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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[quote comment="188433"][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.[/quote]
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ROFL that was hilarious! Here you are trying too sound leet and smart and end up looking like a total idiot.
Days to download something? And 1.8 being faster? lol.
On zero day private trackers i’m downloading at the same time you are and half the time faster.
All of this is bullcrap. I’d like to see them take down every mailing service in the USA.
I have been getting my content through mail in about 3 days. I pay $25 and then I get 100G’s of data, whatever I may choose. This method takes away from the **AA’s, your isp and others.
We have all become so dependent on the Internet that we forgot there is a postal service out there.
Are any of you saying that you wouldn’t invest $25 per 100G’s worth of files? I’ve been doing it for years.
Stop following all the traditional downloading…. period. It’s worth every penny to pay $25 and get 100’s of movies in a few days top. I still download, but my source have everything a person wants all for a small fee.
Also, if the **AA’s and the anti-piracy groups are such a deterrent for p2p, then why is it that there are millions of people doing it as we speak, but at most they only come up with 100 or so cases per year, if that….. yet they still don’t win. And we’re not talking about those that settled out of court.
The whole **AA’s and their crony groups are all a bunch of jokes.
Let’s see them hassle the postal services. They CAN’T monitor the whole world, as like the US Government wants to do.
As long as people file share, and do it often, they will eventually bankrupt those major corporations and then they will dismantle the **AA’s… all we have to do is keep file sharing. If you have to do it though the regular mail, do it.
soon the RIAA is going to take anyone whith a Internet Connection to court..
when is the courts going to say to the RIAA “Stop Wasteing the Courts time with this Bullshit”???
.[/quote]
So you’re OK with just stealing it, you just don’t want to pay for stolen goods is that what you’re saying?[/quote]
I am saying that if people choose to share what they legally obtained and share it with me, and I share mine, then thats cool. Thats what P2P is baby! Yeah! And its sweeeeeet! If the GREEEDY Lawyers and CORRUPT politicians don’t like it they can kiss my A$$! Because we the people don’t have a problem with file sharing. I refuse to participate in selling ’shared’ files. When I share and take its from my heart. Since Corporate america has no heart, only $$$ they cannot understand.
Just to help the ignorant people who don’t understand usenet, it is not p2p. It is not related to p2p. It is a protocol like http, ftp, irc, ect. It is nntp (network news transfer protocol). And usenet providers have to charge something because they host all the news groups to which people post to. Not all is pirated music, movies, software, etc, but there is lots of that stuff. You can get just as much if not more via http or ftp, so if they want to stop usenet, they should also stop http and ftp too.
You pay for your web browsing, right? So why is it wrong to charge for nntp? What gives people the right to expect to get everything for free? Where does this sense of entitlement come from?
People need to get their facts before they just blurt out stupidity.
And usually, you get nntp along with your internet access. Most people are way to dumb to even know that.
Every protocol has its pros and cons when it comes to warez, music, movies, etc. So just use the one you like and leave the others alone.
I use Usenet almost exclusively. Besides being faster and less trouble than TRYING to use Bittorrent (Unregistered Tracker! Invalid Tracker! No Seeds! Etc, etc, etc) it’s also safer for downloading. Nobody knows what you’re downloading, except the Usenet provider and the RIAA/MPAA would need a court order to go through their logs. Even then, it wouldn’t pay to sue downloaders. If they did, they’d have milllions to sue, or they’d have to explain to a judge why they were suing users 1-50, but not users 50-1,000,000.
The problem with this lawsuit is that if they win, it could set a precedent that would make it easiest to sue the next Usenet provider. If that happens, NSPs will start dropping the binary groups rather than risk being sued.
In the past, I would have said that Usenet.com was safe due to their Common Carrier Status. Unfortunately, it seems that Copyright mania is sweeping through the legal system and judges seem happy to ignore established laws in their quest to help the RIAA/MPAA stamp out anything they don’t agree with. :(
BS you don’t have to explain why you’re not suing someone and even if you had to “We want to set an example” would probably be enough. They want to get binaries down not a single user btw.
On another subject.
Even though I’ve got to say most posters here are right about usenet they are sadly mistaken about BT.
I’ve been on usenet for ages but I don’t want to life without BT. Get yourself some decent tracker invites!
Its amazing how most ppl seem to stick with ‘what works for them’ they don’t even care to look into another direction - if it’s only to see whats going on. And that seems to be true for both bt and usenet users.
Two words:
Section 230
The internet is doomed. Usenet uses NNTP, which has been around forever. Now, if RIAA wins, they can go after anyone that offers NNTP services for free or not. Then after that, they may as well go after file-hosting sites like yourfilehost.com. Then, they may as well just go after anyone that offers FTP services. Then just the entire internet. The RIAA needs a new plan, and cannot even determine how much money they lose is due to illegal file sharing–they just assume it’s because of the internet.
Oky doky
NEW Game Idea TiTle
And if any u didnt know the Game industry owns the film and music industry(so they wanna fuken play hey)lol u wonna own our nets.
Hell Gammer Camp V’S The RIAA
This can be done with either say a
Half life mod
Counter strike mod
Bf 2142 Mod
Crysis mod
Hell why not mix the lot together
now think of some of the scenarios
1. u and ur team storm the riaa headquarters for a friendly chat after camp and im sure these little puffs will know who’s warezin the boots, heh cause in our midst there is some true esplanage they will never recover from, lol im sure some of u are already in, so there all sitting there in there nice little suits and really wtf would be going through there heads lol we shoulda bought gammer shares. heheheheh
File sharing no doubt has some legitimate uses, tho I’m having trouble thinking of many. But those legitimate uses have been corrupted by those seeking to avoid paying just compensation to the content’s creator. Just because you can, doesn’t make it right. This isn’t about trying to stifle technological innovation. It is about banning the illegal things people DO with it.
BTW…I’m no fan of the RIAA. At all. They’ve been stealing from and abusing artists forever. Prison rape of a pedophile might be poetic justice, but it’s still wrong as well.
As a non-performing songwriter, I feel the artists’ pain. You work for years to build a catalog so you can feed yourself and your family thru CD sales. Then all of a sudden, the technology comes along that lets anyone anonymously copy your work and enjoy it on demand without having to pay for it. Wonderful. So you bone with impunity the artists whose work you love.
LessPaul, I don’t know of any artist that makes more than $.05 cents per cd. Even as a songwriter, you probably sell the rights outright and get no royalties. We make our money two ways. We either sell our songs outright, or play out. The RIAA has been f*ing everyone and they’ve got the lobbyists to show for it.
And the RIAA suing ISP’s and p2p sights is retarded. In the same retarded analogy they are making, I could submit that they are the cause of thug music and promoting a lifestyle that is ultimately causing the shortened lives of children, promoting gang life, and music levels far above appropriate decibel levels that have led to acute and massive loss of hearing.
In a world where you can TIVO or record a VHS of your favorite show, do they want to collect royalties for this as well? After all, I don’t know of any show that doesn’t have a musical opening.
ThinkingMan….
Most major record companies’ standard contracts put the artist’s CD cut at 10-15%. Mega-artists with clout can get 30% or more. Problem is, of course that all production costs are born by the artist.
Big arists make so much money that they don’t care they’re geting screwed by the record label. Most mid level bands spend their entire contract in debt to their label.
The only way out of that hole is to sell more CDs. It sucks.
The best way to support a band you like is to buy their CDs. If they are available online for free, the CDs become virtually worthless.
And BTW…the standard songwriter royalty is 8 cents per CD pressed. And we split that with the publisher. And if there’s another co-writer or two, we spilit our share with them, too.
Well maybe my game option was a bit much but really there are for’s and against for both ,its pretty sad the artists only get around $0.05 for each track
i guess some thing has to be done that makes all parties happy but it seems so not in favour towards the artist or the listener
but really if u have downloaded gigs of songs etc , like do u really listen to 100+ hrs of music a day,
option deleat songs u dont use and pay some royalties say like 5 cents to artist and 2 cents to label.
sure prices would vary for latest hits etc
sure apple have a use pay model which is reasonable
more options for paying like who would give there visa number over the net i wouldnt.
What’s funny is the old concept of people with multiline phone service and 4+ modems on a PC. The “BBS” phenomeon was of course cut dead by:
A) New legislation forcing registration/logging=most just closed them down.
B) The price of an Internet connection to IRC as a client was much more convenient since you could connect anytime. It was also nice to not have to worry about having hundreds of wires coming out of your wall and $$$/month as an operator for only a small amount of users. ;)
C) AOL, etc. Really, the public availability of the WWW alone pretty much dwarved what most BBSes could do. A lot of users found no point in BBSes anymore.
The reason I mention this, is that there’s now a ton of people with WIFI sharing Internet access, but it would be neat to see a distributed BBS network using a combination of WIFI, LANs, and the Internet. Add signatures, encryption, and Freenet/TOR/Onion/I2P/etc. support, and something like VPNs and you may have a winner! I see it being possible that soon, you’ll see people not even using an ISP to access files. This would be cool. :)
According to Billboard.biz, the ninth wave of pre-litigation letters has been sent by the RIAA to administrators at 19 universities. The letters are part of the ongoing campaign to offer those using university networks to illegally share music to settle claims before they are named in a lawsuit. The 411 letters bring the total sent to 3,740. The ongoing initiative comes as federal lawmakers continue to examine the state of copyright theft on college campuses nationwide. This summer, Congress convened a hearing focused on the technological tools that can prevent or curtail illegal file sharing. The RIAA has also developed “best practices” information, based on the tools and practices initiated by schools experiencing fewer incidences of piracy on their networks. Specifically, universities that have experienced the most positive results have instituted specific reforms that educate students on campus network use and enforcement policies, offer affordable legal alternatives that give students access to their favorite music, and implement appropriate technological tools that protect the integrity of their networks.
Usenet is for legal stuff as well not to mention FREE PORNOGRAPHY.
Looks like we will all have to give to give out our credit card just to look at porn not to mention Big Brother will know you like to look at porn.
Welcome to the Police State!
After reading all comments so far on this topic theres only a few that obvioulsy know what they are talking about …..The Usenet is a good thing not bad, has and always will be - if you cant understand that then you obviously know nothing about it. Piracy will be around for years to come and organisations will make money from it any which way they can. IMHO if the music and film industries were to concentrate more on lowering prices of the media they produce instead of whining on about how many millions they have lost in internet piracy maybe the artists would see more???? Internet piracy is a quick clause for them to tell the artist sales have flopped if you ask me…..
Most markets I have been to sell pirated films for around a fiver a piece and make a huge profit on that i guess… So instead of charging over the odds for a dvd , if Industries priced the movies at a reasonable price …people would buy them rather than the copy???
I know myself if i was offered a pirate cd for 4 quid and i could buy the original for say 6 or 7 quid, I would buy the Original…. Music and movie Industries are always saying that the reason they have to charge such prices is because of the amount of money they lose in piracy……So if piracy came to a stand still and nobody was doing it … Would they lower the price of their products ..mmmmmmm I think not . They use piracy as an excuse to keep their prices so high.
Rant Over…….
[quote comment="195831"]Music and movie Industries are always saying that the reason they have to charge such prices is because of the amount of money they lose in piracy……[/quote]
Bulls—. Not to you, but the industry. When I was in high school eleven years ago, MP3 was basically still unheard of in the common world. It was just coming around, and few used it. CDs then cost $17. Then the whole Napster a few years later thing and like you point out the RIAA claimed that CDs cost so much because of illegal MP3 downloading. If at that time you went to a record store or major chain a CD was… drumroll… $17. Now go to a major chain and a CD will run you $15 in most cases.
I call their argument bunk.
To avoid problems with RIAA, royalty free music is your best solution. Here are two sites that have royalty free music that I have used.
http://www.studio1productions.com and http://www.studio1downloads.com
Sarah
HUGE records LTC introduces the worlds first 100% legal torrent site.
Get back at the RIAA !!!
http://www.huge.nl
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