It all began with a complaint from the studios in 2008, followed in 2009 by legal action. A year later Newzbin was found guilty of copyright infringement and soon collapsed under its £230,000 ($386,300) debt to the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

Shortly after and without a penny paid to the MPA, the site resurrected in the form of Newzbin2, an act which further infuriated the studios. Eventually Newzbin2 also shut down, partly because receiving money from users had became impossible after the MPA sued Kthxbai Ltd, the site’s payment processor.

And here’s why the case refused to die.

In 2012 it was revealed that Kthxbai’s sole director was David Harris, a barrister who defended Newzbin in the site’s original trial but had stepped down when it was discovered that he was actually the owner of Newzbin.

Not only did the MPA then go after Kthxbai and Harris, they also targeted the NZB Foundation, a Panamanian company that owned Harris’ home, and Motors for Movies Limited, a company that owned Harris’ McLaren car.

The MPA said that the £230,000 they were owed from the original Newzbin case was hidden away in these offshore companies. Harris denied that, adding that the NZB Foundation was a legitimate entity created with copyright reform and Usenet R&D in mind.

Furthermore, the MPA said that Harris and former Newzbin operator Chris Elsworth were behind the transfer of source code and databases from the collapsed Newzbin 1 to new kid on the block, Newzbin 2. Thickening the mix further still, the MPA claimed that Harris was none other than Mr White, the shadowy operator/spokesman of the Newzbin2 site.

But despite the big allegations the MPA’s first major bite against Harris and the offshore companies came to nothing. Last year a judge in the High Court ruled that the the studios were not entitled to the profits Newzbin2 had generated from piracy.

Following this ruling, Harris says that Newzbin 1′s Chris Elsworth settled with the studios (Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner, Paramount, Disney and Columbia), providing them with behind-the-scenes evidence in the process.

“Elsworth was once a co-defendant but cut a deal with the MPA on grounds he provide evidence against me,” Harris told TF.

The MPA were clearly going to run to the bitter end with their case and today they reached their goal. In a judgment handed down a few moments ago, David Harris was found liable for the copyright infringing acts of both Newzbin1 and Newzbin2, as well as conspiring to injure the interests of the Hollywood studios by unlawful means.

As a result, Harris is ordered to pay £1.3m ($2.2m) by May 30, 2014.

“I’m naturally very disappointed with the judgment of the High Court if not entirely surprised. I am examining grounds of appeal and I maintain that I have done nothing wrong,” Harris tells TorrentFreak.

“The verdict was based on secret IRC conversation logs produced by Chris Elsworth, the previous operator of Newzbin1. Elsworth was once a co-defendant but who betrayed me to cut a deal with the MPA. I maintain those logs were tampered with.”

Harris said that when he took over Newzbin1 his intention was to transform it into a service that was no longer “wildly unlawful” but one that would still be attractive to users. He also stands by his actions in processing payments for Newzbin2.

“Notwithstanding the judgment of the court it remains my view that Newzbin2 operated lawfully as did my own payment company which took Newzbin2 subscription payments. I am fully convinced I was legally and morally entitled to act as I did,” Harris explains.

Despite the big ruling against him, Harris says he remains committed to the ideals of Newzbin and still has plans for the site’s former users.

“I intend to rebuild that community and to develop services for them; but given the consistent history of legal defeats we’ve had those services will have to be carefully designed, with good independent legal advice, to ensure that there are no future legal risks to me,” he concludes.

One project Harris previously outlined was a NSA/GCHQ proof email service. Further announcements on that front will be published on Harris’ blog and Twitter.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Indexing site Newzbin, the creator of the NZB format, was hugely popular with Usenet users and for this reason attracted the attention of the Motion Picture Association. After a ruinous High Court battle which left it massively indebted to the Hollywood studios, the site folded in May 2010.

Surprisingly, however, just weeks later the site reappeared as Newzbin2, its code apparently liberated by individuals known as Team R Dogs. The site immediately set about ruffling the feathers of Hollywood, actions which resulted in Newzbin2 becoming the first ever site to be blocked on copyright grounds in the UK.

Unable to maintain its funding the site eventually closed, but far from over the story is about to take a couple more unexpected twists. First off and according to the site’s former lawyer, Newzbin intends to make a comeback with new services designed to defeat NSA spying.

“We are horrified by the recently disclosed antics of the NSA in indiscriminately spying on all Internet users,” David Harris told TorrentFreak.

“We cut our teeth protecting our users from the surveillance of corrupt US corporations like the Hollywood movie studios. We now plan to bring a range of privacy services to help protect the public from governments. Our first product is a secure email service which is about to enter closed early beta testing.”

Now, the name David Harris may very well ring a couple of bells with readers. Harris was the original Newzbin’s lawyer, in fact for a while he defended the site in its High Court battle against the MPA.

However, that episode became mired controversy when it was discovered that not only was Harris the site’s lawyer, but he was also secretly the site’s owner having previously obtained 100% of the shares.

In 2012 the Bar Standards Board eventually disbarred Harris and fined him £2,500 after the Brighton-based barrister called MPA lawyers names including “prick” and “slimebag”. But 18 months later and Harris is now hoping to bring a new valuable service to the masses.

“Newzbin will be based in privacy protecting jurisdictions outside the territories of the United States & its cronies. Once out of Beta phase, it will be based in Switzerland,” Harris explains.

“We will not be complying with US National Security letters or government demands other than those from our host jurisdiction. Like Lavabit we will close rather than comply with orders violating our users’ privacy.”

Harris says that the new service, to be hosted at EncryptedMail.ch, is undergoing testing and should be available to the public by Christmas. However, despite the deaths of Newzbin and Newzbin2, there is still unfinished business with the MPA on the horizon.

“The MPA allege that Elsworth [former Newzbin creator and owner] & I dishonestly dissipated Newzbin’s assets in 2010 to avoid paying the MPA the £230,000 costs they were awarded after the 2010 trial. They say I did this by setting up offshore companies which I paid Newzbin’s remaining money into,” Harris explains.

“They allege that Elsworth and I, and maybe others, arranged the ‘theft’ of the source code & databases [of Newzbin] and then operated the Newzbin2 site and then infringed their copyrights. I deny that.”

Harris informs us that the MPA are claiming that he is none other than the infamous Mr White, the public face of Team R Dogs, the group behind Newzbin’s resurrection. To this end in late 2012 the MPA obtain injunctions against several of Harris’s companies which the former lawyer says were designed to put him out of business. Former Newzin owner Chris Elsworth has apparently settled with the MPA so will not be part of their action.

“Thus far the MPA have got me disbarred and killed my businesses but the email project is the start of my fightback,” Harris explains. “I intend to continue my fight to protect peoples’ privacy from governments. I also have other projects relating to p2p technology and Usenet in the formative stages.”

The MPA’s case against Harris is expected to go to trial in December 2013.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Perhaps inevitably, in 2008 the site was eyed by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the MPAA’s big brother. A threatening letter in 2008 developed into a lawsuit and by February 2010 Newzbin had lost their High Court case after being found liable for copyright infringement.

The site later reincarnated as Newzbin2 but shut down again recently. However, that didn’t deter Hollywood from trying to squeeze money from its ashes and the pockets of its affiliates.

In November 2012 it emerged through information given to TorrentFreak by Newzbin2′s Mr White that the MPA were now suing Newzbin2′s payment processor, a company called Kthxbai Limited. A High Court ruling handed down this week has revealed the extent of that claim.

It transpires that Kthxbai’s sole director is David Harris, a barrister who defended Newzbin in their original trial but stepped down when it was discovered that he was actually the owner of Newzbin. Harris is also named personally in the MPA’s latest claim.

Other defendants were the NZB Foundation, a Panamanian company that apparently owns Harris’ home, and Motors for Movies Limited, a company that owns Harris’ McLaren car. Former Newzbin1 owner Christopher Elsworth was also included.

The studios – Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner, Paramount, Disney and Columbia – obtained freezing injunctions against the defendants in 2012, later seeking proprietary injunctions with the aim of staking claim to revenues generated by Newzbin2 when the site infringed copyright.

Acting for the studios Richard Spearman QC argued that copyright infringement is akin to theft, citing an earlier case where the word “steal” had been used to describe video piracy. Spearman also quoted from another case involving “stolen coins” but Justice Newey found the arguments unconvincing.

“The fruits of an infringement of copyright cannot, as it seems to me, be equated with the stolen coins. While the owner of the coins will have lost title to the coins at law, the copyright owner will have retained title throughout both in equity and at law,” the Judge wrote.

“A copyright infringer is more akin to a trespasser rather than to the thief of the coins. That leads to the next point: that a landowner has no proprietary claim to the fruits of a trespass,” he added.

Justice Newey then put forward a scenario in which a market trader was selling DVDs from a stall (some infringing, others not) on land he was trespassing on.

“The owner of the land could not, as I see it, make any proprietary claim to the proceeds of the trading or even the profit from it. There is no evident reason why the owner of the copyright in the DVDs should be in a better position in this respect,” he wrote.

“On Mr Spearman’s case, a copyright owner’s claim would not even be limited to the infringer’s profits: in principle, the entire proceeds of sale would be held on trust for the copyright owner. That might both be unfair and stultify enterprise,” he explained.

“It might not seem just for even a deliberate wrongdoer to have to pay the copyright owner the amount of his gross receipts, and an infringer need not have known that he was breaching copyright.

“Further, were Mr Spearman’s submissions correct, a person might be deterred from pursuing an activity if he perceived there to be even a small risk that the activity would involve a breach of copyright or other intellectual property rights. As was submitted by Miss Lambert [for the defense], that could have a chilling effect on innovation and creativity.”

Justice Newey concluded by noting Mr Spearman’s “persuasive advocacy” but ultimately ruling that a copyright owner does not have a proprietary claim to the profits generated by piracy.

The MPA is expected to appeal.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Although Newzbin2 anticipated the result and had already prepared circumvention software to enable BT users to carry on using the site, it still has a key vulnerability – its US-seizable .COM domain. According to the site’s operators, that weakness is now being addressed.

“Newzbin is leaving the American Internet. In a couple of weeks we will cease to use the newzbin.com domain and move to newzbin2.es,” says the site’s Mr White.

“We regret the need to do this but, thanks to the retards in the US Government and the MPA, a ‘.com’ address is no longer viable. Really, any domain controlled by the US government proxy Verisign isn’t viable.”

No exact date has been given for the switch but it will be during the next few weeks. For “legal reasons” the old .COM domain, which Newzbin2′s operators say is currently rented from a 3rd party, will not redirect or even provide a link to the new Spanish domain.

During 2012 it’s expected that the site’s unblocking tool will see wider use as other ISPs are also expected to begin blocking Newzbin2. But according to the site, thus far censorship has had the opposite effect.

“I can’t give exact figures but an executive summary would be that, from our Apache logs, traffic grew steadily over 2011 with a big spike about the time we were blocked; down a little since then, but still at higher levels than ever before,” Mr White told TorrentFreak.

“Overall the MPA’s web blocking has had something of a Streisand Effect on our traffic levels. It seems that they are driving users to us. Our best friend is our worst enemy,” he notes.

Nevertheless, Newzbin2′s operators aren’t simply cruising. Mr White told TorrentFreak that they intend to use the trust they’ve built up in the community to launch a secure VPN service which will not only allow anonymous Internet use, but will also defeat site-blocking measures.

But surprisingly, especially given the astonishing MegaUpload-related developments of the last week, they also intend to launch a cyberlocker service.

“Our reaction to Megaupload and the fallout was twofold. On the one level this is a very important case because if New Zealand extradite Dotcom to the US, which is where the smart money is I reckon, it will be a fascinating exhibition of the MPA’s legal strategy against cyberlockers. It may be the feds prosecuting but we all know that the MPA’s hand is up their puppet ass,” says Mr White.

“The shame for Dotcom was only that he didn’t spend his money on politicians & cops rather than godawful pink Cadillacs. And how INTERESTING that the FBI have shown publicly that they really can backdoor Skype,” he added.

Mr White described the ensuing pandemonium in the cyberlocker market as “like a herd of elephants being frightened by bees” and advised site operators who have done nothing wrong to “man up and show some spine.”

Newzbin2 assure us that their forthcoming service will be “legal from the ground up” but predict their service will receive “sniping from the malodorous content dinosaurs.”

In an uncertain world and even more uncertain cyberlocker market, that last prediction is probably the most certain we’ve heard all week.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Despite an earlier statement which indicated that Newzbin2′s owners would hire lawyers to fight attempts to have them blocked by ISPs in the UK, the site was not represented at this week’s hearing nor did they have any type of input.

Today, through site spokesman Mr White, Team R Dogs denounce what the team feel are the pointless efforts of the “Copyright Dinosaurs” at the MPA and bemoan the site’s lack of input at the High Court proceedings.

“A Newzbin2 themed costume party, with horsehair wigs, and no-one invited us. The MPA didn’t invite us, BT didn’t invite us, the court didn’t invite us. Team R Dogs would have loved to have had some say,” Mr White explains.

Nevertheless, although the input of the team would have been useful, their absence from the proceedings shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, despite their enthusiasm.

Not only would their involvement represent a huge financial cost to the site, any official contribution would almost certainly require that the site’s ownership break their carefully crafted cover. As observers of file-sharing litigation will recognize, that kind of exposure can open up unwanted and painful fronts when fighting an entity such as the MPA.

The importance of the action, however, is clear to Newzbin2.

“If the MPA get this injunction they will certainly, in the mould of the Internet Watch Foundation, start to add to the list other sites that offend them, e.g. the Pirate Bay. All of this will probably also be secret and, like us, not subject to an appeal or any due process,” Mr White explains.

“What happens when some bunch of quackpot frauds like homeopaths decide that instead of suing Simon Singh and losing, it would be easier to force BT to block access to any website referring to his debunkings?”

But of course, getting a site blocked either by injunction or via some other private company-run firewall service is one thing, getting a site white-listed again is another matter.

Mr White says that even if Newzbin2 began operating in an MPA-approved manner in the future, it is doubtful that event would signal the lifting of any granted injunction or ISP blockade, something that would prove unpopular with site subscribers.

“The injunction will be hated by our users – none of whom have asked for the site to be blocked: those trying to access our content, much of it legal, will simply be denied access to a site they have paid a membership to. Web blocks only ever work where people bump into a site accidentally; our users will simply use Google to find us by some other method: probably a method provided by us.”

As noted in our earlier article, BT was selected by the MPA not only because it’s the largest UK ISP, but because it already has blocking technology in place. Known as Cleanfeed, the system is used by the ISP to block images of child abuse.

Whatever readers may think of Newzbin2′s actions, those of the MPA, BT, or any decision coming from the High Court, blocking images of exploitation has to be a good thing. The problem here, however, is that along with blocking technologies come unblocking technologies, and they will only become more prevalent as more people need them.

Currently only a small subset Internet users need to know how to evade blocks to get to child porn; giving millions of others trying to access sites such as Newzbin2 the ability will eventually tear a hole through the originally well-intentioned Cleanfeed, and that can never be good. The copyright war continues to cause collateral damage, the “unintended consequences” so often spoken about.

“Newzbin2 is currently evaluating methods to defeat Cleanfeed without the need to adopt radical technological changes (although we are looking at those too for the future).

“Blocking us is futile and the MPA have made Cleanfeed technology a target to be defeated by those determined to counter censorship technologies. How unfortunate if that allows perverts to prosper. Perhaps the MPA should have thought of the kids?”

The Newzbin2 team also criticize the words of MPA Euro head Chris Marcich when he said this week that Hollywood had “explored every route to get Newzbin to take down the infringing material” and was ultimately “left with no option but to challenge this in the courts.”

“Two things have obviously never passed the lips of Mr Marcich: the truth, or the tongue of a loving woman,” says Mr White.

“Newzbin2 has never heard a peep out of the MPA; not so much as a Christmas card let alone a DMCA takedown notice.”

Going on to differentiate Newzbin2 from the original Newzbin (the site battered by the MPA in a 2010 legal victory), Mr White says that the latest incarnation of the site “respects copyright and acts on DMCA notices: [the MPA] just haven’t sent us any.”

Of course, DMCA notices are from the US legal system and don’t mean very much in a UK court. Furthermore, Team R Dogs say they are not UK-based and therefore are not bound by UK copyright law. The site itself appears to be hosted in Sweden. Such is the nature of the Internet; are we here, there, or somewhere else when using it?

Nevertheless, ISPs in the UK are required to take action against direct infringement when they become aware of it which brings us full circle to the very point of the MPA’s demands for an injunction against Newzbin2. But does the MPA’s request go too far?

We will have to wait for that decision. Yesterday Mr Justice Arnold said the court will make a formal judgment soon after July 12th, pending the outcome of another case involving the sale of counterfeit products on eBay.

The ruling in that case, i.e whether eBay is responsible for illegal products being sold by 3rd parties via its site, will have a bearing on the Newzbin2 case.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The celebrations following the site’s demise were to be short-lived. Newzbin was quickly resurrected under new management as Newzbin2, and the MPA faced the prospect of taking on new legal action against the site’s new owners. Rather than tackle Newzbin2 head on, Hollywood tried a different approach.

During September 2010, TorrentFreak learned that the MPA were developing plans to take leading UK ISP BT to court and by December we had solid proof that was indeed the case. The MPA went to court seeking an injunction against BT in order to force them to block Newzbin2.

“In launching this case, the MPA is aiming to secure an order that will enable BT to block Internet access to the site, thus preventing the site from using the Internet to make money through infringement,” the MPA informed us in a statement.

This week the MPA are back at the High Court again, hoping it can get an injunction to force BT to block the site for its 5.6 million subscribers. According to an MPA spokesperson, BT was selected for two reasons.

“BT was chosen because it’s the largest [ISP] and already has the technology in place, through its Cleanfeed system, to block the site,” she said.

Developed by BT at an estimated cost of £500,000, Cleanfeed is a content blocking system that has been operational since 2004. In conjunction with information supplied by the Internet Watch Foundation, it is used by BT to block child pornography sites.

Traffic destined for a blacklisted URL or IP address is intercepted by Cleanfeed. At this point BT impersonates the destination web server and returns an HTTP 404 status code, causing a subscriber’s web browser to show a site “not found” message.

It is unclear how much development work has been done on the system since its inception, but early versions of Cleanfeed had a number of limitations. The product only worked on the standard port for regular browsing, port 80. It was also unable to block encrypted or proxied web traffic, unless the proxy itself was on the blacklist.

Interestingly, according to comments made in 2004 by Mike Galvin, then Director of Internet Services for BT Retail, the company already had concerns that outsiders would attempt to widen the purpose of Cleanfeed. Another ISP, Wanadoo, was apparently approached by the BPI to use a system similar to Cleanfeed to block music piracy.

In response, Galvin said that if the pressure to “extend the scope” of Cleanfeed became too great, BT would cancel the project. BT has made no recent public comment to that effect in connection with this current action by the MPA.

“The MPA application to engage in censorship of the Internet for their own petty interests would, if granted, set a dangerous precedent in a Western democracy,” Newzbin told TorrentFreak in an earlier statement.

“‘Drive-by’ litigation such as this will cut off access to substantial legitimate content and is entirely unwarranted & disproportionate.”

Newzbin have already taken steps to mitigate any site blocking measures by using the TOR anonymity system.

“The MPA’s lame attempt at censoring us in the UK won’t be permitted to cut Brits off from us if it happens,” concludes Newzbin’s Mr White.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

However, if website blocking should prove ineffective at reducing infringement these requests would become pointless even if authorized. So, to ascertain the effectiveness of blocking, Secretary of State for Culture Jeremy Hunt asked communications watchdog Ofcom to look into the matter and report back by spring.

But as the wheels and processes slowly turn, accompanied by calls from the Open Rights Group for citizens to challenge the proposals, those unencumbered by layers of bureaucracy are acting quickly.

As widely predicted, a way around website blocking has been found quicker than it has even been assessed, let alone implemented. First up, one the MPAA’s primary blocking targets – Usenet indexing site Newzbin2.

“Since web blocking seems to be the new DRM for the Dirty Half Dozen and our name has featured high as a prospective victim of a domain name grab or a block, we thought we’d address the problem by the use of the free speech tool Tor,” Mr White from Newzbin2 told TorrentFreak today.

“We have set up a hidden Tor service accessible at http://sc3njt2i2j4fvqa3.onion,” he added.

Without going into huge amounts of detail, what Newzbin2 have done is set up what is known as a ‘hidden service’ with the world-famous TOR anonymity network. This means that by using the above URL with a TOR-enabled browser, anyone can access Newzbin2, even if its domain name is blocked or seized.

For those that don’t want to install TOR there is also another solution. By exchanging the .onion pseudo-TLD with tor2web.org (e.g http://sc3njt2i2j4fvqa3.tor2web.org), .onion URLs can be accessed from a normal browser with no addons whatsoever.

“By running a hidden service we make the MPA’s attempt to knock our name off the web entirely futile,” says Mr White.

“Newzbin2: 1 Stupids: 0,” he concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Having lost its legal battle with the MPA in March 2010, in May it collapsed under a mountain of debt, only to resurrected under new management as Newzbin2.

The site has gone about its business ever since, continuing in pretty much the same manner as it did before the closure and indexing the same content – including Hollywood movies. One would think, therefore, that in common with dozens of torrent sites, file-hosting services and even search engines like Google, Newzbin2 would be overwhelmed with DMCA takedown requests. Not so, says Mr White of Team R Dogs, the group behind the site.

“Oddly we seem to get very few DMCA notices and when we contact the sender we are ignored. I’ve sent any number of email replies to email addresses which state ‘we monitor this email account’ only to receive no reply,” Mr White told TorrentFreak. “Why, it’s almost as if they are just sending them without caring if anything is done.”

Since the DMCA takedown notice is one of the most powerful weapons for removing content, or in the case of Newzbin2 mere links to content on the Internet, it’s strange that the site doesn’t get many. Even more so when the site, in Usenet terms, is Hollywood enemy #1. So are the MPA interested at all?

“We’ve had /one/ DMCA notice since December & even that wasn’t from the Hollywood Dirty Half Dozen but a software maker,” Mr White explained. “We emailed them and they totally blanked us. We’d be perfectly happy to take it down if they’d identified the posts.”

Of course, while DMCA notices can be a useful tool, they’re by no means the only one available to use against file-sharing sites. Currently the MPA are locking horns with ISP BT in the UK in an attempt to have Newzbin2 blocked there.

“The MPA’s lame attempt at censoring us in the UK won’t be permitted to cut Brits off from us if it happens,” insists Mr White.

However, with the recent domain seizures in the US ringing in everyone’s ears – not least the operators of Newzbin2 – there may be a more direct way of reducing traffic to the site on a worldwide basis, but Team R Dogs don’t appear too concerned.

“We are making sure that the site is going to be around for the long haul. Given the shenanigans of the US government, with its unlawful domain seizure project, we may need to change domains to non-US ones: we have solutions for that in place, with backup domains,” Mr White assured us.

With the future in mind, Mr White told TorrentFreak that there are plans to upgrade the site to make it more reliable and improve coverage of Usenet content.

“While we have backup servers and databases in several global locations we plan to migrate systems to fully distributed & redundant global databases & webservers so that any one server going AWOL won’t bring the site down, or even need backups to be brought manually online.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The first tip said that the movie industry would try to force UK ISPs to block Newzbin in the UK. The second was more specific – that target would be one of the leading ISPs, BT.

After trying to gather more information, we contacted the MPA with what we knew and asked them if they could confirm our suspicions. At that stage, no information was forthcoming and Newzbin were also in the dark. The trail ran cold but in the last 24 hours the picture clarified somewhat.

Yesterday, the MPA went to court seeking an injunction against BT in order to force them to block Newzbin2, the resurrected version of the original Newzbin which lost a High Court battle earlier in the year.

In a statement sent to TorrentFreak, the MPA explain the process it has undertaken.

“The law which the Court referred to is Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which provides for possible injunctions against internet intermediaries. Article 8.3 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive, of which S97A is the UK implementation, has been used successfully in Denmark to block rogue sites hosting illegal material, with further cases pending in Germany, Holland and Belgium.”

“In launching this case, the MPA is aiming to secure an order that will enable BT to block Internet access to the site, thus preventing the site from using the Internet to make money through infringement,” the MPA adds.

In order for the MPA to obtain an injunction under section 97A it is believed that they must have approached BT already with a request to block Newzbin, but had it denied.

At this stage, BT have confirmed they have received paperwork but refused to comment further.

John McVay, Chief Executive of Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT), a UK trade association representing and promoting the commercial interests of independent films and television, welcomed the news.

“PACT supports today’s announcement. It is a shame that a legal action has to be taken, but illegal websites such as Newzbin2 pose a grave threat to our membership who do not have the resources to combat online copyright infringement.”

In a response to the news, Newzbin state the following:

“This is just an application and not yet a decision of any court. We will be looking to instruct lawyers to fight this on behalf of our UK users. The MPA application to engage in censorship of the Internet for their own petty interests would, if granted, set a dangerous precedent in a Western democracy.

“We don’t want to engage in a polemic but we have fully cooperated with DMCA requests from content owners and we are careful to act lawfully: ‘drive-by’ litigation such as this will cut off access to substantial legitimate content and is entirely unwarranted & disproportionate.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The same can not be said about the fall and subsequent resurrection of Newzbin, the site which turned over £1 million from its 700,000 members in 2009. For those struggling to keep up (and yes, that includes us too) here’s a brief recap with some existing facts, some more recent ones, some you probably didn’t know and others you definitely didn’t.

After a battle with Hollywood earlier this year, Newzbin collapsed early May under a mountain of debt. Previously run by admin Caesium, who actually left a few months before the court case, the site ceased to exist. Sort of.

Later in May news broke that Newzbin had previously been infiltrated by Team R Dogs, an entity which appeared to be run by a Mr White. Apparently without the knowledge of Newzbin, some time ago the ‘Dogs had the foresight to swipe the site’s code with the aim of bringing Newzbin back to life should it somehow suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of the MPA.

Team R Dogs fulfilled this promise a few days ago when Newzbin2 was born. Ex-users of Newzbin didn’t have any problem finding the site though, since it came back under the old domain name. The apparent mechanism for this feat is as amazing as the rest of the story.

Some time ago, under the pressure of mounting debts – the £360,000 profit the site made in 2009, gone – Newzbin needed to raise some funds. They say they did this by selling the domain names Newzbin.com and Newzxxx.com to a Seychelles-based company but then, as they obviously still needed them, leased them back. After Newzbin1 closed, Team R Dogs say they bid against several other NZB sites to acquire the Newzbin domain but eventually came out victorious.

From previous reports, rumors, speculation, crystal ball viewing and a statement from an unnamed ex-director of Newzbin, the conclusion was that when Team R Dogs brought back the site it would be with an old version of the site with old databases. In fact the site returned with the databases bang up to date from the day Newzbin went down, user payments and credits intact.

This feat was partially explained by Mr White in a recent interview. His implication was that although they gained access to the site’s databases some time ago, the staff at Newzbin never noticed, which allowed them to take copies of all necessary data right up until the site died.

So what does Chris Elsworth, ex-owner/director of Newzbin think about this drama and how does he feel about Team R Dogs bringing the site back to generate profit for them just as Newzbin1 faces liquidation?

“Well I’m not going to lie. If they go on to make millions out of it I’ll be a bit miffed that I’m not the one earning it – lets not beat about the bush, we’re all interested in making enough money to be comfortable in our retirement,” he told TorrentFreak.

“But at the same time, I think I had done about as much as I could for Newzbin, my interest in it was waning even before the MPA poked their noses in if I’m honest, it’s unlikely there would have been many more shattering breakthroughs with me running it. So maybe if they can keep it up then good things will come out of it,” he added.

As for the future, Chris told us that he’s taking a breather first then he’ll be off to pursue some opportunities being offered to him at the BBC.

But there was one other little mystery we wanted to ask Chris about. While it’s well known that Newzbin was found guilty of copyright infringement, what about Team R Dogs – if they stole the Newzbin code and databases are they guilty of theft and/or copyright infringement?

“I had some contact with the new owner [of Newzbin1] for a while during the handover [referring to when Chris left Newzbin months ago] and from what I gather, the rights to the code/IP were sold to another company before the [MPA court case] verdict was out,” he explained, adding, “This may or may not be the same company [WCIS Limited] the domain was sold to.”

So while the quiet life beckons for Chris, the same cannot be said for Team R Dogs. They have taken on a site that Hollywood was determined to crush and spent a huge sum of money in doing so. The complete return of the site hasn’t gone unnoticed.

From a source that was proven reliable in the past, TorrentFreak has learned that work against Newzbin2 is already underway. The site will not be allowed to reappear “just like that” and legal action is already being prepared and measures taken to take down the site.

Newzbin2 currently appears to be hosted in Sweden, although Team R Dogs have suggested that the move there might not be permanent. However, with the original Newzbin verdict in hand, the studios have a powerful tool. Already this week a Dutch court relied heavily on the UK Newzbin verdict when it handed a defeat to Usenet community FTD.

TorrentFreak contacted Mr White from Team R Dogs for his reaction to this news but at time of publication we’ve received no response.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.