The RIAA Attacks Usenet
Written by enigmax on October 16, 2007Basking 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.
In an ideal world, people would not talk about Usenet. In an ideal world there would be no such things as copyright infringement lawsuits. Sadly, we do not live in an ideal world.
Today we simply have to talk about Usenet and we have to talk about lawsuits.
Major record labels - Arista, Atlantic, BMG, Capitol, Caroline, Elektra, Interscope, LaFace, Maverick, Sony BMG, UMG, Virgin, Warner Bros. and Zomba have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usenet.com.
According to Billboard, the complaint filed in the District Court in New York states that Usenet.com provides access to millions of copyright infringing files and, with a nod towards the Grokster Decision, apparently “touts its service as a haven for those seeking pirated content.”
During the Grokster court case, it was ruled that even if a service or tool has substantial non-infringing uses, its owners would be liable for the infringing activities of its customers, should it be deemed that they encouraged their customers to commit copyright infringement. The complaint says that Usenet.com encourages its customers to commit copyright infringement and furthermore, facilitates such actions with its infrastructure.
Therefore it’s no surprise that the lawsuit seems to hang on statements allegedly made by Usenet.com to their customers, claiming that they told them their service is “the best way to get ‘free’ music now that ‘file sharing websites are getting shut down.”
Usenet.com does state that it’s possible to get increased levels of privacy by using their extra ‘anonymous’ service: “Shh… Quiet! We believe it’s no one’s business but your own what you do on the Internet or in Usenet! We don’t log your activity. We don’t track your downloads, and neither can your ISP when you use Secure-Tunnel.com privacy package.” However, helping to ensure the privacy of your customers does not equal encouragement to commit copyright infringement and right at this moment, there doesn’t appear to be any other text on the site that would make Usenet.com fall foul of the Grokster Decision. More details should follow in due course.
The lawsuit states that despite repeated requests by the labels for Usenet.com to remove infringing content, Usenet.com continued to fill its servers with infringing material from the Usenet network and then charges its users for access. It’s claimed that many of the groups offered by Usenet.com have no other use other than to disseminate copyright works and are “explicitly dedicated to copyright infringement.”
The labels want Usenet.com to admit they are committing copyright infringement with a view to obtaining an injunction and damages. To date, Usenet.com has refused to remove content or discontinue offering certain newsgroups.
It will be interesting to see if other Usenet providers come out in support of Usenet.com.
Further updates to follow.
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137 Responses
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Wow, so many of you are completely clueless about usenet (newsgroups) that I’m shocked you even know how to turn on your PC. As stated before, starwhite, Usenet.com and other usenet providers don’t ’sell warez’, they offer a fixed amount of bandwidth access to a long established, world-wide system of newsgroup servers, that have been around since before there was HTTP (the Web, for the slow ones in the crowd).
The usenet protocol is one of the oldest ways to access the net in existence, next to email. Newsgroups are still being used for what it was designed for, for posting and updating, well… NEWS groups. In the past they were great for things like message boards (before the explosion of BBoard forums on the web), keeping developers of open source software on the same page, job boards, real estate, for-sale boards (an early predecessor to Craig’s list) and many other legit uses. Before the web, anyone who wanted to create a running thread of conversation that was available to anyone anywhere, used a newsgroup. It was a public version of Email. It was text only, by the way, and it still is.
Then, someone figured out how to convert a binary file (music or games or movies) into text (uuencode), and then you could post files to the groups. There are a lot of public domain files and free music files, movie trailers, wallpaper, software updates, ringtones, ebooks (lots of public domain books have been converted to ebooks by volunteers in the Guttenberg project), even amature porn that is given away by the couples who make it.
Usenet providers allow you to connect to that resource, and charge you for the access and the bandwidth. Its up to you how you use that bandwidth, either on copyrighted files, or the legit stuff. And by the way, most of you already have free access to newsgroups right now, and don’t even realize it. You don’t even need to purchase an account at a usenet provider. Most home broadband ISP accounts give you free access to their newsgroup server. Its usually limited to a few gigs, but thats enough for most people who download legit files.
Stop making random clueless accusations about a service you obviously know nothing about. Its people like you that keep scammers like Usenext in business.
[quote comment="188406"]usenet.com is doomed. they will probly have to filter their stuff.
they are in the worst situation since they host the actual files.[/quote]
you need to google info on past court casess on newsgroups
napster lost it’s case because it was a service usenet.com is a service provider.. Grokser lost because yes it advertised it’s service to get the napster market wich is usenet.com did, but there is one other key point why it lost tt did not make any atempt to remove the content and usenet complies with dmca take down.
u can take down torrents but we will alllways find a way to bypass the law fuck the law if the compaines where not affaried to lose there millions and millions and lose there steaks we wouldnt have a dam issuie then whats wrong with sharring i was allways tought to share when i was growing up and now there teeling us not to share whats wrong with that picture
[quote comment="188413"]Wow, so many of you are completely clueless about usenet (newsgroups) that I’m shocked you even know how to turn on your PC… And by the way, most of you already have free access to newsgroups right now, and don’t even realize it.
[/quote]
Don’t enlighten the clueless. Let them stay on P2P where it takes days to suck down one crappy file while I suck down warez, entire DVD’s and whatever, at 15 Mbps (that 1.8 megaBYTES a second for the uninformed) straight from my ISP Verizon, and never wait for a “seeder.”
The RIAA is smart to take on USENET.com for their statements, but I don’t think they will have much luck attacking the NNTP protocol. There is just too much data for ISP’s and server operators to filter, and they would be taking on some enormous (phone company) ISP’s.
YES maby now i wont see thoes anoying as hell usenet ads.
Well I never did use newsgroups for anything to be honest. I was completely unaware that people do download files from ‘newsgroups’. My bad. Beyond the fact that I know they exist was the extent of my knowledge. I think the majority of people probably do not as well.
To the idiot that keeps saying its “against the scene” to pay for warez. Usenet doesnt charge per download you idiot. I dont pay to download movies off usenet, I pay for the dedicated servers constant download speed. anything you want is dl’d at 100% of your speed, 100% of the time. Thats ike saying you pay for your warez because you pay for internet service. Good luck downloading 8GB movies off a public torrent site, while I do it in under 20 minutes.
At this point I’m tired of reading ignorant comments about this issue. I really don’t see the point in making comments about something your clueless about?
Too many stupid comments but uninformed people.
Either way this sucks but it was bound to happen and frankly am surprised it has happened earlier.
But I guess in the eyes of **AA suing single parents and dead people are more profitable then going after the source.
I hope usenet.com stands up for themselves I mean they can’t police everything but I guess we’ll see what happens.
[quote comment="188413"]Wow, so many of you are completely clueless about usenet (newsgroups) that I’m shocked you even know how to turn on your PC. As stated before, starwhite, Usenet.com and other usenet providers don’t ’sell warez’, they offer a fixed amount of bandwidth access to a long established, world-wide system of newsgroup servers, that have been around since before there was HTTP (the Web, for the slow ones in the crowd).
The usenet protocol is one of the oldest ways to access the net in existence, next to email. Newsgroups are still being used for what it was designed for, for posting and updating, well… NEWS groups. In the past they were great for things like message boards (before the explosion of BBoard forums on the web), keeping developers of open source software on the same page, job boards, real estate, for-sale boards (an early predecessor to Craig’s list) and many other legit uses. Before the web, anyone who wanted to create a running thread of conversation that was available to anyone anywhere, used a newsgroup. It was a public version of Email. It was text only, by the way, and it still is.
Then, someone figured out how to convert a binary file (music or games or movies) into text (uuencode), and then you could post files to the groups. There are a lot of public domain files and free music files, movie trailers, wallpaper, software updates, ringtones, ebooks (lots of public domain books have been converted to ebooks by volunteers in the Guttenberg project), even amature porn that is given away by the couples who make it.
Usenet providers allow you to connect to that resource, and charge you for the access and the bandwidth. Its up to you how you use that bandwidth, either on copyrighted files, or the legit stuff. And by the way, most of you already have free access to newsgroups right now, and don’t even realize it. You don’t even need to purchase an account at a usenet provider. Most home broadband ISP accounts give you free access to their newsgroup server. Its usually limited to a few gigs, but thats enough for most people who download legit files.
Stop making random clueless accusations about a service you obviously know nothing about. Its people like you that keep scammers like Usenext in business.[/quote]
Thank goodness someone said what I was thinking while reading this line of clueless comments. People trying to complain and make points with so little knowledge. Hell, some of which can’t even spell! Geez, one of the reasons I’ve loved NNTP for years; there aren’t tons of idiots posting crap like this. ;)
Usenet was once like Fight Club, noone talked about it other than on Usenet.
Are you ppl insane!
I mean I would usually bash enigmax for posting this thing but he clearly stated his reason in the first sentence and that is ok so far…
but why does every idiot with an usenet account start barging about speed and whatnot!? This is the reason usenet was put on the map in the first place - not that it would have been save forever but it would probably helped to stop things like usenext to spread so fast if ppl were able to just shut up. *sigh*
Yeah, I don’t really see this going anywhere. Usenet.com is a company providing metered NNTP access, and nowhere that I can see do they advertise copyright infringement services. They can maybe be forced to nuke a group, but another one will just spring up to take its place, due to the nature of group requests and naming policies.
I’m pretty lucky with my isp: 10mbps down and 90day retention newsgroups (obviously farmed out to some larger NNTP provider) with no caps.
I am truly amazed at the clueless n00bs who do not realize that most (if not all) ISP’s include NNTP access as part of your monthly service. The downside of ISP provided (free) NNTP access is that you are stuck with 2GB or 4GB monthly download limits, and/or the retention is shorter than commercial NNTP providers. Two six packs of Guiness costs me $17, so the $15/month for unlimited access that companies like Astraweb and Powerusenet charge is a bargain.
Why did all the rationales come out at the end? If Usenet.com go down the tubes who cares! Only suckers would sign up for a pay service on top of the service you get for free with your ISP like Jose says. Personally I hardly ever use Usenet anymore. Speed is good but a pain in the ass to look around for stuff.
Most warez groups release directly to Usenet before the releases are forwarded to the BitTorrent trackers. This could turn out bad.
RIAA needs to be stopped..
**AA has a long way to go before they can take out NNTP. Should be fun to watch them try!
Yawn…do you really think the would charge 30 $ / month for usenet access if no warez and stuff would there to be found only open source stuff and nothing illegal…wake up!
The usenet became so popular because of what u get there and the moment it got popular some corporate a$$hole said ‘Let make some dough from it’ .
charging for service is the same as selling warez. period.
If the warez is hosted by, and then a charge is issued, your paying for warez. end of story!
dont care what you usenet junkies think or say.
Yawn…do you really think they would charge 30 $/month for usenet access if no warez and stuff would there to be found only open source stuff and nothing illegal…wake up!
The usenet became so popular and ppl became willing to pay for the ‘bandwidth’ because of what u get there & the moment it got popular some corporate a$$hole said ‘Let make some dough from it’.
Never heard of the law of supply and demand?
may usenet die a quick corporate death!
[quote comment="188483"]Most warez groups release directly to Usenet before the releases are forwarded to the BitTorrent trackers. This could turn out bad.[/quote]
Sorry, thats NOT how it works, and never has.
God bless cheggit_sucks. He’s the only one (other than me) who knows what the hell newsgroups (the original usenet) is. And while I have the mic, allow me to kill another rumor… Al Gore didn’t invent the internets.
[quote comment="188530"] Al Gore didn’t invent the internets.[/quote]
whats the internets? enlighten me please.
[quote]Most warez groups release directly to Usenet before the releases are forwarded to the BitTorrent trackers. This could turn out bad.[/quote]
If by “release directly to usenet” you mean “don’t release to usenet but instead release to topsites”, then you’re right.
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