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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Another step in the wrong direction
I am going to echo a post I saw on slyck
THIS is one the RIAA maybe over reaching It is pretty well established as far back as 2001 aslong as a provoder complies with dmca takedown process they fall into safe harbor. The Riaa better hope it does wim this because if not usenet will become more popular than ever after the media attention.
Didn’t read the whole article.
But, it’s better that they take down the guys who’s SELLING warez than the regular torrenters whos just… Sharing? Right?
P2L can die.
[quote comment="188290"]I am going to echo a post I saw on slyck
THIS is one the RIAA maybe over reaching It is pretty well established as far back as 2001 aslong as a provoder complies with dmca takedown process they fall into safe harbor. The Riaa better hope it does wim this because if not usenet will become more popular than ever after the media attention.[/quote]
Also this not going to be like taking down a litle torrent nzb site or file sharer most of these providers have plenty of moeny. If thise case does not get dismissed it will be in courts for years.
Well, the times where the usenet was deemed as underground are long gone.
Also, the usenet does have a bunch of actively used purposes other then file distribution. Its like trying to take down the http protocol because trackers use it… ridicules.
Let them keep busy with that for a while.
I said this on Digg:
BitTorrent NEEDS Usenet.
If any BitTorrent user out there wants to seed something and bring stuff to the community, he can get it from Usenet. No-one wants screw around with other sources, it’s too much hard work.
If Usenet binaries go down, available content will reduce its flow to BitTorrent.
I desperately don’t want that, 110%
Usenet FTW
from my point of view it’s ok if they be bury it.
They advertise to agressive all over the net& making big $ with pirated stuff etc…
Keep it quiet and low.
And make no big bucks of it.
Like someone said the releases of scene crews were never supposed to go to p2p…yeah right! Who does believe such crap.
If usenet is going to die the stuff will be available somewhere else..it has ever been that way.
If the RIAA & MPAA had their own way, there wouldn’t be much left of the internet. Those morons are starting to hinder the progress of humanity.
just said to my self its just a matter of time before an anti piracy org would attack a network like usenet irc
is the only thing they havent tried to fuck up so far
I could care less about Usenet, they can be buried because they simply $uck. Charging for Warez goes against the true spirit of P2P.
I looked at a sign up for Usenet, it was like $50.00 a month! No way.
These guys are selling pirated movies, games, music…this oes way beyond mere P2P. They can go down.
[quote comment="188346"]I looked at a sign up for Usenet, it was like $50.00 a month![/quote]
$50/mo?? Where have you been looking? Even the top rated package on usenet.com is $18.95/mo
I need to sue the RIAA for ruining music.
@Starwhite: I think you’re just confused about the names
XXL Power Packages (including 50Gb) cost ~$20/month.
So, I’m not nervous about this attack. They can’t take down the whole usenet. Even if they sue usenet.com there are other providers (alphaload, firstload… just to name a few)
[quote comment="188346"]I could care less about Usenet, they can be buried because they simply $uck. Charging for Warez goes against the true spirit of P2P.
I looked at a sign up for Usenet, it was like $50.00 a month! No way.
These guys are selling pirated movies, games, music…this oes way beyond mere P2P. They can go down.[/quote]
Usenet is not P2P
[quote comment="188303"]I said this on Digg:
BitTorrent NEEDS Usenet.
If any BitTorrent user out there wants to seed something and bring stuff to the community, he can get it from Usenet. No-one wants screw around with other sources, it’s too much hard work.
If Usenet binaries go down, available content will reduce its flow to BitTorrent.
I desperately don’t want that, 110%
Usenet FTW[/quote]
Usenet is not and never will be the supplier of Scene releases. The people that upload to Usenet are the same as the people who upload to Private Trackers. Please get your facts straight before making stupid comments.
Santa: Where was I looking? Here is a direct link my friend: wake up and smell the coffee!
http://www.usenext.de/index.cfm?TD=367996
On this site if you click on ‘Sign up now’ you get a price quote for various warez packages they hawk:
its not exactly $50.00 I said “LIKE” $50.00: I was speaking approximately: SORRY, still too much:
$29.81 *
24,95 € (EU price)
per month
Term 1 month
monthly payment
Again, advertizing and charging for P2P to me, (and I’ve been using P2P since it started) is wrong. It goes against the spirit of sharing files between people good naturedly.
These guys are openly hawking and advertising warez on the internet for profit. I am sorry, but the true spirit of P2P was to share with your neighbor with an open heart. Usenet can just go away as far as I am concerned because they destroy this and are no better than the RIAA and MPAA to me. I equate them with pimping and whoring warez for profit. Or, as Obi Wan stated: QUOTE: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”.
Giganews.com has unlimited access for only $24.99/month
[quote comment="188303"]I said this on Digg:
BitTorrent NEEDS Usenet.
If any BitTorrent user out there wants to seed something and bring stuff to the community, he can get it from Usenet. No-one wants screw around with other sources, it’s too much hard work.
If Usenet binaries go down, available content will reduce its flow to BitTorrent.
I desperately don’t want that, 110%
Usenet FTW[/quote]
You are mistaken. BitTorrent doesn’t need USENET. All content comes from The Scene/Home Brew. If you’re too lazy to start a torrent that’s not our problem ;)
Starwhite: But that is not Usenet.com, is it? It’s a completely different NNTP provider.
Doesn’t matter, these groups that charge are all the same. Anyone or group charging for P2P violates the original intention of openly sharing. Usenet openly advertises and hawks copyrighted movies, music,
ETC….whereas originally people sharing with one another was different. If I bought a CD for my birthday and decided to share it ought to be my business. I bought it, to me its mine. Currently this is not legal. REAL people stood up and decided that all the copyrighted, near sighted, greedy corporate infringing laws were wrong. This is how P2P began. The people simply wanted to share with one another. not for profit, but because we could. This makes us no better than the RIAA and MPAA charging for it.
Starwhite: Usenet isn’t p2p.
Anyway I looked at that page and nowhere did I see any advertising for downloading warez. Neither did I find any such advertising on usenet.com.
The nearest match I found would be that you can download files and articles (no mentioning of what kind of files or articles), which is about as neutral as it can be for a service that is providing bandwidth access to usenet.
You could say that noone needs 10/25/50GB of usenet access for legal transfers, but in that case you are arguing that we should sue every single ISP for providing access to the internet. Most ISP advertising promote warez better than those usenet providers.
[quote comment="188346"]I could care less about Usenet, they can be buried because they simply $uck. Charging for Warez goes against the true spirit of P2P.
I looked at a sign up for Usenet, it was like $50.00 a month! No way.
These guys are selling pirated movies, games, music…this oes way beyond mere P2P. They can go down.[/quote]
use yottanews its the best free news server out there with support of all major binary groups
Starwhite:
Usenet-providers are not charging for warez, they are charging for Usenet-access. The fact that a lot of warez is available on Usenet, is simply because users are posting it. It really doesn’t have anything to do with Usenet at all. And very few Usenet-providers are advertising the fact that there are warez available in certain newsgroups. It is however true that UseNeXT do this. And UseNeXT really is a horrible provider that I wish would go away. On the other hand, there are a lot of good providers too (Astraweb, NewsHosting,…).
You keep describing Usenet as P2P, which it is _NOT_. Usenet uses the client-server model. It does of course cost money to keep the servers running (plus a lot of bandwith), and the providers do of course have to charge their users for this.
So, in summary: The providers are _NOT_ charging for warez, and Usenet is _NOT_ P2P. And being angry with the providers for selling Usenet-access is just completely absurd.
Thankyou.
usenet.com is doomed. they will probly have to filter their stuff.
they are in the worst situation since they host the actual files.
Right, I do not think that ANY ISP or provider should be sued period. I totally agree this is wrong. Since I have never used Usenet (I checked the link and I see that they are merely a provider) Sorry if I came off as a JackA$$. Usenet is completely innocent in my eyes. I blindly assumed they were selling P2P. My mistake completely. I was wrong. I simply meant any group selling Warez irritates a me for the above mentioned reasons.
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