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

Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[Junior J. Junior III]

Time to migrate to a new protocol. What's next, FTP?

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[Brett Buck]

Gopher!

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, SFTP, right??

Those who download copyrighted content via NNTP are simply hiding by obscurity. Most of the public doesn't know about NNTP nor is it a "simple" (simple as in guntella, .torrent) method of file sharing. I personally believe that the RIAA/MPAA went after the wrong protocol by attacking torrent and P2P networks when all along those who "know" know that if you want to kill the beast you need to cut off the head (or in this case, the backbone). NNTP also allows for advanced encryption schemes and large amounts of bandwidth. It's a pirate's haven.

The issue with attacking NNTP has been that those who run NNTP services don't control the content whatsoever. They aren't held responsible for what's uploaded to their servers, and I think this is a fundamental issue with regarding net-neutrality.

Usenet is sort of a micro-chasm of the entire internet. Servers host files and peers download and upload data as needed. The servers, in this case, represent the free internet. Unregulated. This is the beginning of effective attempts by the RIAA/MPAA to get their proverbial hands into the Usenet system and restrict it. They'll start on the outside and work their way in to core services, all in the name of protecting "American IP" (read: profits).

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[arkhan_jg]

There's nothing wrong with the protocol. Newzbin are an indexing site; one of many. In their case, they provided a commercial service for hand-categorized nzbs, which are pretty analogous to .torrent files, from a legal point of view at least. That they had categories labelled up for 'screener', 'R5', 'Warez' etc etc along with the documentation explicitly advising editors how to post infringing material.

What's interesting is that they've not been threatened with shut down or massive fines yet, unlike the pirate bay; as far as I'm aware, contributory infringement is illegal in the UK.

So while Newsbin's nzb files will live on as the standard method of collating binary files on usenet, the site itself is destined to be filtered into 'uselessness' (see mininova) even if it isn't shut down with a followup judgement. I expect a number of other indexing sites to spring up, and a number of the existing ones to grow larger - probably hosted in countries that aren't quite so pro-copyright holders as the UK, especially if they don't have contributory copyright infringement laws common in the US and western Europe.

Two thoughts spring to mind;
1) will they get a copy of users search history (complete with creditcard logs linking them to the account)? (and no, I've never been a member)
2) when do they start going after the usenet providers themselves?

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[BarryJacobsen]

1) will they get a copy of users search history (complete with creditcard logs linking them to the account)? (and no, I've never been a member)

This was posted on Newzbin a while back:

Server logs and user activity Some subscribers are a little concerned about privacy in the light of the current litigation so to put their minds at rest we thought we would explain what the privacy implications are of our logs. We are currently keeping webserver logs for a period which is sufficient to allow us to defend ourselves against web attacks. However we cannot tell from our logs what NZBs you have downloaded. At all. If we can't do this then neither can any complainant with access to our logs. Furthermore we rotate old logs so that they are deleted. No request has been made for our logs during the discovery phase of litigation and due to the nature of the legal process that request would have to have been made a long time ago: it wasn't. They cannot now, legally, have it; and moreover they dont actually seem that interested either. The fact is this: they are gunning for Newzbin not you. Bottom line: We cannot tell anyone what NZBs you have been using whether those are for Linux distros, porn or just embarrassing lawful material. Don't worry.

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[icebraining]

The issue with attacking NNTP has been that those who run NNTP services don't control the content whatsoever. They aren't held responsible for what's uploaded to their servers, and I think this is a fundamental issue with regarding net-neutrality.

What? NNTP servers store the content, while bittorrent servers (both the torrent files repositories and the trackers) never do. In fact, if you decouple the .torrent file sharing from the tracker, you can have trackers that know nothing about the content, not even the torrent name (only some hashes), or even trackerless torrents.

Bittorrent is much harder to stop; the only way to do it is to convince each ISP to implement DPI filters and play cat and mouse with the developers of bittorrent clients, and it'll only end if they basically turn the Internet into TV 2.0.

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[AvitarX]

The thing is, with usenet only the uploaders are really committing a serious infringement (and even then only once).

The downloaders are pretty much clean (from serious trouble).

In what we call P2P sharing, the down-loaders are also uploading multiple copies too, causing them to be easy to sue seriously.

It is much easier to pick on the littlest guys (end users), and P2P let them do that.

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[harl]

In what we call P2P sharing, the down-loaders are also uploading multiple copies too, causing them to be easy to sue seriously.

But can you prove that in court? If you send someone 99.9% of a torrent will they be able to watch the movie? If it's rared they won't even be able to open it.

You didn't make a copy. Oh you copied part of it? How does that work without making use of the digit 1 infringement against every copyrighted work ever?

With BT style P2P it's possible to never send anyone the full work. This includes the original seeder. How have you made a copy at that point?

It's a legal loophole. No one makes a copy yet everyone ends up with a copy. There's no law against possession of an illegally made copy the only crime is illegally making a copy.

This is why they had to create the secondary crime of contributing to or accessory to copyright infringement.

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[amorsen]

You believe you can circumvent the law by technical means. It doesn't work like that. Copying part of a work isn't a defence; you're still trying to share it.

Re:Recommendations for an Indexing service?

[bds1986]

Nice try, MPAA.

Don't Get Caught, Derp!

[Greyfox]

Honestly, if you're going to base your ENTIRE BUSINESS MODEL around something illegal, don't fucking TALK about that shit! For God's sake! Ok look at Bernie Madoff, he successfully didn't get caught for decades, even when several very smart people were yelling at the FTC that what he was doing had to be fraud! How? He didn't talk about it! When the FTC came 'round and asked "Hey, are you defrauding people" he was all like "No!" and then he made fun of them for even asking and they felt so bad about questioning him about it, they just kind of wandered off.

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!