Usenet: The Next Target in the War on Piracy

Written by Ernesto on August 19, 2007 

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.

Usenet The Next Target in the War on PiracyUsenet is catching up with BitTorrent in terms of popularity, partly because it is considered to be safer. However, this increased popularity also has a dark side to it, as anti-piracy organizations start monitoring newsgroups.

Tim Kuik, managing director of BREIN – the Dutch branch of the MPAA – told the Dutch news site Webwereld that the increased attention from computer magazines over the past year lowered the nerd-factor of the Usenet. Because of this it’s now become one of the main targets of anti-piracy outfits.

Kuik further said that BREIN made a blacklist of Usenet providers who structurally infringe copyright. Their plan is to urge these providers to stop their services and compensate the content owners for their losses. Some might argue that Kuik’s words are yet another loose threat to make it seem like no pirate is safe, but there is some truth in his statements.

TorrentFreak talked to an insider, who works closely with anti-piracy organizations like the MPAA and RIAA, and he also noticed that the Usenet has been getting more attention lately. “BitTorrent is still enemy number one, but there is a significant growth in Usenet monitoring”, he said. Some Usenet providers now use BitTorrent sites to advertise their services and according to our source, this is another big reason why it caught the attention of anti-piracy outfits.

The people in charge at most anti-piracy organizations hardly know how to write an e-mail, if it’s not in the media, it’s not a target. If only people kept to rule number one this probably would have never happened.

The Usenet providers are not impressed by BREIN’s strong words though. Remco Habets from Usenet provider Usenet4u said in a response: “BREIN often makes statement that lead to nothing. One and a half year ago they also said that they were going to take on newsgroups, we’ll see”

To be continued…

Previously: Police Target ‘Pirate Cinema’ Fuelled by Downloaded Movies

Next: Franz Ferdinand Encourage Fans to Pirate New Track

54 Responses

1 Aug 19, 2007 at 18:19 by Paul

Wake up!
http://tinyurl.com/27sfw2

2 Aug 19, 2007 at 19:09 by Gus

I think I just pooped a little in my trousers.

3 Aug 19, 2007 at 19:37 by AnondD

next target? well look at bittorent, its hardly been stopped has it and that was a “target”. i think ill be taking this with a pinch of salt.

4 Aug 19, 2007 at 19:55 by Irma

The first rule of usenet is….

(shhhhhhhh! everyone just shhhh!)

5 Aug 19, 2007 at 20:48 by Communist

These antip2p fuctards are such a laugh. I just love reading their statements.

6 Aug 19, 2007 at 21:58 by Sifor

Oooh, that doesn’t sound to good. I wonder if they are serious about it?

7 Aug 19, 2007 at 22:27 by Froosh

Usenet isn’t that good anyways.

8 Aug 19, 2007 at 23:06 by v

torrents are better anyway.

9 Aug 19, 2007 at 23:50 by An0nym0us

Did you know that if you drink 2 liters of beer and take 4 Xanax… wait between 20 to 30 minutes and then read all these articals… you just laugh and not care ither way… oh… you will also go to sleep right after.

Yup now that is a fact.

10 Aug 20, 2007 at 00:08 by greenkeyboard

The Usenet providers are not impressed by BREIN’s strong words though. Remco Habets from Usenet provider Usenet4u said in a response: “BREIN often makes statement that lead to nothing. One and a half year ago they also said that they were going to take on newsgroups, we’ll see”

Enough said so untill something happens just relax!

11 Aug 20, 2007 at 03:14 by dataduden

This might be because USENEXT has such an aggresive advertisement.

12 Aug 20, 2007 at 05:43 by Janko

Once again Germany is taking the lead:

http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-235.html

13 Aug 20, 2007 at 09:45 by anon

usenet sucks

14 Aug 20, 2007 at 14:04 by ronnie

you cant stop torrents or usenet, torrents use up one third of the worlds bandwidth with all the leechers you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than getting caught downloading. these anti piracy groups are lame they should get real jobs.

15 Aug 20, 2007 at 15:16 by Sonnentier

Usenet is a technology, Usenet is a network. They can remove warez from a bunch of USP or shut them down, there are still many left.
Anyway, it’s not good if these organizations touch the paradise.

16 Aug 20, 2007 at 19:49 by dave

good usenet is a scam anyways.

17 Aug 20, 2007 at 21:07 by DK

usenet sucks

——

So maxing your download connection on nearly everything sucks does it? You stick to torrents and the slow downloads due to the increasing amount of leechers and I’ll sit back and laugh while I’m downloading at 1mbps+

18 Aug 20, 2007 at 21:26 by for

“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.”

You’ve been listening too much to the fan boys. That statement is a bunch of BS.

19 Aug 21, 2007 at 00:29 by An0nym0us

[quote comment="149733"]you cant stop torrents or usenet, torrents use up one third of the worlds bandwidth with all the leechers you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than getting caught downloading. these anti piracy groups are lame they should get real jobs.[/quote]

sad part is… they are getting payed to do the job of trying to catch us.

20 Aug 21, 2007 at 02:30 by DXO

so, where do you get usenet?

21 Aug 21, 2007 at 07:37 by peckerwood

Bit torrent= P2P wellfare

Usenet= P2P Bliss

You got to pay to play baby.

22 Aug 21, 2007 at 09:27 by Sonnentier

Usenet is Filesharing, but not P2P.

23 Aug 21, 2007 at 15:22 by rah

So maxing your download connection on nearly everything sucks does it? You stick to torrents and the slow downloads due to the increasing amount of leechers and I’ll sit back and laugh while I’m downloading at 1mbps+

————————

I get 3-4Mbps on all my torrents, regularly, without paying…

24 Aug 21, 2007 at 21:42 by ghost.

i get 3-4mbps on all my torrents, regularly, without paying, for usenet, or an isp. ;)

25 Aug 22, 2007 at 18:01 by freakinc

why pay for usenet when u have pvt trakers and gr8 bt sites/forums

26 Aug 23, 2007 at 11:43 by Yoshimitsu

They all make me laugh, so pathedic. They dont understand they’re running on a hamster wheel they call progress. P2p and piracy will never come to an end, I support it all the way!

27 Aug 25, 2007 at 17:43 by Deez

[quote comment="150348"]i get 3-4mbps on all my torrents, regularly, without paying, for usenet, or an isp. ;)[/quote]

How the heck do you do that??? I say impossible. Unless you ONLY get the newest, freshest, most seeded torrents EVER. I got on usenet 1.6 yrs ago and will never go back to torrents (cept for a couple things)

28 Aug 27, 2007 at 09:38 by John

Another alternative is encrypted files sharing between friends, where all exchanges stay hidden. GigaTribe does this for free, and you can exchange huge files within a secure, private network: http://www.gigatribe.com

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33 Oct 02, 2007 at 04:07 by Bane

and why is there so much attention? because idiot “e-journalists” think they are brilliant, and create articles. I’m glad you have aspirations, but crap like this brings down the entire community, a piece at a time.

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41 Dec 26, 2007 at 18:42 by Sweta-Zinok

Hi. Sorry for my english. Happy New Year!!!!!
Good Luck!

42 Jan 13, 2008 at 03:23 by Anonymous

Torrent sites don’t want you to talk about Usenet because they don’t want people to know about Usenet. They want to make a lot of money instead.

43 Mar 11, 2008 at 00:25 by Anonymous

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44 Mar 12, 2008 at 04:42 by Anonymous

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45 Apr 06, 2008 at 00:14 by Go Torrents!!

Usenet sucks.
All the files i try to download are missing stuff. It only works if you pay extra for a better usenet server with higher completion/retention rate. And thats just it, isn’t the point of downloading files illegally that you DON’T have to pay for them??? Don’t the groups that release these files originally, do so FOR FREE??????? F*CK USENET!!!!! You can say what you want about torrents, but at least they are free. If im gonna pay, i might as well pay for the real thing.

46 Apr 21, 2008 at 15:35 by StupidGuy

Ya, “Go Torrents!” You are SPOT on! For example, I wanted to get all 10 seasons of a show on dvd, and instead of getting it off usenet in 5 days (while I stupidly paid $14/month for premium service), I , just like you, wanted the real thing instead for $200 when I ordered it and got it in the mail in the same amount of time I could have gotten it from newsgroups. I paid $200 but I saved $14 a month. Pretty smart, huh??
Yes, I could have used torrents, but I wanted to watch the shows before I died.

47 May 08, 2008 at 16:45 by jimjim, thedogfaceboy

usenet is crap. like a video store where they tell you what to rent.

torrents are the only way to go.

48 May 25, 2008 at 22:40 by KsbjA

UseNeXT is crap. Usenet might be not. But I’m happy with my torrents for now.

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53 Jul 28, 2008 at 23:06 by Anonymous

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54 Dec 29, 2008 at 05:22 by Name

China has been on a rampage lately. They supplied all the anti-piracy groups here in USA to attack us, while in their own back door they continue to steel from us all.

They indeed got to USENET from a few big providers since.

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