Earlier this year, anti-piracy outfit BREIN demanded the closure of Usenet community FTD. After negotiations between the pair came to nothing, BREIN declared FTD a criminal operation prompting FTD to take legal action against BREIN to clear their name. Now BREIN is counter-claiming against FTD, demanding $70,000 a day in penalties.
It is very common indeed for anti-piracy groups to go after sites linked to file-sharing. However, in The Netherlands the tables have recently been turned as the FTD Usenet community is taking legal action against anti-piracy group BREIN. TorrentFreak spoke with FTD’s lawyer to discover exactly why this worm has turned.
Anti-piracy group BREIN is well known in the BitTorrent community, having already managed to shut down hundreds of small sites. The Dutch outfit is currently being sued by a group of Usenet enthusiasts after it called their site illegal. Undeterred, it’s now flexing its muscles to get NZB sites closed down too.
A Usenet discussion community is taking notorious anti-piracy outfit BREIN to court. BREIN, which has taken action against many Usenet and BitTorrent sites including Demonoid and Mininova, has declared the activities of FTD illegal. Angered by these claims, FTD is now taking BREIN to court to force it to eat its words.
The big brother of the MPAA has Newzbin, the world’s most prominent newsgroup indexer, firmly in its sights. Newzbin, which indexes Usenet and offers its members NZB files, is being sued by the MPA, the global lobby group for the movie industry. The pair are set to fight it out in court, possibly before the end of the year.
Instant-Torrents is a new service that allows people to download, find, and share torrents on a private network. Users can download torrents via the site, and direct downloads are available when others have downloaded the torrent before.
Newzbin, considered by many to be the internet’s premier indexer and .nzb provider, is under legal threat from the MPAA. The site, which was the creator of Usenet’s answer to the .torrent file, will likely have to undergo significant changes in order to appease the movie studios.
Basking in glory after orchestrating a record punishment for a petty file-sharer in the US, the RIAA takes its legal campaign to the next level. Many may want newsgroups to stay under the radar but it’s too late – major labels have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usenet.com and it won’t be going away.
Earlier this week we reported on how the porn industry planned to wipe out sharing of its content via BitTorrent. Right now the porn industry is gloating over the shutdown of a major porn NZB site. Coincidence? Probably not.
The first rule of Usenet is, you don’t talk about Usenet. This rule kept Usenet providers and users out of sight from anti-piracy organizations for years, but this is about to change.
After major Usenet provider Giganews announced that it would increase its data retention to a massive 200 days, the original nzb provider Newzbin invests heavily to maximize its usability.
