately the dinosaurs of the content industry will need to face reality; the sad thing is that winning cases such as this only damages them and puts their own future in doubt.”

In the meantime, Newzbin will be required to implement some kind of filtering mechanism – so how will that play out?

“We will do what we are required to by the terms of any court order: we feel though that filtering is likely to be imperfect and there is a risk of filters missing material, which concerns us. The site may need to stop delivering all film & TV indexing for a matter of days while we consider how to address the judgement.”

In some respects the ruling against Newzbin has similarities to that imposed against Netherlands-based torrent index, Mininova. With this in mind we asked how this UK ruling might be received by Newzbin’s members and how the reaction would affect its business.

“We are mindful of the effect that filtering had on Mininova’s reputation with users and we hope to address those concerns and remain a useful site without breaching the terms of the order,” they told us.

Nevertheless, the site insists it is not going away, will remain the number one indexer and has great plans for the future. They also extended thanks to their supporters.

“We’d like to thank our users for their support, we’d certainly like them to chip in towards our legal costs! Above all we’d like them to know that we are not going away even if the next few weeks will be turbulent while we deal with the judgement.”

Looking ahead, Newzbin told TorrentFreak that they will appeal if they believe there are realistic grounds for doing so.

“We believe the judgement is flawed and we are analysing it carefully but we have made no final decision,” they concluded.

Source: Newzbin Slams Movie Studios After Court Defeat

Mr Adrian Speck represented the claimants, with David Harris and later Ms Jane Lambert representing Newzbin. The case was heard before Mr Justice Kitchin, who this morning delivered his lengthy decision which is summarized below.

The claimants said that Newzbin is a site focused on piracy. It does this by locating and categorizing illicit copies of movies and displays the titles in its indexes, providing users who search for such items a facility to download the items with one click.

Newzbin conversely said that its site is a “content agnostic” search engine very much like Google, and is designed to index all of Usenet. It offers only hyperlinks, meaning that users can access material directly from their Usenet provider, an activity Newzbin plays no part in.

Mr Speck represented the claimants throughout the case but Mr Harris dropped out of defending Newzbin on February 10th when it became apparent he had acquired shares in Newzbin. Ms Lambert took over from him when the trial resumed on 2 March 2010.

The claimants used Andrew Clark, Head of Forensics at Detica Limited, as their expert witness. His description of Usenet was not challenged in court.

Newzbin is run by Chris Elsworth (aka “Caesium”), Thomas Hurst (aka “Freaky”) and Lee Skillen (aka “Kalante”). All three were, until recently, directors and shareholders in Newzbin.

Court documents give a perhaps surprising insight into the size of the Newzbin business. Its accounts for 2009 reveal that it turned over in excess of £1 million, yielded a profit of more than £360,000 and paid dividends on ordinary shares of £415,000. It has around 700,000 members.

Newzbin’s help guides were referred to in the decision. They state that the site can help people find what they’re looking for, “whether that be obscure music, tv shows, games or movies. Think of us as a TV guide, but we’re a guide that applies to Usenet.”

In addition to various features offered by the site, focus was placed on the function and offering of .NZB files – Usenet’s nearest equivalent to .torrent files. Expert witness Mr Clark demonstrated how they could be used to retrieve a copy of a Harry Potter movie via Newzbin with the Usenet client, GrabIt.

The titles of categories used by Newzbin to index content were highlighted, such as Anime, Apps, Books, Consoles, Emulation, Games, Movies, Music, PDA and TV.

Sub-sections of the Movies category were highlighted including CAM, Screener, Telesync, R5 Retail, Blu-Ray, DVD, HD-DVD DivX, XviD. A witness for FACT, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, explained in detail why some of these categories are a “strong indication” of piracy.

Newzbin has members called ‘editors’ who help to compile reports on material to be found on Usenet. Newzbin’s own documentation was used to show that the site encouraged editors to post links to movies. The verdict notes that to assist editors useful links to IMDb and VCDQuality are provided, the latter being useful to provide information about “screeners”.

Referencing rules that Newzbin publishes for the attention of editors, ostensibly to protect the site (i.e not posting NZB‘s which link to warez, movies or music), Justice Kitchin states that these warnings are “entirely cosmetic”, are not intended, nor are they adhered to. Newzbin knew that infringing copies were being made available to users and yet no action was taken against editors, he wrote.

Referring to groups indexed by Newzbin such as alt.binaries.warez, Justice Kitchin said he is satisfied that the term ‘warez’ refers to content protected by copyright from illicit sources. Newzbin, he said, is therefore designed to search newsgroups which contain infringing material, an assertion that Newzbin’s Chris Elsworth had no “satisfactory explanation” for.

Justice Kitchin said Newzbin “encouraged its editors to report and has assisted its users to gain access” to infringing copies of movies.

Newzbin was also criticized for its “delisting” or notice and takedown procedures, which were referred to as a “cosmetic” and “cumbersome” mechanism designed to “render it impractical” for rights holders to have material removed.

Justice Kitchin went on to reject Newzbin’s assertion that an insignificant amount of links in their database relate to infringing content. Around 50,000 reports (.NZBs) were checked and around 97% had a valid link to IMDb (TF: Kitchin apparently assumes that everything on IMDB is not free to share), 0.7% to Amazon and a further 1.5% were otherwise shown to be commercially available. Only 0.3% were not shown to be commercially available, evidence which the court found “extremely powerful”.

The verdict addresses in some detail whether Newzbin had knowledge of infringing material being made available via the site. Newzbin said they did not but would’ve taken action to remove items and take action against any editor posting such material. Justice Kitchen said “a very different picture” emerged when Elsworth was cross-examined.

A transcript of the questioning reveals Elsworth being aggressively cross-examined over the nature of the Blu-Ray category on the site and whether it would contain copyright infringing material.

“I am satisfied that Mr Elsworth well knew that these categories were primarily intended for new commercial films,” wrote Justice Kitchin, while referencing a comment made by Elsworth in January 2007 where he notes that Blu-Ray had “been cracked officially”.

The verdict also states that Newzbin was told that the site is being used to infringe the claimants’ copyrights, yet no action has been taken against those reports (NZBs), the editors that reported them, or users that downloaded them.

Justice Kitchin said that considering the structure of Newzbin, the way they categorize content and the way they have encouraged editors to report movies, he has no doubt that Newzbin knew that “the vast majority of films in the Movies category of Newzbin are commercial and so very likely to be protected by copyright, and that members of Newzbin who use its NZB facility to download those materials, including the claimants’ films, are infringing that copyright.”

For the claimants, Mr Clark gave evidence that it would be straightforward for Newzbin to restrict access to the Movie and TV categories on the site and/or employ a filter based on a list of titles provided by the movie companies. Justice Kitchin said that the Newzbin programmers are skilled enough to implement “an effective content filtering system.”

Justice Kitchin found that:

i) Newzbin operates a site “designed and intended to make infringing copies of films readily available to its premium members”.
ii) The site is structured to promote infringement by guiding members to infringing copies via NZBs.
iii) Use of the NZB feature “inevitably” results in the creation of an infringing copy.
iv) Newzbin encouraged and induced its editors to make reports of movies protected by copyright and assisted users to infringe by providing advice.
v) Newzbin profited from infringement.

Newzbin was found liable to the claimants for infringement of their copyrights because it authorized the copying of their movies, “procured and engaged with its premium members in a common design to copy the claimants’ films” and communicated the claimants’ movies to the public.

The claimants appear to be seeking a broad injunction against Newzbin which would prevent it from including any item which infringes copyright in their index. This would extend to all works, not just those to which the claimants own the copyright.

Justice Kitchin wrote that he will not grant such a broad injunction and would instead impose limits on its scope to restrain Newzbin from infringing the copyrights of those movies to which the plaintiffs own the copyright.

“We welcome the Court’s decision today,” said Ted Shapiro, the Motion Picture Association’s general counsel for Europe.

“Newzbin is a source of immense damage to the creative sector in the UK and worldwide. This is an important decision and it sends a clear message that websites focusing on providing viewers with pirated film and TV programmes infringe copyright and are liable for their actions even where those websites don’t themselves host the content.

“This decision will help to support the continued investment in new legal online services and the creation of new films and television shows for enjoyment by audiences both in the UK and around the world.”

Newzbin was given the opportunity to contribute to this and earlier articles, but did not respond to our requests.

The exact terms of the injunction will be announced later this week.

Source: High Court Finds Newzbin Liable For Copyright Infringement

While most of Hollywood’s legal might was focused on the snowballing BitTorrent scene, Usenet downloading also gained in popularity – and exposure – and by 2008 it soon had Newzbin in the spotlight.

Newzbin received complaints from the studios in May that year, stating that the site was listing NZBs which linked to movies on Usenet which infringed their members’ copyright. In December, Newzbin confirmed it was removing some NZB files at copyright holders’ request but it wasn’t enough and the MPA filed for an injunction.

The London High Court showdown between Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation & Others v Newzbin Ltd before Mr Justice Kitchin began February 1st 2010. Details coming out of the case have been relatively few and entirely from Newzbin’s perspective. TorrentFreak contacted the MPA for their take but they told us they could not comment on an on-going case.

Newzbin reported that the plaintiffs opened with explanations of the .NZB format and how they differ from regular HTML hyperlinks along with accusations that Newzbin’s backend code specifically sought out copyright works on Usenet.

For their part, Newzbin disputed most MPA accusations but nevertheless ended the first day expressing confidence in Judge Justice Kitchin and his ability to preside over a fair trial.

Referencing “bizarre side issues”, “internal Newzbin issues” (later partly clarified as non-conflict related) and the falling ill of Newzbin admin ‘Caesium’ under cross-examination by the plaintiffs’ lawyer, by Day 3 of the trial events had clearly taken a turn for the strange.

After some rest, Caesium re-took the stand on Day 4 and completed his cross-examination, but the picture painted by Newzbin lacked optimism.

“It would be fair to say that the picture painted in court of Newzbin has not been an entirely positive one. Whilst it is hard to double guess Mr Justice Kitchin, Newzbin may have some difficulties in the near future,” said the site’s legal team in a statement, adding that Caesum had been accused of lying repeatedly under oath.

Newzbin requested a pause in proceedings to hire more lawyers, this was granted and there was a 2 week pause in proceedings. During the break, Newzbin made an announcement to clarify a number of points.

If the site lost its case, it would not be closing down – the MPA isn’t asking for that. It’s the manner in which the site operates that’s under the microscope.

“The message we want you to take away is that, win or lose, you can be confident that the site is here to stay in the long term,” said Newzbin. Other assurances were made in respect of user data, which we’ll come to in a moment.

The trial restarted this week on Tuesday 2nd March and concluded yesterday. As previously noted, the MPA are keeping mum right now but Newzbin reported its version of events. The key points:

Although Newzbin believes that the MPA may have been able to convince the court that the indexer facilitated the infringements of its users, it will not be able to prove damages or losses from copying. This stands to reason, as any infringements would have taken place through an entirely different infrastructure to that offered by Newzbin.

Newzbin will not be shut down. There could, however, be an “enquiry as to damages” and a new trial to consider the terms of any injunction which requires the site to block MPA material.

This could mean that Newzbin is required, Mininova-style, to develop and implement filtering mechanisms.

“At the moment we remain unfiltered and we would fight for the current notice and take down system that we already use. Again this is just our best guess and we may be well wide of the mark,” said the company in a statement this morning.

The previously-mentioned Newzbin assurance regarding privacy of user data goes as follows. Although the site does log some activity, it only keeps this data for a short period and details of NZB files downloaded by users are not stored. This means that the MPA will not be able to get their hands on sensitive data.

“One thing the Claimants did complain about was that Newzbin ‘deliberately arranged it’s systems so that no user details were available: even if we got an Anton Pillar [sic] there would be nothing to seize as no logs were kept’,” said this morning’s announcement, adding;

“Equally, since the site has lawful non-infringing use (our hunch is that the judge accepted our arguments on this: he seemed receptive to our submission that GPL, Creative Commons & non-copyright works were on the Indexes) a mere membership of Newzbin proves nothing against any user: the Claimants didn’t contend this anyway.”

The MPA declined to comment at this point, but told TorrentFreak that they believe the verdict could be handed down before the end of the month.

Source: Newzbin vs MPA Usenet ‘Filtering’ Trial Concludes

Yesterday the showdown of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation & Others v Newzbin Ltd began before in London’s High Court before Mr Justice Kitchin.

The case began at 10:30 on Monday with the barrister for the plaintiffs making his opening statement. As reported by Newzbin, in a 3 hour speech “mostly being full of how evil we are” the barrister explained what Usenet is along with a description of Newzbin.

The file format originally created by Newzbin – the .NZB – also had its functions explained along with an explanation by the barrister of how they compare to hyperlinks. Newzbin notes that much effort was put into trying to convince the Judge how .NZBs differ from hyperlinks.

Accusations were also leveled at Newzbin’s backend code, which the plaintiffs claim is designed to go looking specifically for copyright works on Usenet.

In contrast to the long speech by the plaintiffs, Newzbin took little time to state that they disputed most of what had been said so far and would address this in the evidence to come.

Later in the day witnesses for the plaintiffs were produced, including representatives from the MPAA-funded Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).

“[They] didn’t have much to say under cross-examination apart from they did a half-assed job analysing our site,” Newzbin reports.

Other witnesses included “some junior lawyers who confirmed they had harvested data from our listings but didn’t bother to check how much of it was actually under any form of copyright.”

According to Newzbin, the “star of the show” was an expert witness who was cross examined for an hour at the end of the day. Apparently he reported that it could be dangerous to auto-open an NZB meta-file file in a browser since it could lead to the user being infected by a virus. Strange guy.

Newzbin indicate they are happy with Judge Justice Kitchin, who they believe is “remarkably on the ball and switched on”. They are confident that this will be a fair trial since Justice Kitchin has already pulled up the plaintiff’s barrister on several points.

“This Judge certainly won’t blindly eat everything he’s told by the MPA,” Newzbin adds. “On the other hand it doesn’t mean he’ll accept our arguments easily either.”

The case continues.

Source: Newzbin Usenet Indexing Trial: Day One

After years of trouble-free operation as the MPAA focused on shutting down the growing ‘threat’ of the snowballing BitTorrent scene, in May 2008 the operator of Newzbin made an announcement.

The company which owns Newzbin had received a threatening letter from the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the MPAA’s big brother. In the letter the MPA claimed that some of the site’s editors (users who report on the location of material uploaded to the worldwide Usenet system) were listing NZBs which linked to movies on Usenet which infringed their member’s copyright.

“Newzbin has recently received two serious complaints regarding the indexing we perform, and raising doubts as to its legality. It is likely that we will in the coming weeks be presented with a court case and have to defend our rights,” said ‘Caesium’, the owner of Newzbin.

Caesium added that the site had never condoned the distribution or indexing of copyright works and insisted that site staff would act immediately to remove any items found to be infringing copyright.

Noting that Newzbin would defend itself vigorously against the complainants, Caesium said he believed that linking to content on Usenet is entirely legal and that the site’s procedures for dealing with unlawful content were appropriate.

“We believe that, or we wouldn’t still be here,” he added.

In December 2008, Newzbin confirmed that it had been removing NZB files which allegedly linked to copyright works stored on Usenet. The MPA still chose to file an injunction against the site.

Now, well over a year later, the showdown of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation & ors v Newzbin Ltd is set to begin next week before Mr Justice Kitchin in London’s High Court.

According to an announcement yesterday by Newzbin’s legal team, the case should last around a week but it’s unknown when any verdict will be handed down following its conclusion.

As we all know, the recent trial of Alan Ellis ended in an acquittal for the ex-OiNK admin and, just like Newzbin, his site hosted no copyright works and provided only meta data which linked to material hosted elsewhere.

However, Ellis’s charge was one of fraud, allegedly conducted by an individual and dealt with under criminal law, while that leveled against Newzbin is one of allowing and inducing illegal copying, i.e copyright infringement, but carried out by a bona fide company under civil law.

After Ellis’s acquittal, John Kennedy of the IFPI expressed disappointment at the “spectacular failure” of the criminal action and suggested that these type of complex cases should not be held in a crown court, but in the Chancery Division of the High Court.

This is exactly where the Newzbin case is being heard, so this is certainly one to watch. Unlike Ellis who faced possible jail time, Newzbin faces a claim for damages should it lose its case.

Source: Usenet Indexer Prepares For MPAA High Court Battle

Like most things, however, Usenet has its drawbacks. The main problem lies with its complexity – the learning curve can be a little steep – but with amazing little things called .NZB files, downloading is made almost as easy as BitTorrent. NZB files contain meta-data and without splitting too many hairs, they function in a very similar way to .torrent files. Download an NZB, load it into a news client such as Grabit and very quickly the download is complete.

Newzbin is one of the original Usenet indexing sites and the creator of the NZB“>.NZB format, which opened Usenet downloading to the masses. In May 2008 it received a threatening letter from the Motion Picture Association (MPA). In the letter, the MPA claimed that some of Newzbin’s editors were listing NZBs which linked to movies on Usenet which infringed their member’s copyright.

In October 2008, ‘Caesium’, the owner of Newzbin made an announcement. “Newzbin has recently received two serious complaints regarding the indexing we perform, and raising doubts as to its legality. It is likely that we will in the coming weeks be presented with a court case and have to defend our rights.”

Noting that Newzbin would defend itself vigorously against the complainants, Caesium said he believed that linking to content on Usenet is entirely legal and that the site’s procedures for dealing with unlawful content is appropriate. “We believe that, or we wouldn’t still be here,” he added.

At the start of December 2008, Newzbin confirmed that it had indeed been removing NZB files that link to infringing movies on Usenet. However, this wasn’t enough for the MPA, who filed an injunction against Newzbin.

Now, four months later, the site is still operating as normal but has received more details about its upcoming battle with the movie companies.

“The latest we’ve heard is that there will be an interim hearing (to hash out administrative details) sometime in the next couple of months, and the case itself will be heard in court sometime between November 2009 and January 2010,” said Caesium in an announcement.

It is far from clear how the legal system will view the operations at Newzbin – no other site of its type has ever appeared in court in the UK, or elsewhere in the world. Newzbin has already been considering that in order to be completely sure of staying within the law it may have to automate its operations and remove human intervention in the creation of its NZB files.

While Newzbin has never, ever hosted any copyright infringing material, previously another newsgroup-related company Usenet.com was sued by the RIAA for actually hosting illicit content. Usenet.com was also criticized over its advertising, which is alleged to encourage piracy.

Source: MPA Set to Challenge Newzbin Usenet Indexer in Court

The increased popularity of services such as Newzbin didn’t go unnoticed with the MPAA. On 22nd May 2008, administrator ‘Caesium’ made an announcement:

Newzbin has today received a letter from the Motion Picture Association (MPA). In the letter, they claim that some editors may be reporting material from Usenet that is infringing the copyright of their members.

While these claims have not been substantiated, it should be noted that Newzbin does not condone the distribution or indexing of such materials. We will immediately act to remove any items that are found to be infringing copyright.

Please take a moment to refer to our Terms and Conditions, in particular sections 4 and 4.2.

Please note that we may revoke privileges, or ban accounts, of users found to be violating these Terms and Conditions.

Since this announcement, worried Newzbin users have contacted TorrentFreak to see if we could find out exactly what had been going on. Understandably, Newzbin didn’t want to tell us much.

However, if one looks closely at the announcement, it doesn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know. The terms and conditions have been in place since 2007, there doesn’t appear to be anything new in those.

Of course Newzbin doesn’t condone the indexing of copyright works. How can it? It is a proper company that charges users for access, not an underground operation hiding in the shadows. It appears to comply fully with the laws in the UK, where the service is based. Newzbin also say they will remove anything that infringes copyright. NZB files do not, so at that point they probably believed they would have little work to do.

But the MPAA isn’t known for letting the law stand in the way of a good threat, threats which have closed several US-based NZB sites in the past such as NZB-Zone and forced others to adjust the way they operate. Newzbin has not been sued, we can confirm that, but it will have to change the way it operates too, if it is to comply with the movie industry demands.

Caesium is hinting at possible changes to the site in the future. It’s a possibility that all .NZB related reports will have to be removed. An alternative to appease the MPAA would be to remove only the posts related to movies and TV shows, an arrangement favored by BinNews.com when faced with the same legal threats.

At this point it is far from clear what measures Newzbin will be finally forced to take to stop the threat of legal action turning into an actual lawsuit. Newzbin appear to be being as upfront as they can at this point and are suggesting that if users only use the site for .NZB files, then they should consider not renewing their subscription. For those who aren’t scared of making their own .NZBs ‘BinSearch’-style, the site will still be of great use, even if the most draconian measures are taken.

BinSearch provides Usenet indexing with a do-it-yourself .NZB creator. Anyone who knows the full scene release name of the material they seek will adjust to it in a few minutes, but it’s no Newzbin. For the uninformed, the learning curve is steep.

Newzbin has a secret weapon which has made it so attractive. ‘Editors‘ are essentially human beings who make reports which link to specific content on Usenet. Newzbin can then generate a .NZB file, based on the report. Anyone with an NZB capable news reader, like Grabit, can use them. It seems that it’s this human intervention with the creation of reports which poses the legal headache.

Newzbin is considering that it may have to fully automate its operations in order to be totally sure of staying the friendly side of the law – no more human intervention, no more ‘editor’ named reports. No more easily browsable pre-determined categories. A simple Usenet search engine would likely attract little attention and would be entirely legal, as confirmed by Caesium: “…we’re pretty sure nobody is going to tell us that having an automated searchable index of the entire contents of Usenet is going to cause any problems.”

But why would anyone bother using a degraded Newzbin over, say, the very useful (but limited) ‘BinSearch’? After all, there would be presumably little to separate them, feature-wise.

The plan is to introduce a feature where Newzbin users can tag. This way the site can provide an entirely legal automated index – no Newzbin staff involved – with only the users adding the tags. It sounds like a great solution and may even prove just as workable longer term.

They say every cloud has a silver lining and for Newzbin, that might come in the form of a greatly increased userbase. Newzbin is currently a subscription service but the changes may well turn it into a free site, which effectively opens it up to everyone rather than just its current paying userbase. That’s a hell of a lot of tags. Thankfully there will likely be a ratings system, to ensure quality tagging.

Source: MPAA Threatens World’s Premier Usenet Indexer

This rapid increase in retention has left many NZB“>.NZB indexing sites behind, unable to handle holding data for such a long time.

However, Newzbin, one of the original Usenet indexing sites and creators of the .NZB format, is currently addressing this situation.

According to Caesium, the administrator at Newzbin, their setup was designed years ago to handle 50 to 60 days retention but with various tweaks and modifications, they are able to squeeze just about 100 days from the equipment. Following the Giganews announcement, Caesium explained that Newzbin are working to upgrade their systems to handle the increased retention. “We are already making substantial monetary investment into new hardware to store the increased amount of data required to mirror this on Newzbin” he said in a post on the site.

New hardware is being bought and is “halfway in place” to not only match the 200 days offered by Giganews, but to better it by 150-200 days to an impressive 350 to 400 days retention.

Caesium continued, “Unfortunately buying, building, testing, and deploying this sort of hardware does not come quickly or cheaply, and we have no estimate as to when it will be complete.”

Newzbin is a premium site so those preferring to obtain their .nzb’s for free might consider sites such as Binsearch, who have an .nzb creator and offer around 158 days retention. Other free services include those from NZBIndex and NewzLeech.

Source: Major Upgrades at Newzbin to Accommodate Massive Usenet Retention