RIAA Sues Usenet.com 495
Several readers pointed us to Torrentfreak's coverage of the RIAA's latest move: the major record labels have launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usenet.com. The complaint, filed in the federal District Court in New York, accuses Usenet.com of providing access to millions of copyright-infringing files and slams it for touting its service as a "haven for those seeking pirated content." Usenet.com has been refusing the labels' requests to block access to alleged "copyright infringing groups."
Ahh crap (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Funny)
It was me, I tell ya! That's right, Sammy, it was me. I was tired, ya see, tired of being your pirate pimp! So they's come it to me, see, these guys in a big Limo, see, and they tell's me, they says "Now look here, Thumbs, we knows you've got the goods on this Usenet gag. Spill the guts and we'll forget all about you selling Chinese Madonna CDs down by the docks."
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Usenet.com isn't Usenet.* It's a Usenet access provider that markets itself pretty transparently (although not transparently enough to be illegal, I'd guess) as a warez service.
* Translation for all you "my hello.c is so 1337!" dweebs: Usenet.com != Usenet
Re:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't think that Usenet.com is not usenet, and therefore usenet is safe. By now you should know that the RIAA tries to take one case against a weak defendant, and then leverage that win in the courts against everyone else. If they can win against Usenet.com and their servers, expect legal letters to go out to every other usenet node telling them to shut down, filter groups (yeah, like that would work), or face a lawsuit against a billion dollar corporation.
This really is a big deal on a new front, and if they don't lose big time here, they'll try to roll over everyone else.
The truth is that the RIAA truly believes that they are more important than absolutely everybody else in the world!
Re:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2006dltr0019.html [duke.edu]
Re:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME (Score:5, Informative)
However, the user specifies "rec.arts.whatever" as the end point. The user is oblivious to the IPs and server locations of various ISPs' usenet storage machines, but users don't know the actual IPs of Youtube.com, yet when they specify "youtube" as the location for an uploaded video, no one is suggesting that this technicality disqualifies Youtube from the safe harbor provisions. Youtube's video storage is probably on more than one machine with more than one IP, so, similar to Youtube, usenet is a web of servers, and the user does not choose a specific server as its target. Instead, the user chooses some nebulous "site" to send their data to. The site itself is not a real location, but an interconnected web of servers.
Email is similar.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"The truth is that the RIAA truly believes that they are more important than absolutely everybody else in the world!"
When it comes to protecting the rights of their members, yeah. The AMA is more important than everybody else in the world regarding the interests of the doctors who are its members; the Ferret Protection Society is more important than anybody else in the world when it comes to ferret rights, and so on.
Pick a cause, and you'll find somebody who's defending it. Even causes we don't like.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems that the mechanism built into technologies like usenet that were designed to prevent a single point of failure, will also defend us against a single point of law suit as well.
Re:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME (Score:4, Insightful)
"The internet treats censorship like any other error, and routes around it."
On another note, the spam levels and trolls in usenet are so high, I find that its not really all the usable. (my killfile was huge)
Re:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME (Score:5, Funny)
Cheers.
Bollocks. Of course it is! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bollocks. Of course it is! (Score:5, Funny)
Let's hope they don't go after web.com and ftp.com next!
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about this, If walmart imports DVD's from China to sell at their discount price that they are known for, then we find out that the contract with the movie companies never went through and they are all pirated, does that make you liable in some way for buying them. The answer is NO. Just like buying Smoke at the corner store or something at the pawn shop doesn't get you in trouble if it turns out to be from a hijacked semi load. It would be a little different then buying the same stuff out of a trunk in an alley though. But then that would likely be the receiving stolen property and nothing to do with copyright. There really isn't anything on the books about obtaining something pirated if you didn't copy or distribute it.
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Informative)
Usenet.com provides paid access to Usenet newsgroups, and happened to land a nice DNS name.
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh, a google search for paulp@usenet.com (my address at the time) yields exactly one result [emoticon.com].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Don't confuse 'Usenet' with usenet.com. 'Usenet' is an internet-wide discussion system, with thousands of usenet nodes and of no central control.
Usenet.com provides paid access to Usenet newsgroups, and happened to land a nice DNS name.
And, as a Usenet provider, hasn't the RIAA of yesteryear already fought this battle and lost? After all, aren't Usenet servers Common Carriers [wikipedia.org], like the telcos? The Telcos are not liable for what goes on over their networks, Usenet.com isn't, either.
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Interesting)
ATM Machine. Here we go with the semantic arguments
If we can have a 'DNS name server', a DNS name space [ietf.org] and a Reserved Top Level DNS Names [ietf.org], why can't we say 'DNS name'?
I say 'DNS name' out of habit, because I used to work with people who used the term 'domain' to refer to a different kind of computer system, and 'Domain name' just caused confusion.
Re:Ahh crap (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
First rule of Usenet (Score:5, Funny)
Posted: 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970
Version 0.0.1
Authro: Kibble
Group: Alt.First.Post
The first rule of Usenet is you don't talk about Usenet
Re:First rule of Usenet (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First rule of Usenet (Score:5, Funny)
As is traditional, although his grep patterns are atrociously complex and match most common variations on the Name that must not be spelt out.
(At one time, I hear people even avoided discussion of skiboots, for fear of invoking He Who Greps from the depths of the newsfeed...)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First rule of Usenet (Score:4, Informative)
It was net.* and mod.*, later, the comp/sci/rec etc hierarchies.
Alt happened around this time when some anal retentive twits pissed off Brian Reid and Jon Gilmore.
See Hardy:The History of the Net [vrx.net]
Master's Thesis
School of Communications
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, MI 49401
Re:Ahh crap (Score:4, Interesting)
It didnt take them years to do this. They've tried this before (they being big record labels and the porn industry). Some early cases that were before the DMCA were actually won. Later cases were tossed (except in the case of small NNTP providers who couldnt afford to continue the suit to it's logical conclusion).
This reeks of an attempt to circumvent the DMCA Safe Harbor Provisions, and makes this a bad thing.
The RIAA wouldnt be trying this unless they thought they had something really serious up their sleeves - they know (through their members who have lost before) that the DMCA will protect Usenet (except in the case of ignoring takedown requests, etc).
Re:Ahh crap (Score:4, Funny)
Abe: No! The burlesque house. So just keep your mouth shut.
Re:Maybe you should have done a FUCKING search of (Score:5, Funny)
I sense the AOL is strong in this one, yes?
Re:Maybe you should have done a FUCKING search of (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ahh crap (Score:4, Insightful)
I read it for the articles (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I read it for the articles (Score:5, Funny)
GG RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:GG RIAA (Score:4, Funny)
Think of the pigeons! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Think of the pigeons! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Think of the pigeons! (Score:4, Funny)
Barium enema, eh?
Re:Think of the pigeons! (Score:4, Funny)
What's next? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's next? (Score:5, Funny)
Recursive Indictment Aggregating Association?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
RIAA Indictment Aggregation Association.
Misread - RIAA USES Usenet (Score:4, Funny)
Wow, what a difference two letters make, huh?
Re:Misread - RIAA USES Usenet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Misread - RIAA USES Usenet (Score:4, Funny)
[ Add to wishlist ]
Re:Misread - RIAA USES Usenet (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
(25 points to whoever catches that reference...)
Re:Misread - RIAA USES Usenet (Score:5, Funny)
I'm assuming you didn't mean gamecube.
Re:Misread - RIAA USES Usenet (Score:4, Informative)
next up (Score:5, Funny)
Next up, the RIAA sues Nike, for their involvement in a "massive, global-scale sneaker net"
yoos net?? (Score:3, Funny)
sorry.
anyway, what is this usenet stuff; and do I have to upgrade my copy of kermit to run it?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/7/v2/vs [floodgap.com]
hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
I warned you people!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I warned you people!! (Score:5, Funny)
Hitler considered it appropriate for the state to adopt a view of what is a life worth living (ein lebenswertig Leben) and cast this ideal in aesthetic/ethical, or quasi-biological terms, and, he gave the state the means to the implementation of this ideal. The RIAA is, like Hitler, telling us how life should be lived and paints this ideal in ethical terms and they want to have the means to implement this ideal.
There. Did it. Happy now?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
its bullshit analogies like yours that make a complete laughing stock out of anyone who would suggest there is credibility to a debate over copyright reform.
You should stand as a witness for the defense in every single RIAA court case. you would be more effective than 100 RIAA lawyers at making their case for them.
Re:I warned you people!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I warned you people!! (Score:5, Funny)
Godwin's Law has been triggered. Stop the thread.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I warned you people!! (Score:4, Funny)
Does not compute. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Usenet is a protocol. Usenet.com is a company. (Not that I agree with this strategy. just explaining...!)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
WTF? Usenet predates the WWW and is essentially just a protocol; they might as well sue "email" as well.
Arguably, USENET predates the *Internet*, not just the Web. USENET feeds were originally delivered via UUCP, and it wasn't until the mid-80s that NNTP was created to allow the transport of USENET content over TCP/IP. Even then UUCP-based USENET feeds stuck around for several more years, until the early 90s or so. I started reading USENET in 1988, and my university was still getting it via UUCP then (I'm not sure if they even had an Internet connection then).
Please (Score:5, Insightful)
usenet will go the way of bittorrent.
NOthing to see here folks, move along.
Re:Please (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Usenet is one system. If i post something to one server, it propegates outward to the rest of them.
If you shut down usenet, you shut down usenet.....there is not "oh, well...lolz it will pop back up somewhere!"
What pisses me off is that Usenet is a TERRIFIC source of information on just about any topic you can imagine. It is the best discussion system I have found for AS/400. There are experts in the field that will respond to any questions that you have within hours, 24/7.
Okay, newbies, usenet.com is NOT usenet (Score:5, Insightful)
Geez, what is this, digg? usenet.com is just a company that gives payed access to usenet. The RIAA can't sue usenet anymore then it could sue HTTP (not that it wouldn't want to) but it sure as hell can sue Usenet.com the same as it can sue a company employing a webserver that hosts copyrighted files.
I have no idea if usenet.com can be considered guilty under current laws, they do have the files in question on their servers and charge people money to download them, so they are directly profitting from these files. On the other hand, by the nature of usenet they have no control over what appears on their servers (they better not be blocking kiddie porn or they lost that defence).
Are they a phone company just passing information, or are they a filesharer profitting from doing so.
Intresting case BUT stop pretending that the RIAA is stupid enough to sue USENET, it is sueing a company that sells access to usenet. People here are quick to blame politicians for not knowing enough, but count the posts that don't even seem to know the difference between these two.
Re:Okay, newbies, usenet.com is NOT usenet (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Okay, newbies, usenet.com is NOT usenet (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Given how 90% of the ISPs these days provide Usenet access through companies like Giganews, and third party Usenet providers like Usenet.com aren't very common, this could easily be just the first strike against every major Usenet provider.
As the other poster pointed out, Giganews and Usenet.com (and many others) do exactly the same thing - they're all "third-party Usenet providers".
This is different from how things used to work, where local ISPs would each run their own news server, and customers would connect to the local server, thus saving Internet bandwidth costs. That doesn't really work anymore, because 1) most ISPs aren't local anymore, so the ISP's server isn't local anyway, 2) Usenet has grown so much that keeping up with it takes
alt.binaries.warez.* (Score:3, Informative)
Why not just have a blanket suit against all people that have internet access. Then tax us all for our 'assumed guilt'. Sort of like the 'music CDR tax'.
Pointless (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Trust me, soc.singles is the one group you do not want to be caught with offtopic cross-posts. Those people are Mean!
RIAA to sue Al Gore (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one... (Score:3, Funny)
I for one welcome our New Sued By RIAA Global Earth Protecting Internet Inventing Al Gore Robot Overlords...
I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a look at that old man in the middle of this picture. He's my boss. He owns a karaoke bar in San Jose California called the 7 Bamboo.
This guy has been doing karaoke a loooong time. Up until 2002 and American idol, karaoke was sort of frowned on by most Americans. Then AI came out and there was a sudden surge in karaoke's popularity.
http://www.7bamboo.com/cms/?q=node/210 [7bamboo.com]
I did some screenshots of the Namm global music report in that article. I'll just summarize, basically the entire karaoke industry is making less money now than it was 10 years ago in 1997.
Myself, i've seen our business hurt by piracy. Before 2002, we were some quirky little Japanese karaoke bar, pretty much one of maybe 4 karaoke venues in San Jose, but between 2002 and 2004 we saw a sharp decline in attendance, and a sharp growth in karaoke venues and it's been a constant uphill battle to keep customers coming back.
I made a choice to not pirate karaoke at our club. We have about 7000 songs in our collection. This in in contrast to the 10-15 venues that have popped up in our area with anywhere between 50,000-150,000 songs.
Karaoke is expensive. About $2 a track. So somebody please tell me, with a straight face how these new guys that just popped out of nowhere suddenly have a $300,000 karaoke collection. Fact is, they don't.
It's still competition for us. Everyone that works at 7bamboo makes less money because of it. Less tips, less sales, less everything, but more work.
Look at the face of that old man and tell me that usenet.com is in the right by enabling these people to screw his business over with competition running on pirated songs. The business he and his wife built was in jeopardy until I came along and gave it a hot beef injection of technology.
Fortunately for them, and the rest of the 7b's employees, I can keep the place on the bleeding edge of karaoke technology without resorting to piracy. Still though, I think my time would have been better spent doing more worldly things.
Personally, I hope the RIAA wins this one. Don't mod me a troll for voicing this opinion either, because since when has someone voicing a legitimate, validated opinion considered trolling.
It's just not fair. Karaoke CD's have to be ripped carefully at 1x, so i've put over 400 manhours into ripping our 300 original CDG's. A pirate can suck off a newsgroup and have 7000 songs in a few hours. Given a few days, they'll have a 40-50k+ collection.
BTW RIAA if you're reading this, look into alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke. Shut that one down first, plzktnx.
--toq
Re:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Taking stuff off usenet and re-selling it in bulk (which is what the "other" clubs may be doing) is a commercial use of the material, and it pretty lousy. I have a real hard time saying that folks trolling the 'net for some personal karaoke fetish is really a huge deal (karaoke publishers may disagree).
FWIW, I don't have any karaoke. I hate karaoke, to be honest; mostly because I can't stand out-of-tune singers, even when I am drunk. I don't participate because I don't use my voice to sing on a regular basis and, like any instrument, it is not in the best shape.
Oh, and for what it's worth, although you may find $300k an exorbitant amount to spend, for some of these retired electrical engineers (or whatever) they just want it all, and will drop "stupid" money on their pet projects. They'll probably go out of business when the market turns a bit thin again. If you're still around, you might even be able to buy their collection at firesale prices.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
RIAA's job should be to sue your competitor, that's what it is meant to do. Losing time and money suing single mom or services essentially used by joe student should make you angry more than anything else. ( especially I think karaoke tracks are not the usual mp3 - so probably your compe
Re:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Groups (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey RIAA, why not go pick on someone your own size? Google Groups probably does more with usenet than anyone else. But right? They actually have real lawyers, and your case is a crock if it was ever challenged by an equally financed opponent.
Re:Google Groups (Score:4, Informative)
"How long before they take on Google Groups?
Do they carry alt.binaries.*?
Google Groups probably does more with usenet than anyone else.
But they still don't know what they're doing with it, sadly. "
Truer words were never spoken. Google doesn't really have a clue what usenet is nor do they give a shit about it. This was told to me by a google vp.
I'm the guy that tracked Henry Spencers (utzoo!henry) tapes and got them into uwo!magi's hands then into brewsters hands at archive.org then into dejanews. Google has *exaclty* the same content. The missing bits are where Henry's origial 9 track tapes could not be read by magi & co and transferred to DAT.
To give you some idea how bad it was every 12 feet of tape they had to stop, clean the heads and restart. I think it took 2 or 3 years to convert them all. Nobody in the world had the disk space to home them all till I pointed out Brewster did, and they sat as multi terabyte files on archive.org that nobody had the capacity to do anything with. We're talking about ALL of usenet here. The reason Henry kept all of usenet? A friend of his wanted all postings to rec.birds and Henry was just too lazy to pull only those out and tape was cheap.
Deja began archiving all of usenet from 1995 on. But they never split up the older posting archives which still sat as huge multi terabyte files they got from Brewster. "Marketing couldn't see the point of it" is the reason I was told by the deja techie that I directed to get them from archive.org (where they still live btw). When google aquired deja they found the big files, split them up and all or a sudden postings going back to 1988 or so suddenly appeared. A word in the right persons ear made this happen.
Most of what's written about this stuff in the NYT and Wired is just plain wrong. But as I said I guided those files to the right places for years and was there when it happened. I've had no problem finding any posting in google and don't understand how or why deja's search was "better".
Cheers,
Richard@gryphon.dead
"It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition"
Good Luck Riaa, Usenet servers are ISP's in law. (Score:5, Informative)
Let's hope Usenet.com has good lawyers who know about this.
I'm waiting for them to sue localhost (Score:5, Funny)
The more the RIAA fights. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep fighting your customers, RIAA. You're alienating us all, thousands at a time. See my previous posts on the matter. I bought more CDs at the height of Napster (the original Napster) than I did in the 13 years of owning CD players previous to that. I have bought approximately SIX music CDs TOTAL since you succeeded in shutting down Napster (ded kitty -- http://i.afterdawn.com/news/napster_mainpage_2002_09_04.gif [afterdawn.com] ).
What do I listen to now?
Music I already own.
Talk radio.
Classical.
Christian radio.
no new pop stations. No hard rock stations. I avoid getting exposed to new material, because if I listen to new material on the radio, I am supporting you indirectly by listening to paid-for-by-advertising content. If I listen to new material, I'd be tempted to download it, which will lead to viral marketing if I talk to so-and-so about this great new song I downloaded. . . and I would be tempted to purchase it, which would directly send you profits. No, instead I decided to completely avoid it and not be your customer, directly or indirectly. I'm sure I am not the only one.
In summary:
RIAA members, F*** you.
Re:Two very silly companies (Score:5, Funny)
God I feel bad for ripping off my 80 year old dad's playboys from the 70's ! Oh wow never knew there could be that much hair down there !
Re:Two very silly companies (Score:4, Insightful)
The basic stuff like the text, completion and retention is hard enough without binaries. This is why most places (Comcast, et. al.) outsource their newsgroups to giganews - the barrier to entry is substantial.
Usenet is pretty vulnerable. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how many high-completion, long-retention news servers are around, but I suspect it's way, way down from what it used to be. It probably wouldn't take too many targeted lawsuits to, if not actually wipe out Usenet (that's impossible), but to at least make it very different from what it's like now. You could definitely make commercial services unprofitable, push it underground, and force people to eliminate binaries or at least shorten their completion/retentions a lot.
Re:Flawed logic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many usenet host (in universities or ISP) do not store binary groups (just because it take too much space on their servers). But some ISP do, and just turn a blind eye on the piracy, because they know they will attract more customers.
Thats what make it so attractive for pirated content: this are professional grade servers on the other side.
I'm surprised it took RIAA/MPAA so long to go after them.
Re:The average user does not know about usenet (Score:5, Interesting)
A benefit of Usenet is that it is a push technology, not a pull. You could theoretically identify posters--or at least their servers by analyzing bang paths (and determining their forge point)--but downloading was largely anonymous... when NNTP servers were widely distributed and not just in the hands of a few businesses selling access to their massive feeds. You can't find an open NNTP server anymore that lets anyone post. It's far more vulnerable now as a result.
I remember the days of Usenet when porn was not plentiful and you could launch a DDoS on an FTP site just by posting a message that there was porn there. The attack was even more effective when the porn allegation was true.
There is a reason why Usenet was forgotten: it was the birthplace of spam. Though term spam was first coined on IRC from someone on a channel just sending the word "spam" repeatedly to disrupt a discussion and leaving, it manifested into the form of the modern scourge first on Usenet.
Except some of the binaries groups, where the porn spam is about as good or even better than the actual postings from individuals.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Huh? Forgotten? I reviewed the list of MP3 groups tonight and by my estimate, there is over 25 million message headers, just in the alt* mp3 groups. I use Giganews which has a long retention window, but usenet has grown quite large in the last five years. My favorite newsreader, first purchased in 1997, Forte Agent, could no longer handle the massive number of headers without hanging, and that still occurs after a major rewrite of t
Re: (Score:3, Funny)