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RIAA Sues Usenet.com
Several readers pointed us to Torrentfreak's coverage of the RIAA's latest move: the major record labels have launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usenet.com. The complaint, filed in the federal District Court in New York, accuses Usenet.com of providing access to millions of copyright-infringing files and slams it for touting its service as a "haven for those seeking pirated content." Usenet.com has been refusing the labels' requests to block access to alleged "copyright infringing groups."
Guess IRC and finally Gopher will be up next :/
...
Pay no attention to those alt.binaries. subscriptions.
Now everyone will know about usenet and how to access it.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
I guess pigeons will be next. Woe is ye, oh little beasties of high capacity and ludicrous latency!
RIAA sues HTTP.com, RIAA sues USB 2.0, RIAA sues self?
Allright, fess up! Who told the dinosaurs about Usenet?
Well, it kinda serves them right... making money off the freely-accessible Usenet.
But at the same time, it's kinda pointless. Suing the freely-accessible Usenet??
I misread the title as "RIAA Uses Usenet.com".
Wow, what a difference two letters make, huh?
The complaint, filed in the federal District Court in New York, accuses Usenet.com of providing access to millions of copyright-infringing files
Next up, the RIAA sues Nike, for their involvement in a "massive, global-scale sneaker net"
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
(hey you kids, get off my damn lawn!)
sorry.
anyway, what is this usenet stuff; and do I have to upgrade my copy of kermit to run it?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
If usenet is at fault, then phone companies are at fault for every "bad thing" discussed over the airware or landlines.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
Does this mean i can get retribution for someone posting pictures of by
beloved snuggles on alt.binaries.erotica.gerbil.ductape?
I think we all should just plead the Fifth one way or another. If the RIAA is targeting this old bastion of nerddom, what's next? Are they going to search Slashdot for their targets based on self-incriminating statements?
The game.
Step one: Pick up a 500 gig external drive
Step two: Dump my 450 gig music collection to it in the background
Step three: Give the gift of music to friend or family member
Great for holidays and birthdays - or even the latest RIAA sues non-computer owning 95 years old deaf cripple story pops up and I'm feeling motivated.
Nothing but love RIAA!
And because of this lawsuit, as it gains momentum from the RIAA, this will create a Streisand Effect, and others will be introduced into another realm of the internet that isn't on a web browser.
I can just see it now, as the RIAA pushes to close up groups, another group will be formed. It is just too easy to do and so difficult to filter. This will be a venture climbing uphill through sand.
See what happens when you talk about Usenet?
You see! This is what happens when you arseholes talk about Usenet!
We warned you about the first rule of Usenet! But no, you guys just didn't listen.
Now look what you did.
I think the RIAA will next sue the power utilities because electricity enables illegal file transfers.
Oh Mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law
Law man has put an end to my running and I'm so far from my home
The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This'll be the end today
Of the wanted man
WTF? Usenet predates the WWW and is essentially just a protocol; they might as well sue "email" as well.
Please, for the love of god, don't let this story go any further....please nobody post this to digg, or reddit, or any other place that will get it even more publicity. What the MAFRIAA wants is for all of us to be up in arms, and if we get the 14 year old ZOMFG HACK-ZORES on the case that is exactly what will happen.
/quickly now //QUICKLY!
usenet will go the way of bittorrent.
NOthing to see here folks, move along.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
That ought to cover it.
What is this....1996?
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Geez, what is this, digg? usenet.com is just a company that gives payed access to usenet. The RIAA can't sue usenet anymore then it could sue HTTP (not that it wouldn't want to) but it sure as hell can sue Usenet.com the same as it can sue a company employing a webserver that hosts copyrighted files.
I have no idea if usenet.com can be considered guilty under current laws, they do have the files in question on their servers and charge people money to download them, so they are directly profitting from these files. On the other hand, by the nature of usenet they have no control over what appears on their servers (they better not be blocking kiddie porn or they lost that defence).
Are they a phone company just passing information, or are they a filesharer profitting from doing so.
Intresting case BUT stop pretending that the RIAA is stupid enough to sue USENET, it is sueing a company that sells access to usenet. People here are quick to blame politicians for not knowing enough, but count the posts that don't even seem to know the difference between these two.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And if it's 7-bit you must acquit.
Usenet.com is one provider. Usenet is all of the ALL of the providers, all over the world.
RIAA will sue itself for providing the music to pirate.
Its a pointless strategy. Sue the students because they were downloading pirated stuff, sue the kids and their grandmothers for allowing file sharing on their systems, sue the torrent sites for listing the pirated materials, sue sites like vcdquality for providing a release database, and since all that has worked out so wonderfully, now they are going to sue usenet for sharing copyrighted content. There was a time when I used to care about which new tactic they are going to apply next and who is the next on their hitlist, but after all these years watching the "warezed" content simply grow, I couldn't care less now.
I don't exactly blame them for doing this(apart from bitching about it when they go after some grandma who hasn't even touched the computer in question), they also know they are fighting a losing battle. They can only delay the inevitable by the scare tactics but the outcome of all this was already decided when people started sharing copyrighted material on the net while actually believing that they were not doing anything wrong.
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
Next step: sue TCP/IP.
They'll be suing Claude Shannon.
Yes I know he's dead. That's not stopped them in the past.
When it was just used for posting news items, and some experimental electronic music we generated at the labs at SFU and UBC ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Still exists? ive not seen them on an ISP for years.
Why not just have a blanket suit against all people that have internet access. Then tax us all for our 'assumed guilt'. Sort of like the 'music CDR tax'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We wouldn't know.
We're too busy downloading movies, music, games and apps, without any of that p2p bullshit to notice what year it is.
As the legitimate owner of ~400 legally purchased CD's, do I not have the right to download MP3's to use on my own MP3 player instead of ripping them myself? Downloading an MP3 instead of ripping it is often faster, and usually gets me a better quality audio file than if I were to rip it myself. As a paying customer of an NNTP provider, should I not be allowed to pursue my fair use rights in this regard? And if the RIAA is interferring with this, can they be sued for violating my rights?
Just wondering...
Here is an idea, sue the government for providing education that helps spread literacy. The root of all this infringement is literacy and illiteracy is the ultimate DRM.
Any copyrighted work can be reproduced through the miracle of colored or textured surfaces! They had it right in the middle ages, illiteracy was a great way to control people, just look at the Catholic Church at the time.
The first rule of Usenet is, you do not talk about Usenet.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Hrmm, angry you are...
I sense the AOL is strong in this one, yes?
...
are the RIAA going to sue next? the intertubes? sue electricity? the world?
the RIAA is losing it (mentally)...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If the RIAA's main complaint is that Usenet.com is offering access to alt.binaries.*, that's a little pointless. Now that NZB files are all the rage, the various pieces of each posting don't even have to be in one newsgroup, because the reference them by message-id. So, I could chop "Stairway to Heaven" into 20 pieces, post one piece to soc.singles, another piece to alt.flame, etc. etc... and then post the NZB somewhere and any NZB-aware program will be able to go get them. So... trying to shut off alt.binaries isn't going to stop anything.
Yes we all know that Usenet.com is not usenet the disaggregated cloud of data. But who is to say that this really is the RIAA's attempt to actually "sue usenet". Do they in fact know the difference? It's an awful coincidence that out of all the for-profit news providers, Usenet.com is specifically the one they went after (and no others!).
You honestly don't believe that the simplest explanation here is that the memo came down to "sue usenet" and this is what resulted?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
USENET FAQ
Posted: 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970
Version 0.0.1
Authro: Kibble
Group: Alt.First.Post
The first rule of Usenet is you don't talk about Usenet
as the torch or freedom passes to those more worthy.
~ when you dance with the devil, he calls the tune
Time to pull my Mac SE running a First Class BBS. I think there might be a mp3 on there.
These are some of the things molecules do...... given 4 billion years -Carl Sagan
Al Gore, inventor of the Internet, is now the defendant in a 400 billion dollar lawsuit filed by RIA.
This is my sig.
Usenet? What's "usenet"? Shhhhhhh!
Scorta futuere amo!
The RIAA have their heads far up their asses this time. This is like them suing archive.org for archiving copyrighted text.
To the ligitous bastards possibly reading this: TAKING DOWN ONE ARCHIVE DOES NOT IN ANY WAY MEAN THAT THE NETWORK IS AFFECTED, YOU DUMBASSES!!!
The one question required to answer in order to become an RIAA member: "Who/What would you like to sue right now? ______________________"
Shutting down Usenet violates my right to free speech. It would be like making paper and pens illegal.
It really is a common carrier and it has been providing unregulated wide open free speech for decades. The first, and still maybe the best, for free speech on the internet.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
the original internet :D or close enough
http://stashbox.org/23136/P1010004.JPG
Take a look at that old man in the middle of this picture. He's my boss. He owns a karaoke bar in San Jose California called the 7 Bamboo.
This guy has been doing karaoke a loooong time. Up until 2002 and American idol, karaoke was sort of frowned on by most Americans. Then AI came out and there was a sudden surge in karaoke's popularity.
http://www.7bamboo.com/cms/?q=node/210
I did some screenshots of the Namm global music report in that article. I'll just summarize, basically the entire karaoke industry is making less money now than it was 10 years ago in 1997.
Myself, i've seen our business hurt by piracy. Before 2002, we were some quirky little Japanese karaoke bar, pretty much one of maybe 4 karaoke venues in San Jose, but between 2002 and 2004 we saw a sharp decline in attendance, and a sharp growth in karaoke venues and it's been a constant uphill battle to keep customers coming back.
I made a choice to not pirate karaoke at our club. We have about 7000 songs in our collection. This in in contrast to the 10-15 venues that have popped up in our area with anywhere between 50,000-150,000 songs.
Karaoke is expensive. About $2 a track. So somebody please tell me, with a straight face how these new guys that just popped out of nowhere suddenly have a $300,000 karaoke collection. Fact is, they don't.
It's still competition for us. Everyone that works at 7bamboo makes less money because of it. Less tips, less sales, less everything, but more work.
Look at the face of that old man and tell me that usenet.com is in the right by enabling these people to screw his business over with competition running on pirated songs. The business he and his wife built was in jeopardy until I came along and gave it a hot beef injection of technology.
Fortunately for them, and the rest of the 7b's employees, I can keep the place on the bleeding edge of karaoke technology without resorting to piracy. Still though, I think my time would have been better spent doing more worldly things.
Personally, I hope the RIAA wins this one. Don't mod me a troll for voicing this opinion either, because since when has someone voicing a legitimate, validated opinion considered trolling.
It's just not fair. Karaoke CD's have to be ripped carefully at 1x, so i've put over 400 manhours into ripping our 300 original CDG's. A pirate can suck off a newsgroup and have 7000 songs in a few hours. Given a few days, they'll have a 40-50k+ collection.
BTW RIAA if you're reading this, look into alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke. Shut that one down first, plzktnx.
--toq
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
They are offering bandwidth, and groups that a lot of us cant get any more via our native ISP.
Id say they are a VAR, so they should get some $.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
YOU CAD !!!!! Those are MY pictures !!!
Now the RIAA really must die.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Umm, you're missing the big picture. If they get rid of all the major hosts that actually carry the binary newsgroups, how exactly are most of us going to get access?
At this rate, we'll need a kind bullet-proof host in a copyright unfriendly country if we actually want to use these services.
Don't think that Usenet.com is not usenet, and therefore usenet is safe. By now you should know that the RIAA tries to take one case against a weak defendant, and then leverage that win in the courts against everyone else. If they can win against Usenet.com and their servers, expect legal letters to go out to every other usenet node telling them to shut down, filter groups (yeah, like that would work), or face a lawsuit against a billion dollar corporation.
This really is a big deal on a new front, and if they don't lose big time here, they'll try to roll over everyone else.
The truth is that the RIAA truly believes that they are more important than absolutely everybody else in the world!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Deleted
I want my NZBs.
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
Okay, where is the Firefox usenet AddOn?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The lawyers representing MPAA/RIAA must die.
Text-based Usenet is a useful service. More people should use it; it does a better job of allowing discussion than most web forums out there, and there's little threat of centralized control over the discussion.
I've been tempted to make comp.internet.services.news.slashdot in the Big-8...
Hey RIAA, why not go pick on someone your own size? Google Groups probably does more with usenet than anyone else. But right? They actually have real lawyers, and your case is a crock if it was ever challenged by an equally financed opponent.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
My bittorrent speeds have dropped dramatically recently, presumably the result of ISP throttling. Every ISO I have tried to download lately (all legal install disks) have been faster to download directly from the server than via bittorrent, even with hundreds of peers and dozens of seeds.
I am fortunate enough to have an ISP that has free usenet service. Who knows how long that will last once pirates start eating up that bandwidth. They could just kill alt.binaries, just like they could just implement general bandwidth caps rather than throttling specific port. But past behavior doesn't support that idea.
Right, but the difference here is that the RIAA isn't up against joe schmoe mom and pop lawyer. They're up against computer nerds that know what they're talking about.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
You know between 1997 and today, people have been given a lot from technology. People's entertainment budget is spread out amoung more things to do.
The next logical step would be for the RIAA to sue the electrical companies, and then of course, the air that allows pirates to breathe. This insanity has got to stop.
Yep. Not only that -- the massive storage and bandwidth -- but you need to get a newsfeed. And that's not as easy as it used to be, when you could basically ask the sysop of your local university nicely. I'm not even sure what the commercial news servers would charge for a real UUCP newsfeed, or if they'd sell you one at all (why would they want to create competition for themselves?).
I'm not sure how many high-completion, long-retention news servers are around, but I suspect it's way, way down from what it used to be. It probably wouldn't take too many targeted lawsuits to, if not actually wipe out Usenet (that's impossible), but to at least make it very different from what it's like now. You could definitely make commercial services unprofitable, push it underground, and force people to eliminate binaries or at least shorten their completion/retentions a lot.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The major record labels have launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against the atomic element Cu (copper.) The complaint, filed in the federal District Court in New York, accuses Cu of providing access to millions of copyright-infringing files and slams it for touting its properties as a "low resistance conduit for those seeking pirated content." Cu has been unable to comply with the labels' requests to block access to alleged "copyright infringing electrical signals," as it is an element.
There's an overlord joke in there somewhere... I swear.
I for one welcome our New Sued By RIAA Global Earth Protecting Internet Inventing Al Gore Robot Overlords...
This is my sig.
This seems like it there may be a precedent for this case already:
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2006dltr0019.html
Don't forget though that the jury is going to be made up of joe schmoes like the juror in Capitol v Thomas who had never been on the Internet.
eclecti.cc
RIAA tries to take one case against a weak defendant, and then leverage that win in the courts against everyone else
Does not google mirror like 20+ years of Usenet. I don't think they would quietly take down their servers, if for no other reasons then because standing up to the RIAA would have huge street cred.
]{
This is a clear "thinkofthechildren" post. Complete with illustration!
All these RIAA lawsuits are really starting to get old. When will it end? Perhaps they should just throw in the towel?
I mean, after all, they provided an OS which the masses acquired and learned how to pirate, provided a basic I/O system to store pirated files, and provided a networking stack to push/pull pirated data. I'd love to see them go after the giants. Now, in this case, I'd support M$ until I'm blue in the face. Use Linux...you become geeky enough to avoid most radars. LOL
This site is like CRACK; hooked on the first use!!!
Let's hope Usenet.com has good lawyers who know about this.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The truth is that the RIAA truly believes that they are more important than absolutely everybody else in the world!
Next up: RIAA vs. Geo. W. Bush.
1010 1110 1001 1111 1100 1100 1001 0011 0110 1010 1011 1100?? 1101 1011 0001 0011 0000!
-- thinkyhead software and media
Unless their running groups available only to their customers, their just passing along everyone else's posts.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Next the RIAA will want a sneaker tax....
Like I said on my other post replying to the "Usenet.com != Usenet", things will get really interesting if they win this case and then trot it out as legal precedent to the big cable and telco companies that host usenet. I guess it's probably extremely likely the cables and telcos will just roll over on it because usenet is not a revenue generator for them, but if they DID decide to fight it, that would be some fireworks right there.
"If they can win against Usenet.com and their servers, expect legal letters to go out to every other usenet node telling them to shut down, filter groups (yeah, like that would work), or face a lawsuit against a billion dollar corporation."
... In fact, I seem to recall that only a portion of the software was on there - you had to grab the other half from a different newsgroup.
:)
Filter groups, eh? Yeah, you know, I remember the time I downloaded some beta copy of a game or OS or something years ago. It was sitting in alt.games.worms
Good luck filtering when the data is distributed all over tons of totally arbitrary unrelated newsgroups...
Actually, my ISP has really horrible retention of binaries on their NNTP server anyways, to the point where I don't even bother going on usenet anymore.
So the money goes to people who make bar equipment, DJ equipment, TV screens, tables, chairs, and to the people who run the "other" clubs.
I mean, it does suck to be you, but it's not like that money disappears, it just goes to someone else besides you.
Me too!
16,548,583 songs available? And I can download them at blazing fast speeds? Those bastards are going to fear our wrath!
Sorry I have tourettes.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
This would mean that perhaps all binaries are banned from Usenet.
So how will this be a bad thing?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
1. Mount a sting type operation against those guys with the recent hard drive patents.
2. Get huge judgment.
3. Take patents as settlement.
4. Hard drive tax...
4.a. No more hard drives...
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Thats when you call in us IT "Consultants." If we can't dazzle them with brilliance, we can baffle them with bullshit. ;)
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
. . . the less interested I become in their "product"
Keep fighting your customers, RIAA. You're alienating us all, thousands at a time. See my previous posts on the matter. I bought more CDs at the height of Napster (the original Napster) than I did in the 13 years of owning CD players previous to that. I have bought approximately SIX music CDs TOTAL since you succeeded in shutting down Napster (ded kitty -- http://i.afterdawn.com/news/napster_mainpage_2002_09_04.gif ).
What do I listen to now?
Music I already own.
Talk radio.
Classical.
Christian radio.
no new pop stations. No hard rock stations. I avoid getting exposed to new material, because if I listen to new material on the radio, I am supporting you indirectly by listening to paid-for-by-advertising content. If I listen to new material, I'd be tempted to download it, which will lead to viral marketing if I talk to so-and-so about this great new song I downloaded. . . and I would be tempted to purchase it, which would directly send you profits. No, instead I decided to completely avoid it and not be your customer, directly or indirectly. I'm sure I am not the only one.
In summary:
RIAA members, F*** you.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The I-Brief argues that the RIAA should win, however the president is that the usenet servers are shielded under safe harbor. What I am not sure of is which position you take.
I for one agree with the court, and think the author(s) of the I-brief are stretching more than a little bit.
Somehow I doubt they have the archives of all the binary groups.
Yup, and computer nerds that new at design-time that an elegant design can solve problems not yet even considered.
It seems that the mechanism built into technologies like usenet that were designed to prevent a single point of failure, will also defend us against a single point of law suit as well.
As for the topic, I never understood why the RIAA took so long to realise that usenet was there. I guess this is the start of it...
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
"The truth is that the RIAA truly believes that they are more important than absolutely everybody else in the world!"
When it comes to protecting the rights of their members, yeah. The AMA is more important than everybody else in the world regarding the interests of the doctors who are its members; the Ferret Protection Society is more important than anybody else in the world when it comes to ferret rights, and so on.
Pick a cause, and you'll find somebody who's defending it. Even causes we don't like.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
About a month or so ago, my BitTorrent speeds dropped dramatically. I turned on encryption, and the speeds went up again. Bloody ISP has been spying on my data.
I did not have to switch ports, but as other posters have said, that is something else you can do in addition to get your speeds back up, assuming that it's because of traffic shaping by your ISP.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Sorry, I'm not clear. What is the president?
For those who don't want to take the time to read the "iBrief" (wtf?), it says that AOL's usenet service should not have qualified AOL under the safe harbor provisions. However, the article uses a very narrow interpretation of the definition of "ISP": a party that offers transmission, routing, or provision of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user's choosing. The article says that the user does not control where the usenet post goes after they make it, so the user has not specified a point of transmission, so with respect to usenet, AOL does not qualify as an ISP.
However, the user specifies "rec.arts.whatever" as the end point. The user is oblivious to the IPs and server locations of various ISPs' usenet storage machines, but users don't know the actual IPs of Youtube.com, yet when they specify "youtube" as the location for an uploaded video, no one is suggesting that this technicality disqualifies Youtube from the safe harbor provisions. Youtube's video storage is probably on more than one machine with more than one IP, so, similar to Youtube, usenet is a web of servers, and the user does not choose a specific server as its target. Instead, the user chooses some nebulous "site" to send their data to. The site itself is not a real location, but an interconnected web of servers.
Email is similar.
Furthermore, I'm flummoxed why a student with a masters degree in computer science would attack usenet in the way this author did. It's like she's the one student in the whole world who doesn't pirate, and the one CS person in the world who wants usenet to go down.
Its time the RIAA was more concerned with helping to support musicians instead of being a LAWFARE pirate.
Or the headline, or any other comments.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I'd feel more confident if anyone at Google really seemed to understand Usenet. They seem to feel that it's GoogleGroups and some outside nodes. And they keep breaking the search on the Deja archive.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Well, there is one thing as "enabling people to do piracy", and another thing to plaster stuff like "for only 5$ a month, with our service you can download all the warez and moviez you want" on your website.
I personally remember usenet.com's homepage to be like that. Now it isnt, so i went to archive.org to see what it looked like a few months ago.
And see, they aked archive.org to block their site. For some reason. Would surely not have anything to do with hide those sad little parts of their past that would look bad in court.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
If the MAFIAA is allowed to pursue their Jihad, we will sooner than later wake up in a world where modern technology is outlawed, just because it could be used to infringe on their right to rip off consumers.
P2P Networks, the Usenet, HTTP, e-mail,... could all be used for unauthorized distribution. Cassette, video recorders and cameras could be used for unauthorized copying. Radio and TV could be used to listen to unauthorized broadcasts. Outlaw them all and you are back in the moyen age.
Does this mean the RIAA is suing MPAA partners? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/19/1222219&from=rss
One must use your credit card to pay for most (usefull) Usenet access. The providers promise anonymity and all but what if a judge orders in favor for RIAA?
http://digg.com/tech_news/The_RIAA_Attacks_Usenet Nooooooooooooo!
"And if I remember correctly, it takes some work to create a new group "
Well... some found it difficult. But I never did.
Keep in mind what makes an "official" usenet group means it's on "the list" of newsgroup names maintained by spaf then dave lawrence and now vixie at isc.
Unofficially a group - any group or hierarchy - was real if decwrl carried it. That's how reid created alt, he just stuck it in decwrls distribution list. vixie woreked for him at the time writing bind and administering decwrl. hoptoad (gilmore) and nasa ames (moffet) picked it up and it spread out from there.
But, outside of the "big 7" (sci/comp/rec etc) and alt there are other hierarchies.
decwrl is alas sadly gone now, but reid and vixie still work together, now at ISC.
Making a new hierarchy would be as simple as the right email to the right person from the right person. There's a non-zero chance I'm one of those persons. I'm pretty sure paul won't like the idea. But that's just Paul.
Keep in mind there are serious usenet sites outside the us.
Antigua would be a good place for another one and this might be a good business oppertunity for somebody. As a long time self appointed expert on usenet naming I'd suggest the "pokertax" hierarchy. Or maybe the "riaa" hierarchy. Or "mpaa".
Perhaps to split things up to keep it easy to organize you'd want riaa.mp3, mpaa.video and pokertax.microsoft for starters.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Sorry but I guess the law is all about nit-picking
The iBrief says there are four kinds of safe harbour. The one it thinks there is a problem with is Transitory Communications Safe Harbor. TCSH seems to me to be focused on protecting things like routers and proxies, but iBrief's obsession with 'users' seems to indicate that the law's intention is broader than that. If Usenet could qualify as a TCSH then they don't have to worry about 'takedown' notices or someone getting a subpoena for 'subscriber names'. It kind of spooky how the whole argument hangs on the interpretation of 'anticipated'; is it some 'general expectation that someone/anyone will download a posting' or that 'the particular person X will download it within seconds'.
Is Usenet more like a distributed store and forward system? Maybe the Network Storage Safe Harbor is more applicable, like youtube (=> takedowns & subpoenas). Maybe its Transitory as it peers and Network Storage at the edges? Does it have any nodes that are not edges?
How effectively would TCSF provisions shield p2p sharing? Are all these legal actions driving design of next gen p2p schemes? Bittorrent is technically and legally vulnerable because the peers talk to each other directly and are not in any safe harbour. Darknets have the same weakness except they rely on some 'trust' scheme to limit damage, but you'd have to expect under litigation that feature would collapse. NZB - sounds like how we used to hide rogue from uni sysadmins - didn't work out in the loing run.
Is it just me or does it seem like the effort people are putting into 'making sure they get paid' actually much greater than the effor they are putting into 'making something to get paid for'. I'm sure many people spend more time/money trying to figure out if they can be sued than they do actually making a product.
P2P sharing IS distributing for which we see they can obtain stupidly large punitive damages - or at least ruin your life.
I can't remember who said it or the exact quote, but its something like this:
"The internet treats censorship like any other error, and routes around it."
On another note, the spam levels and trolls in usenet are so high, I find that its not really all the usable. (my killfile was huge)
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
they don't have the internet in north dakota!
Do the tubes freeze in the wintertime?
I think he's dutch.
Knew that SSH server I installed at work would come in handy.
I think that they will sue the Internet. Al Gore better be careful, he may be an accomplis
You know I didn't see no goddam sign.
I will have a sig when the market demands it.
Why doesn't the RIAA just sue Al Gore "He created the internet". LOL
Toothpaste's out of the tube.No going back.
The music industry is dead.Watch it's muscles twitch as it files useless lawsuit after lawsuit.
Long Live Open Source music licensing.Long live a level playing field for musicians.
To quote an old trusted pundit.
"oh don't you judge a book just by the cover
unless you cover just another
and blind acceptance is a sign
of stupid fools who stand in line
like
e.m.i. e.m.i. e.m.i.
unlimited edition
with an unlimited supply
that was the only reason
we all had to say goodbye"
You know what to do.You've been doing it so well.
drive another nail in the coffin of the industry.
God Bless Usenet.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Sadly, it was always only a matter of time until this happened.
Obviously the powers-that-be feel powerful enough to attack an ancient service like Usenet.
If they succeed in this lawsuit then it is the end of binary newsgroups, every time another Usenet server/company take control of the distribution backbone, then they'll be sued too.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Whether you agree with the technical correctness of that definition is immaterial to how a judge must apply the law.
-GiH
So the RIAA employee's do very little, those working on the RIAA's behalf do quite alot.. but then.. that's their job.
-GiH
Cochran
Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, Chef's attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote "Stinky Britches" ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
Gerald Broflovski
Damn it!
Chef
What?
Gerald
He's using the Chewbacca Defense!
Cochran
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
[ Add to suelist ]
[ Monitor Internet ]
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Did your pigeo..err packets fully arrive ? Or was it shot in mid-air ?
I so hate man-in-the-middle attacks just for that reason only; loss of pigeons!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Crap, that means the RIAA could win trillions or gazillions of dollars. Jammie only had 24 files.
Geez, what is this, digg?
No, if this was Digg there'd be at least a dozen posts about how Ron Paul is going to save us from the RIAA and from illegal usage if Usenet. The title would also be "The most AMAZING lawsuit by the RIAA EVER!!! [PICS]"
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
So every time the RIAA sues, more people learn more about how download stuff. I'd never heard of NZB before. Now I have. way-to-go-riaa!!
Since people couldn't follow the First Rule, the Second Rule will be kept secret.
Can't talk about it if you don't know it!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
"The truth is that the RIAA truly believes that they are more important than absolutely everybody else in the world!"
Oh come on! What's the point of even having an Earth if there was no Beyoncé?
FYI, the Department of Redundancy Department (DRD Department) is conveniently located within the Department of of Superfluous Redundancies and Tautological Pleonasms Department (DSRTPD Department).
(Mod "redundant")
No big surprise. The RIAA is getting desperate, what with artists starting cut them out of the picture much like Smashing Pumpkins and Radio Head are doing: these two bands have released their music from a website, and atleast with Radiohead pretty much just ask you to pay what your concience feels like paying: 0 is an option.
Google specifically does not mirror the binary groups.
From their FAQ:
"Can I access binary Usenet content on Google Groups?"
"No. Google Groups does not archive any binary Usenet content."
For those who don't know what binary groups are yet, I'd like to add "These aren't the binaries you're looking for... (waves hand)"
Who is John Cabal?
Some one is going to get hurt....
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
The company should just move its location/servers to Cuba.
And I feel they owe me at least a few solid albums by good bands for all the crap I have bought from them over the years...
And to possibly be treated like a valued customer instead of a hardened criminal...
"But this one goes to 11!"
Yeah, let's leave to hope the competence of trained lawyers to know about a law some wanker on slashdot knows about.
Her ex probably posted pics of her on alt.binaries.pictures.girlfriends or something...
Thunderbird has a moderately useful Usenet client. It doesn't handle binaries very well, since it can't handle multi-part posts or most yenc encoded postings, but for non-binary use its fine.
I love South Park, but that would have been a lot funnier if Chewbacca actually lived on Endor.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The user specified the content be posted to to a.random.group, but I think it could be assumed that the post was intended only for their ISP's server. So the "peering" process isn't "between or among points specified by a user". Correct?
And, also, that a fairly major access point to Usenet is Google, who can afford a lawyer or two themselves.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
"Follow the Path of bangs. "
Not accurate. There was a time when a lot of poeple used to sit around and try to figure out who was forging messages from who. Erik Fair's "sendsys bomb" or Bob Webber was probably the most fun one. Erik wrote NNTP. Bob was one of the most amusing poeple on usenet but he annoyed some people. Anyway.
The bankpaths worked like this: site-a!site-b!site-c... and told the news software where the article had been, so it wouldn't send it there again, because usenet operates on a flood fill algoritm and sends an article to everybody.
So, if you were posting from, say a site called "example" but didn't want say "bekeley" to see it you'd manually set the bangpath to already have berkely in it, ie instead of the article coming from yourname!example you'd put yourname!berkely!example instead. This way your intended victem would never see the article, just the followups some time later (and in the uucp era that meant hours or a day or more).
Point is, by sticking "usenet.com" (or however they identify themselves) that article woulnd't go to usenet.com
This is how you blackhole news servers.
Need Mercedes parts ?
He sure knows a lot about those electrons with their whirling and the twirling and the zapping of the genitals! How could we have file sharing without electrons? Don't *even* get me started on MATTER! Sheesh!
Pyramid
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
Because he's not talking about usenet!
What is the usenet? I don't know. Does anyone know? No! It's nothing! It does not exist. Lawsuits are boring.
Oh! Look! A squirrel!!!
Does anyone like squirrels? Let's talk about squirrels!
I lost my sig.
I disagree. The user specified the content to be posted to a random group, and that was the point specified by the user. I don't think the statute defines what "point" is, and if it has to be a specific IP (clearly this is not it because emails are not to a specific IP, nor are Youtube uploads), a specific domain name (in which case, wouldn't "rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc" be sort of the same?), or to the more nebulous "location in cyberspace," which I think is probably the best and most beneficial and self-consistent reading.
But I haven't read the whole of the statute to see, so there might be something there contradicting me. I'm arguing not from the legal perspective I ought to be (since I'm in law school), but from a technical standpoint (which I think is the more valid in a case where the law seems to be very wishywashy; plus I prefer policy arguments).
That wouldn't be worth the trouble.
---- Booth was a patriot ----