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.
Previously: BitLet Bookmarklet: Directly Download Torrents in your Browser
Next: 50x Faster Than BitTorrent? Dream On!
136 Responses
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 » Show All
ppl keep defeding usenet and nntp protocol. from a technical pov its not doing anything wrong. but from a legal pov, its a warez repository.
as long as you got copyrighted stuff posted without permission, you will be history regardless of the technology.
defend the technology all you want, it is irrelevant. the real issue is are they keeping copyrighted material (uuencoded or not doesnt matter).
[quote comment="188536"]
defend the technology all you want, it is irrelevant. the real issue is are they keeping copyrighted material (uuencoded or not doesnt matter).[/quote]
YeP. And they also charge you for the ’service’ to download it. What a crock. The second you download warez (of any kind) from usenet, YOU HAVE PAID FOR WAREZ! –suckerss
[quote comment="188413"]Newsgroups are still being used for what it was designed for, for posting and updating, well… NEWS groups.[/quote]
it is STILL being used for its original purpose, but in addition to that it is NOW being used for piracy.
[quote comment="188413"]Its up to you how you use that bandwidth, either on copyrighted files, or the legit stuff.[/quote]
eh what? you own the bandwidth, sure. but you dont own the content.
[quote comment="188539"][quote comment="188536"]
defend the technology all you want, it is irrelevant. the real issue is are they keeping copyrighted material (uuencoded or not doesnt matter).[/quote]
YeP. And they also charge you for the ’service’ to download it. What a crock. The second you download warez (of any kind) from usenet, YOU HAVE PAID FOR WAREZ! –suckerss[/quote]
You pay for internet right? Then the second you download warez from ANYWHERE, you have paid for warez!
[quote comment="188549"]
You pay for internet right? Then the second you download warez from ANYWHERE, you have paid for warez![/quote]
Nice try, but since my ISP is not hosting the warez, you’re dead wrong buddy.
What dick went and told the RIAA about Usenet? Everyone knows the first rule of usenet, is to not talk about….
cheggitzz:
From a technical pov, the web is not doing anything wrong, but from a legal pov, its a warez repository.
Now substitute web with ‘ftp’, ‘nntp’, ‘torrents’, … And the list goes on. Every & any system on this planet has a “warez” use.
In effect, any ISP is guilty of warez sharing. Any newsserver providers is guilty of warez sharing ( and even those with text only can be found guilty for offering maybe offensive text messages ). Any ftp thats publicly accessible can be guilty of warez sharing ( a nice place of scene people to put there releases )… and the list goes on again.
The difference with the past, is how usernet used to be hard to use. No par system, no friendly User Interfaces, no nbz files, no index sites, etc… Today, its like torrents, click & let her rip.
And thats the real power of warez these days. Its so use friendly, it now creeps in every corner of the world. Combine that with servers that don’t cost a hand & a leg anymore, 5 or 10Mbits home connections and anybody can start “sharing” & “leeching” in half a dozen ways.
Lets face it. Warez is here to stay big time. And these actions are way to late to do anything against it.
No more geeks going around at BBS sites, using hidden tags to access those files, with strict 1:1 rules… Warez has moved into the main stream.
People want it easy, they want it cheap, and they want it 5 min ago. And warez these days caters to this. Unlike the music industries, film industries, and a whole lot of other industries who missed the ball, thinking there monopoly’s, and exclusive contracts where going to last a eternity. And lets face it, they create the problem themselves. Radio to loud at work, and the customers can hear it. Bwam. Pay up or we sue…
There is also the fact that DOWNLOADING music, movies and books is perfectly legal in my country. I break no laws at all by accessing a newgroup and downloading a movie from there.
:)
this reminds of me an old video that camphaos made.
http://www.campchaos.com/blog-archives/2006/05/napster_bad_sue_all_the_world.html
Actually no, BUT, if you have ‘paid’ for access of use to that newsgroup, you are breaking the biggest law of warez-
thou shall not PAY for or SELL warez.
like usenet is doing.
You’re not paying for access to a specific newsgroup. You are paying for dedicated and fast access to all newsgroups. A lot of ISP/University servers filter out binaries or have very short retention lengths.
[quote]What dick went and told the RIAA about Usenet? Everyone knows the first rule of usenet, is to not talk about….[/quote]
Usenet isn’t, and has never been, some secret.
Nice.. one more service for TPB to adopt :P
Can’t touch this! (In Sweden).
[quote comment="188568"]you are breaking the biggest law of warez-
thou shall not PAY for or SELL warez.
like usenet is doing.[/quote]
I take it you use free cable/dsl to download stuff? The best usenet companies are even cheaper than them.
What ISP would sell you unlimited download at 20+ Mbps for $15/month?
Damn soon I won’t be able to use Newzbin, Newsleecher (that I paid for) and my newsgroup server.
I guess I need to stop soon, been saying it for years, “Why are these servers still up?” and after reading this headline on Slashdot, it finally caught up.
There is a lot of dumb comments on here, that is for sure. I can say I have never used P2P or bittorrent because I have newsgroups.
About 99% of you people are complete idiots, and I hope you all realize it. I have honestly seen only TWO PEOPLE who have any REAL understanding of what’s happening here
Usenet has not ever, does not ever, and never will sell you “warez”. All they charge for is bandwidth. THAT’S IT. Any illegal content posted to Usenet is the fault of its users. And even then, nobody’s forcing anybody to actually download any of it at all.
But whatever, go ahead and keep a tight deathgrip on your shitty Limewire and your oh-so-apparent denial that you are inflicted with a severe case of stupidity.
The RIAA is rearranging chairs on the Titanic.
Radiohead’s latest album is the clearest sign yet that the world is changing. No record contracts, no mandatory distribution agreements - none of what is ‘Big Music’ will matter in a few years.
All the RIAA exists for now is protect their back catalog for as long as possible. Jack V’s dead and his isn’t coming back..
No matter how you look at it, NewsGroups is safer.
Sure, they can file a lawsuit. By the time that lawsuit comes to court the retention of the file causing the issue will be long gone, with no trace. This is not torrents where downloads can linger on for 3 or 4 or 5 years. This is NewsGroups, and the average retention is 75 days. Good luck getting a hearing this big within that time frame.
as soon as you turn on your PC you pay for warez! that’s against the warez credo man!
/retard
Look at all you dumb fookers talking about stuff you aren’t supposed to talk about. You are just as bad as the clueless, except you are worse. You are trying to tout your knowledge. Just STFU and leave em be.
Hey, they can shut down the whole Internet while they’re at it! Yes, and also Blind the eyes of this site’s reader… yeah
enigmax you did good reporting what is happening
cheggit_sucks you are correct 150%
Arqentus you are a paid employee of the MAFIAA
Piracy took over p2p traffic because it was such a great tool for it, but it wasn’t exclusive to it. P2p is and has been used for many non-piracy activities. Many games use p2p technology for security updates and other such things. Usenet, IRC, Tor, Freenet, and other networks are also not exclusively designed for piracy. The difference is that they haven’t been as attractive for pirating material as p2p applications that were designed to improve file sharing.
This thread is full of RIAA shills,
trying to convince us otherwise. Morons
1 references to this post
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 » Show All
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.