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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."'"
Time to migrate to a new protocol. What's next, FTP?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Isohunt is treading the same line, you can go to Isohunt's main page and read up on the legal fights. Much of it has to do with the perception that it is actively aiding users in finding or distributing illegal content. It's the equivalent, here in Chicago, to the old Maxwell Street market. Everybody knew if you lost your hubcaps, you went to Maxwell Street to buy them back. But as long as the street organizers themselves kept up some semblance of actual legit commerce, they city turned a blind eye.
http://home.netcom.com/~cowdery/maxwell/mamoser.html
In this case, Usenet contains what I affectionately call a "Rared Sale" (get it?) - where everything is less than a quarter. In fact, it's free! And as long as we all remember the First Rule of Usenet: Nobody talks about Usenet, then it's all fine. Apparently, these blokes forgot that rule.
Nice try, MPAA.
I switched to a paid Usenet service because it was more "private" than torrent. Does this mean I'm going to have to back to BitchX and CLI to get movies?
No, this is only an indexer of .nzb files, which are analogous to .torrent files; it was also a pay site, there are others out there that are free or automated with ssl connections, so I hear.
You may want to upgrade to an SSL connection though if you are worried, the ISP logs will still show you connecting to a usenet provider, but what you are downloading will not be discernible.
ISPs aren't and never have been common carriers. This is a widespread falsity spread around by Slashdotters.
If they succeed in making this indexer "play ball", does this not set the precedence for all other indexers? I don't use Newzbin so this currently doesn't affect me but could it possibly down the line?
Thanks for the SSL recommendation BTW, I will check that today.
Newzbin is unique (as far as I know) in that it has people (editors) create the "reports" which indicate which files are what. Other services that exist don't use people and use an AI to try to determine what each file/post is. It appears it's Newzbin's help documentation for the editors that got them in trouble.
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Using SSL is definitely a step up, but of course, even this won't help you if the MPAA gets a judge to issue an order forcing your Usenet provider to log all of its users' downloads. I use a paid Usenet service as well, and my concern is that my provider will someday be slapped with such an order, along with a gag order to prevent them from warning their users about the logging.
I'm thinking maybe, at long last, the writing is on the wall for Usenet - at least as far as me using it is concerned. I have too much to lose (job,assets), and too many people depending on me (wife, kids). It's just not worth the risk anymore. No matter how much I despise the MPAA, RIAA, etc, the obsolete business models of the companies they represent, and their strong-arm tactics, I stand to lose FAR more than I stand to gain. I will continue to donate to the EFF, but no more Usenet downloads for me - not even the non-infringing variety.
Not all movies are illegal. Some don't contain "objectionable content". Some - mostly the kind I'm rediscovering - have elapsed the protection of copyright.
What sites like Newzbin do is provide a central repository for content owners to search for infringing content. If I had my book/movie/video game being pirated, believe me, I would find sites like this very helpful in shutting down the uploaders. At least, those within the relevant legal jurisdiction.
Even the police like an anonymous tip. It's almost as if the content cartels *WANT* you to pirate their content, so they can then sue you for ridiculous amounts of money. (Why get 99 cents a song, when you can get statutory damages of a few hundred thousand dollars?)
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The wrong way to go about basing your business around illegal stuff would be to, say, have meetings about how everything you're doing is completely illegal and then sending your meeting minutes to the ISO auditors. That always leads to questions like "This bit here about where you're illegally benefiting from copyright infringement... what's that about?" It goes downhill from there.
If you're uncomfortable being compared to Bernie Madoff perhaps you should consider a career in something less illegal. The rest of you, only have meetings about your illegal stuff in the bathroom with the water running and don't keep minutes of those meetings! For fuck's sake... This isn't rocket science people!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The reason that NZB's even exist is that large files uploaded to Usenet get broken up into a ridiculous number of small fragments. It then becomes a chore to locate and reassemble all the pieces.
Bandwidth and storage capacities have increased tremendously over the years that Usenet has been around. Why do people who operate NNTP servers still impose such restrictive limits on file size?
Because file transfers aren't absolutely reliable. With small file sizes, most of the parts make it from server to server, and people already have a bunch of ways of dealing with a little bit of missing data (use more than 1 provider, par2, etc.).
I imagine the fact that a change would favor new users and irritate (some/many?) established users is also a factor.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Actually, I think that's an argument in favor of larger post lengths. The less pieces there are, the less filling in you have to do, and the less PAR file downloading you'll need to do to support it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I guess it depends on how the servers handle a bad transfer; if they discard incomplete files, larger files will carry a larger penalty, if they just post the partial file, there shouldn't be much difference.
I suspect inertia is a primary factor.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This may be true for the specific "common carrier" legal status used in the US. In Europe quite a few countries employ similar principles, though I believe the term "mere conduit" is more frequently used than "common carrier". I'm not completely sure what the EU directives say about it, but ISPs here are generally very skeptical to filtering content precisely because they don't want to be made liable for what they carry, and from the leaks about ACTA it appears one of the main objections from the EU is that they don't want to make ISPs responsible for what users do.
One exception is the United Kingdom, which more or less seems to have volunteered to beta test Orwellian stuff before the US deploys it. Even there, however, the ISPs have recently cried foul at government plans to implement copyright enforcement on the ISP level.