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."'"

It has begun

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally usenet showed up on the radar.

Intent

[GPLDAN]

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 [netcom.com]

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.

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) [openbittorrent.com], or even trackerless torrents [lifehacker.com].

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:Damnit!!

[bit9]

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.

I don't get it.

[gillbates]

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?)

Re:Somebody violated the first rule of usenet

[GeckoAddict]

Plus, they already got the logs from NSA.

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.

Does Usenet still need tiny size limits on files?

[nuckfuts]

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?