Newzbin Usenet Indexer Liable For Copyright Infringement

An anonymous reader writes "The world's most popular Usenet indexing site, Newzbin, has been trounced in London's High Court by the movie studios. Held liable for the infringements of its users, later this week Newzbin will be subjected to an injunction which will force it to filter out illegal copies of movies from its NZB index. From the article: 'Newzbin’s help guides were referred to in the decision. They state that the site can help people find what they're looking for, "whether that be obscure music, tv shows, games or movies. Think of us as a TV guide, but we're a guide that applies to Usenet." ... Newzbin has members called "editors" who help to compile reports on material to be found on Usenet. Newzbin's own documentation was used to show that the site encouraged editors to post links to movies. The verdict notes that to assist editors useful links to IMDb and VCDQuality are provided, the latter being useful to provide information about "screeners."'"

Comments

Re:Recommendations for an Indexing service?

[Inda]

"Hi, my name is Mark and I'm a member of the Noob foundation. I would really, really, really like a website that provides me with the Warez (War-rez). I have money for friends."

Are you for real AC? Who the hell under 50 writes like that? On Slashdot of all places?

Use a search engine, and scene release (whatever that is) indexing site. Newsbin was overrated.

Re:This whole discussion should be moot.

[ScentCone]

This whole copyright protection debate is just corporate-sponsored Prohibition for the 21st century. It's unenforceable without totalitarian government control

Spoken just like a person who's never created anything in his life, especially for a living. You do realize (right?) that artists, film makers, muscians, writers - anyone who makes something that is covered by copyright law - can waive those rights any time they want. Which means that the actual people you're bitching about aren't The Eeeevil Corporate Publishers, but the artists who make the conscious, deliberate decision to work with a publisher in order to make a living at what they do. Why aren't you complaining about all of the novelists, painters, photographers, illustrators, designers, composers, recording artists and everyone else who creates material being such big supporters of Totalitarianism? Why? Because you know you're being a jackass, that's why.

Communicating ideas to another person should never be illegal

Go ahead! Communicate an idea. But if you're too lazy to have your own ideas to communicate (even your rant, above, is a lazy regurgitation), how about respecting the wishes of the creative person you want to shamelessly parrot? Some of them have agreed to let other people reproduce their work at will, and most have no choice but to allow properly framed "fair use" excerpts to be introduced into academic and journalistic presentations.

Of course you know all of that. You're just looking for some moral cover so that you can rip off porn, comic books, and your favorite Brittany Spears material without feeling so sleazy about it. Too late.