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."

Comments

Ahh crap

[Barny]

Guess IRC and finally Gopher will be up next :/

Re:Ahh crap

[Threni]

Took 'em years to get around to Usenet, though. Why? Perhaps they've only just heard about it?

Re:Ahh crap

[Otter]

Why? Perhaps they've only just heard about it?

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

Re:Ahh crap

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Ahh crap

[entropy42]

I was the original owner of usenet.com - I registered it in 1994 or thereabouts. I sold it to someone (not sure if the present owner or not) for six figures in the late '90s.

Heh, a google search for paulp@usenet.com (my address at the time) yields exactly one result.

I read it for the articles

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay no attention to those alt.binaries. subscriptions.

Re:I read it for the articles

[nogginthenog]

Those groups are useless anyway. Everyone knows Usenet is a 7-bit system that doesn't support binaries...

Think of the pigeons!

[SirJorgelOfBorgel]

I guess pigeons will be next. Woe is ye, oh little beasties of high capacity and ludicrous latency!

Re:Think of the pigeons!

[n dot l]

LOL. I'd love to see this one hit the courts: "RIAA vs RFC 1149".

What's next?

[noidentity]

RIAA sues HTTP.com, RIAA sues USB 2.0, RIAA sues self?

next up

[User 956]

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"

Re:Misread - RIAA USES Usenet

[LoonyMike]

Did you just say that RIAA uses some sort of suenet?

I warned you people!!

[commodoresloat]

See what happens when you talk about Usenet?

Re:I warned you people!!

[Xemu]

When someone discusses Usenet, inevitably, someone (me! me!) will point out that what the RIAA is doing is very similar to what Hitler and the Nazis were wishing for.

Hitler considered it appropriate for the state to adopt a view of what is a life worth living (ein lebenswertig Leben) and cast this ideal in aesthetic/ethical, or quasi-biological terms, and, he gave the state the means to the implementation of this ideal. The RIAA is, like Hitler, telling us how life should be lived and paints this ideal in ethical terms and they want to have the means to implement this ideal.

There. Did it. Happy now?

Re:I warned you people!!

[Chapter80]

your theoretical right to download a copyrighted britney spears album is equivalent to Auschwitz how exactly?

I think you missed the joke.

Re:I warned you people!!

[Mean Variance]

Hitler considered it appropriate for the state to adopt a view of what is a life worth living (ein lebenswertig Leben) and cast this ideal in aesthetic/ethical, or quasi-biological terms, and, he gave the state the means to the implementation of this ideal. The RIAA is, like Hitler, telling us how life should be lived and paints this ideal in ethical terms and they want to have the means to implement this ideal. There. Did it. Happy now?

Godwin's Law has been triggered. Stop the thread.

Does not compute.

[IcebergSlim]

WTF? Usenet predates the WWW and is essentially just a protocol; they might as well sue "email" as well.

Okay, newbies, usenet.com is NOT usenet

[SmallFurryCreature]

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.

Re:Two very silly companies

[BosstonesOwn]

Well back to stealing porno mags from the old mans stash.

God I feel bad for ripping off my 80 year old dad's playboys from the 70's ! Oh wow never knew there could be that much hair down there !

Re:Maybe you should have done a FUCKING search of

[Barny]

Hrmm, angry you are...

I sense the AOL is strong in this one, yes?

First rule of Usenet

[gmezero]

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

Re:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME

[Nom du Keyboard]

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.

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!

Re:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy

[SomeJoel]

Most slashdotters that are against the RIAA/MPAA for their tactics would also be against the piracy you described. Typically, this community accepts "personal use" type file-sharing, where the song/movie is not then sold on the black market. In fact, the RIAA would be perfectly in the right to sue in this case. However, they should sue the pirating karaoke bars that are making profits because of piracy, not the medium from which they obtained them. Furthermore, they should not have to pay $220,000 per track in any case, but rather something more along the lines of actual loss (maybe a grand total of $300,000 as you cited in your example).

Re:Misread - RIAA USES Usenet

[davecarlotub]

(25 points to whoever catches that reference...)
I'm assuming you didn't mean gamecube.

Re:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems like it there may be a precedent for this case already:

http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2006dltr0019.html

Good Luck Riaa, Usenet servers are ISP's in law.

[plasmacutter]

to quote this informed poster from a previous usenet related infringement story.

The problem for the MPAA is that Usenet providers have been deemed to be 17 USC 512(a) service providers. That means they can't be successfully sued for copyright infringement for material traversing their networks, and they need not even respond to takedown notices for such material. Yep, it's their own law, the DMCA, working against them. Though before that law, the Netcom case left them pretty hamstrung anyway.

Let's hope Usenet.com has good lawyers who know about this.

I'm waiting for them to sue localhost

[r_jensen11]

16,548,583 songs available? And I can download them at blazing fast speeds? Those bastards are going to fear our wrath!

Re:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME

[cHiphead]

Thats when you call in us IT "Consultants." If we can't dazzle them with brilliance, we can baffle them with bullshit. ;)

Cheers.