Slashdot Mirror
Newzbin.com Usenet Indexing Trial Set To Begin Next Week
An anonymous reader writes "Only a few weeks after a jury acquitted Alan Ellis, the owner of the BitTorrent site 'OinK's Pink Palace,' of copyright infringement, another high profile case is about to start next week, this time for the newsgroup side of things. The MPA (Motion Picture Association) trial against Newzbin.com, a website that indexes NZB files and content on the newsgroups, will begin in London on Monday. Will lightning strike twice in favor of website indexing?"
Torrentfreak points out one major difference between the cases: "Ellis’s charge was one of fraud, allegedly conducted by an individual and dealt with under criminal law, while that leveled against Newzbin is one of allowing and inducing illegal copying, i.e copyright infringement, but carried out by a bona fide company under civil law."
It never strikes the same place twice.
Somebody has been breaking the first rule of Usenet
When I was a kid I used to ride a Frankie Hill board to school everyday. We were big into the whole anti-establishment thing in those days, smoking dope after school and drinking until blitzed on the roof of my friend's house. And we always saw the harassment we got from cops for tearing up private property as something that ought to be changed. Skateboarding, as we used to say, is not a crime.
Nowadays, I'm a little wiser and a little more flush with cash. I can see now how the truck grinds and rail slides were tearing up the things we were essentially vandalizing. It's not something that I'm especially proud of, but I can't say I have any regrets. It's just something that we kids had to do to escape the overbearing oppression our middle class parents were putting on us.
Likewise, indexing newsgroups (and websites) is something that just happens. It's almost impossible to effectively know what is going through the pipes without going in and performing filtering explicitly. Newzbin should be found guilty of indexing, but we should all be defiantly flicking off the MPA and declaring that indexing is not a crime.
Unlike, say, The Pirate Bay, Newzbin.com will apparently cooperate with takedown requests. Yet they're getting sued anyway.
Way to be a shining example of rationality there, MPA.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
Newzbin is not providing material for download, but instead just providing information. Google does the same thing... Clicking the first link on google from the search 'office 2007 download warez' this website showed up:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/11/13/download-microsoft-office-2007-system-enterprise-edition-final-rtm-full-suite-retail-cd-with-bt-torrent/ They're offering Office 2007 as a torrent file
There's an enormous difference between The Pirates Bay and newsbinz.
Newzbin just automatically trawls all the binary newsgroups and automatically creates and index of what it finds. It's a common carrier, just like google. The fact that the binary newgroups have an enormous amount of pirated content is no more the fault of newzbin than the fact that the internet is choc full of disturbing porn is the fault of google.
The Pirates Bay, OTOH, is a site where the admins deliberately remove pirated content that was mislabeled from the site. This, as well as the site name, makes their database deliberately biased to help with piracy. Maybe that is illegal and maybe it isn't, but the point is, what TPB does is different than what newzbin does.
Why are all these cases aimed at people who merely index content? Filehosters like Rapidshare and Megaupload are not only actually hosting and distributing the files themselves, but their whole business revolves around copyright infringement. People pay for premium service to download more illegal stuff faster, and they generate so much ad money from high traffic only because of the infringing files they make available. Finally, they would be a more logical target for civil suit since they actually have money to loose.
I have no sympathy for either of the *AAs and I understand some of these points apply to other sites to some extent, but I don't understand why they choose to overlook the juiciest targets.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Now I have. Thanks MPAA.
Takes another hit.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
for a list http://www.dmoz.org//Computers/Usenet/Search/NZB//
I personaly like www.binsearch.info
I don't mind publicizing usenet because most regular computer users never figure out how to use it, and since most of them moved to torrents the amount of virus moved aswell. USENET is better than netflix or ondemand.
"Allowing illegal copying?"
If you're not part of the solution...then you're probably allowing illegal copying. In fact, right now I'm allowing illegal copying, I'm also allowing illegal drug use, murder, rape, public indecency and numerous other crimes - guess I should turn myself in right now.
I can see true automatic search engines like newzleech.com and binsearch.info being able to use this "we are just a search engine" defense, but NewzBin apparently uses humans to create the index. Stupid, and also an obvious step towards supporting piracy...
Somebody has been breaking the first rule of [...]
FTFY.
First OMG Indexing! Get M$ and all other OS's that have indexing capabilities and put them in court and sue them too!
Second, fuck they finally find newsgroups after almost 20 years? Damnit the last and most sacred of all places for pirates, its its or haven or heaven which ever you prefer... Either way you slice it this sucks.
Visit my Forums?
A tiny bit of interesting information that a quick bit of googling revealed about the presiding judge - Mr. Justice Kitchin
From here:
Mr Justice Kitchin - One of the newest justices, Kitchin J has made an immediate impact with his clear and thoughtful judgments on IP matters. One IP litigator describes him as "eminently sensible and a very nice bloke". His first year has seen only one judgment appealed, which was dismissed in the Court of Appeal. Most people who have had cases before Kitchin J have agreed he is "a star in the making".
Seems he was also nominated to be a member of the Patents Court [citation needed]... so it appears he seems to have some prior experience and expertise in this particular area.
Is there any software available to do the indexing yourself? Just let it run every day on the groups you're interested in, feed it with the article lists posted since last time, and build the index yourself at home. That should be quite feasable. After a few months, you would have your private nzb index.
"leveled against Newzbin is one of allowing and inducing illegal copying"
I'm sure the British Library has a "Mein Kampf" in it indexes but you could hardly accuse them of allowing or inducing Nazism.
I'm a fan of Newzbin. So many times I've missed a programme on the BBC or Sky and haven't recorded it and I can often get it via Newzbin. However it should be noted Newzbin don't supply the programme - I use Astraweb for that. It's they that hold the data. If Newzbin didn't exist I can still get the programmes from Astraweb. I pay my TV license fee and my subscription to Sky. This is no different to me recording via my PVR. In fact I almost consider newzbin as part of my PVR.
Now if I were downloading brand new movies - well that's a whole new area and that I can fully understand being illegal. But I don't download movies just UK TV that I've already paid the BBC and Sky for and had it pressed the button would be on my Sky+ box (PVR).
"leveled against Newzbin is one of allowing and inducing illegal copying"
I'm sure the British Library has a "Mein Kampf" in it indexes but you could hardly accuse them of allowing or inducing Nazism.
I'm a fan of Newzbin. So many times I've missed a programme on the BBC or Sky and haven't recorded it and I can often get it via Newzbin. I pay my TV license fee and my subscription to Sky. This is no different to me recording via my PVR. In fact I almost consider newzbin as part of my PVR.
Now if I were downloading brand new movies - well that's a whole new area and that I can fully understand being illegal. But I don't download movies just UK TV that I've already paid the BBC and Sky for and had it pressed the button would be on my Sky+ box (PVR).
Will not apply for Google! Small fishes die first.