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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."
Took 'em years to get around to Usenet, though. Why? Perhaps they've only just heard about it?
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.
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.
Usenet.com isn't Usenet.* It's a Usenet access provider that markets itself pretty transparently (although not transparently enough to be illegal, I'd guess) as a warez service.
* Translation for all you "my hello.c is so 1337!" dweebs: Usenet.com != Usenet
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Probably because they can't track who is using it as easily as P2P programs or torrents. To go after users will require them to get logs from the providers, which won't happen without a subpoena. Also, it seems like they're going after Usenet.com because they were branding their service as a way to get copies of content. I wonder if they will go after other providers, who are advertising the ability to have 20GB/month worth of conversations with other usenet users, but make no mention of copyrighted material that is available?
Actually, usenet.com (like any host taking part of the usenet network) is actually hosting the content.
Many usenet host (in universities or ISP) do not store binary groups (just because it take too much space on their servers). But some ISP do, and just turn a blind eye on the piracy, because they know they will attract more customers.
Thats what make it so attractive for pirated content: this are professional grade servers on the other side.
I'm surprised it took RIAA/MPAA so long to go after them.
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."
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."
I think the point is that Usenet.com doesn't just have copywrited music, it's a major part of their advertising. Like if phone companies advertised as "A great way to plan terrorist attacks!" or something. (not that I think they should lose, I just think that it's more complicated than people are making it)
So by your +5 Interesting logic, if instead you had a clothing store and your competition was selling counterfeit designer labels and hurting your business, the proper response response by the designer would be to sue the trucking company that delivered the counterfeit clothing?
Edith Keeler Must Die