Copyright Demands Push Largest European Usenet Provider Permanently Offline 199
First time accepted submitter jonathan1979 writes "Dutch anti-piracy authority BREIN has caused the largest European usenet provider, News-Service.com, to immediately terminate its services as they felt they could not live up to the court order served earlier."
power (Score:4, Insightful)
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They are founded by right-holders and have an arsenal of favorable laws. No surprise they can get results.
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Re:power (Score:5, Insightful)
This power is not coming from Brein themselves. This is based on a court decision. Simply put they have managed to persuade the court that the law is on their side and the law and copyright legislation is providing the power needed.
This is obviously an extreme restraint on freedom of speech. The Usenet data is widely and simply available. There is no way to provide an open communication service whilst guaranteeing that nobody using it puts up copyrighted material. On the other hand there are simple technical measures that BREIN could take, such as providing cancels for all of the posts that they claim copyright over and there are simple legal measures they could take to make using those measures reasonable such as guaranteeing to take over the legal liability of the Usenet providers for any mistakes BREIN make (including libel compensation for anyone who's post they incorrectly cancel). The only reason BREIN doesn't want to do this is that they do not want to take on the costs which their demands would cause. The law should tell the court to tell them to stuff off.
The only solution to this is political. Even if the appeal succeeds the very fact that this judgement could happen at all is going to chill free speech. I hope nobody from the Netherlands will be posting here complaining if they haven't already at least sent a message to their Members of Parliament.
Re:power (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:power (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:power (Score:4, Interesting)
It's relatively easy to block binaries in the discussion groups, though.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Also many groups do not want binaries in their groups and users have been known to get removed.
How do you remove a user from a distributed system with no central point of control? You might be able to get their upstream provider to cut them off, but they can just find another one pretty easily.
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You're splitting hairs here. Unless you want to start parsing every post for "is this a real world in any of world's languages, or potential typo, or misspelling of any world in any of the world's languages or is it a binary encoded as text", as far as any system is concerned there is no difference.
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Not splitting hairs at all. Despite what you may think, it's pretty easy to make a filter that detects binary content, and it doesn't involve checking all the world's dictionaries.
Some simple rules and patterns will do fine.
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If you make your message look exactly like regular text, how is your target audience going to find all the parts ?
And, if you want to encode a 700 MB CD, how are you going to post thousands of little messages in a short time without getting kicked off the server ?
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fairly easy indeed, post one of 100 is real easy to detect... unless you manually generate the encoded text the newsreader/uploader itself tags the content in the headers.
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There is no difference between text and binaries to usenet - binaries are just yencoded as text. It's only a convention that binaries be posted in the alt.binaries groups. If those groups were closed down, you'd see binaries appear in the discussion groups.
It is straightforward to pattern match encoded binaries and automatically cancel those posts via cancelmoose.
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You would have a good argument if there actually would be large amount of legit binaries on Usenet. Frankly, 99.99% of it is pirated material and sadly that changes things. Especially when everyone knows you pay those Usenet binary companies for the sole reason of getting warez.
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Since almost all binaries are binhex encoded (may still be a few uuencoded files out there) it's trivially easy to filter binary data from Usenet.
Re:power (Score:5, Insightful)
If they prosecuted the ones uploading the content, thus committing the crime, you would be right. But holding storage/service providers liable is an attack against free communication.
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If 99% of the "free communication" consists of pirated material, it makes sense to hold the storage/service providers liable.
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If that's the case, why aren't liquor companies liable for drunk drivers? Why aren't gunsmiths liable for murders?
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Are you suggesting 99% of all liquor is consumed by drunk drivers ? If so, I'd like to see your references. If not, your analogy doesn't make sense.
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No. What's your point ?
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"Are you suggesting 99% of all liquor is consumed by drunk drivers ?"
No. He is suggesting 99% of drunk drivers bought it to liquor companies and that 100% of murderers using guns bought it from a gun-producing company.
Which certainly is a good analogy with regards of NNTP and copyright-infringent content (which, by the way, is *not* copyright-infringent content at least on some EU countris, ACTA notwithstanding).
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Which isn't true, since a lot of drunk drivers get cheap beer from the super market, or get drunk at a bar.
Even if it were true, it's not all that relevant. You should look at how much of the business of liquor stores doesn't result in drunk driving. You'll find that it's quite a bit, so shutting down liquor stores would harm quite a few legitimate and responsible users of alcoholic beverages.
On the other hand, there's a barely anyone using
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perhaps.
corruption is nasty.
laws that breed corruption is worse.
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Makes sense? No it doesn't. You talk as if it's obvious that piracy is immoral and unethical. Other than the hypothetical harm from lost sales, piracy does no harm. The supposed harm is not the fault of piracy, it is the fault of antiquated, obsolete, and plain wrong ideas of how artists should be compensated. Sharing should never have been criminalized. It's impossible to force society and nature to treat information as if it were material. It isn't. Anytime anyone calls copyright infringement "ste
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Your, mine, or the judge's opinion on piracy don't matter in this case. The judge simply follows the written law and precedents, and the court's decision makes perfect sense in that context. If you want to argue that the law is wrong, take it up with politicians.
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google groups shows you as being wrong http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?hl=en?hl=en& [google.com] if i recall correctly google groups doesn't allow you to download binaries.
sure your newsfeed might be relegated to binaries, but the google one is quite diverse and has many languages, and plenty of content.
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I hope nobody from the Netherlands will be posting here complaining if they haven't already at least sent a message to their Members of Parliament.
The Pirate Party is not in the Dutch Parliament yet, so that may be harder.
Re:power (Score:4, Interesting)
The Netherlands seems to have changed from peaceful easy going to extremely right ring.
From banning products to banning religious practices.
Hal-ah and Kosher meat is soon to be banned from production in the Netherlands, which seems very much an attack on the Muslim and Jewish communities. Strangely importing of frozen Hal-ah meat is not an issue. Hal-ah meat is of extremely high quality due to the stringent rules of what is fit to be eaten and you don't need to be Jewish or Muslim to appreciate that.
It's such a far cry from the freedom loving Dutch people who were the most welcoming and friendly that you would find in Europe. Sad to see the about turn
Re:power (Score:5, Interesting)
Halal meat isn't higher quality - it's usually lower quality in the West. The myth of it being "higher quality" comes from dark ages, when slaughtering animal without letting the blood drain out of it would cause blood remaining in the body to spoil extremely quickly (as blood is a very fertile soil for bacteria growth). Halal meat, while considered religious was actually started as a tradition for more healthy way of draining blood from the animal to get meat that was healthier to eat due to lower bacterial content.
Thing is, modern slaughtering techniques extract blood much more efficiently then slitting animal's throat and letting it drain while its heart still beats. As a result, just like halal meat being better quality then dark ages western meat, it's worse quality then modern industrially slaughtered meat. If you hear otherwise, know that you're talking to uninformed person or a liar with a (religious) axe to grind.
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Spiritual Israel (Score:2)
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By all means, have your religious diets. I'm also not going to complain about you being a vegetarian, vegan, nondrinker, diabetic, having food allergies or whatever else diet you're on. If you'll do the same as I eat my pork and drink my beer. Now of course I'd be interested if there was a medical reason I shouldn't eat something or it should be prepared a special way, so it's worth exploring if there's a purpose behind it. But apart from that, I'm not going to limit what I will eat to please some religious
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no one gives a shit about your spirituality. This is about public health.
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The religions practice part of it should be entirely ignored.
The question should be settled entirely on empirical grounds: Does Halal meat production pass the standards of quality, hygiene, and reduction of suffering? All meat production must be held according to the same standards.
If Halal meat complies with the minimum requirements, then it should be allowed. If not, it should be banned. Religion should at no point come into it.
Reduction of suffering (Score:2)
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That, however, should not be twisted into an excuse to keep the same bad practices. If it's clear that we can do better, then we should.
I would say that as little as possible, and bleeding to death by having the neck slashed sounds very painful.
Long term I hope for it to be eliminated entirely
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That disagrees with accounts that suggest that beheading (which is a lot faster than you can manage with a knife) doesn't always result in immediate loss of consciousness.
Also, a good deal of the muscles that move the head seem to be positioned in such a way that they are probably severed when the neck is slashed. There may not be much struggling possible at that point.
And like I said, religion has absolutely no place in this. The decision should be undertaken exclusively based on research, and not on respe
Hunting (Score:3)
http://southholland.angloinfo.com/countries/holland/hunting.asp [angloinfo.com]
Have you ever shot a living thing? It is not exactly a pain-free way to kill an animal, and I can assure you that hunted meat is not up to the hygiene standards of halal, kosher, or industrial slaughter. I seriously doubt that bans on kosher or halal meat are about health more than about making life hard for Jews and especially Muslims (given what I know of the politics of Holland and that fact that obser
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+2 is what you get to all your posts by default when you're have excellent carma and not posting as AC. Like me for example.
managed to persuade (Score:2)
Don't you mean 'paid off enough of the legislature'?
Sort of like the BSA (Score:4, Insightful)
In the US, the BSA is the same way ... its a pseudo-legal extortion outfit.
Of course, that's the norm in the US for a lot of organizations. The "Better Business Bureau" is another classic example. Commercial extortion was an area Yelp was trying to get into for a long time, too.
Re:Sort of like the BSA (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite their best efforts, the BSA promotes open-source software. [cnet.com]
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So extortion is okay, as long as it serves your personal political or social agenda?
Interesting ...
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Re:power (Score:4, Funny)
And then they will be China's lapdogs...
Oh shit, does this mean that they're going to eat us then?
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That would be hilarious if you hadn't confused China with Korea.
Reminds me of Team America. Koreans can say the 'L' sound, it is the Japanese who find it hard.
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Afaik they both find it hard, because they use the same alphabet, and it has same character for "L" and "R" sound in latin alphabet.
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Actually neither uses an alphabet per-se. The Chinese use ideograms, with the Japanese using the same set of ideograms (usually with the same or at-least a similar) meaning attached but (obviously) to represent a Japanese word instead of a Chinese one. The Japanese also use two syllabaries (that are basically the equivalent of cursive and printing except that one is generally used for normal writing and the other is used to write out SFX and foreign words (usually badly mangling them in the process because
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And another why: why aren't I, as a software engineer, entitled to getting royalties every time someone uses something with my code in it? It's creative work, it's copyrighted work, so why don't I get paid every time like musicians?
What? It's entirely possible. Just license your code that way.
I'll defer to the bard on this one (Score:2)
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The more you tighten your grip, BREIN, the more star systems will slip through your fingers...
Why are people always using that quote? Aside from the fact it doesn't fit very well here, does anyone remember what happened after Leia said originally?
I'm not a big Star Wars fan, and even *I* know that it didn't end well...
Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Tarkin: Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with
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Fast forward a little more, and the Death Star is destroyed, and a few sequels later, the Empire loses the war. Your point was?
My point was that Leia's self-assured bravado was pretty much subverted straight away. And most of the time I see it used here, it does tend to come across as a stock geeky wish-fulfilling incantation, especially as it doesn't normally say anything particularly insightful or predictive in the context in which it's used(!)
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Fast forward a little more, and the Death Star is destroyed, and a few sequels later, the Empire loses the war. Your point was?
My point was that Leia's self-assured bravado was pretty much subverted straight away. And most of the time I see it used here, it does tend to come across as a stock geeky wish-fulfilling incantation, especially as it doesn't normally say anything particularly insightful or predictive in the context in which it's used(!)
Also, Leia was lying, the rebel base wasn't on Dantooine. I don't know where this takes the analogy now.
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You're a cliched idiot. USENET is a centralized distribution system; how do you propose we form a Rebel Alliance that will recreate that centralized infrastructure without repeating the same series of events? There won't be any of your slippage until the evil BREINish Emperor is out of the way.
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BitTorrent is not USENET. And you've overlooked that the SAME THING happens to it as well: the death of Mininova, etc. You'll next claim that encrypted BitTorrent is the solution, to which The Powers That Be will respond that if you're encrypting peer-to-peer traffic - and they packet-sniff so they know that it is - then you must be a guilty Infringer... and the courts will agree and Strike you down and confiscate your precious HTPC and iPhone.
Deal with the Evil Overlords head-on, or STFU.
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USENET servers are a centralized *paradigm*. Sure, DHT decentralizes BitTorrent, but where ya gonna find out about a torrent in the first place except some centralized resource? Word of mouth? Not likely. Some random forum or blog post? How ya gonna find that post except through some centralized system like Google? Damned middlemen! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em....
eMule (Score:3)
where ya gonna find out about a torrent in the first place
Trackers are decentralized in BitTorrent with DHT. Both trackers and search are decentralized in eMule's protocol.
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I'll fetch him. BREIN? Huh. I can get RIAA! We'll have a nightmare with MPAA, have a surprise party for SCO, Monsanto can do the catering, and then we'll have christening for Lodsys! All I have to do is snap my fingers and they'll be here. They're lining up to get here, and do you know why Jack? Should I tell you why? Hmm? Because here, in this world, the bad guys can win!
It's sad how USENET has changed (Score:3, Insightful)
If USENET were what it used to be, I would be sad about this. But it's just a scheme for companies like this to charge access to pirated goods while claiming that the responsibility lies elsewhere. If people still had useful discussions, I would feel differently but all that's left is the pirated materials.
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Re:It's sad how USENET has changed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's sad how USENET has changed (Score:5, Insightful)
If people still had useful discussions, I would feel differently but all that's left is the pirated materials.
You were subscribed to the wrong groups. There are still useful ones out there, with ordinary discussions happening just as they used to a decade or more ago.
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You can't blame people for only subscribing to the groups they find interesting.
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practically doesn't mean what it used to (Score:2)
It requires NSE to finding a way to identify and delete all copyrighted files from its servers, which is practically impossible.
practically impossible?!? If a human compared every file being uploaded, and already on, just one server to a list of copyrighted material they still wouldn't be able to effect the files munged onto the server from other servers. Everyone involved knew this from the start. Encrypted P2P is the only way to go.
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And the instant you encrypt that traffic you're presumed guilty and treated like a criminal. There's no "workaround" here; we have to confront the evil overlords head-on. The revolution is at least 50 years overdue.
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And the instant you encrypt that traffic you're presumed guilty and treated like a criminal.
I would think you would get rate shaped but only by ISP's that are also media companies. eg WarnerBro's Cable. Those ISP's should be boycotted anyways, IMHO. However, there is no way in hell the mafia could take you to court for file sharing without proving what copyrighted files you supposedly shared.
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Warner Bros. doesn't have anything to do with Time Warner Cable. They sold it off a few years ago
It's the correct response (Score:2)
News-Service.com responded correct. If they're going to make laws/rulings that make it impractical, just completely do away with the service and let the users, politicians, rights abusers and courts work it out. If it pisses of enough users, the politicians will get involved. But News-Service.com doesn't have to spend a ton of money (and raise prices) to stay out of trouble. And of course, the rights holders will be inconvenienced by this in ways they haven't even thought of yet.
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Not sure about that. Usenet isn't a big part of the net anymore...well, it doesn't seem to be an important part. They may well be able to do this without being inconvenienced.
OTOH, it's a clear indication that communications need to be non-centralized. That which is centralized is relatively easy to corrupt or destroy. Mesh networks would seem to be indicated, but also mesh services to run on those networks. Ideally *all* centralized services would be replaced.
Usenet is a dinosaur (Score:3)
Sad as it may be, this was probably inevitable. I was pretty active on Usenet back in the day (1990s), and look back on that time with a fair bit of nostalgia; but I don't use it any more. Technology has moved on, and Usenet is an anachronism. The last couple of times I poked my nose into the groups I used to frequent, they were full of spam with very little (if any) worthwhile discussion taking place. The poor S/N ratio makes it pretty much unusable.
Usenet's primary purpose these days seems to be the distribution of spam and illicit copyrighted content. I've wondered how long it would be able to continue flying "under the radar" when many of the other popular file sharing services were getting hammered by the **AA and their henchmen.
While Usenet is essentially a distributed system, users still require an upstream provider, and these providers are quite vulnerable to legal pressure. It looks like Usenet's day of reckoning may be at hand; the incoming asteroid is on a collision course.
RIP Usenet.
Re:Usenet is a dinosaur (Score:5, Insightful)
"Technology has moved on, and Usenet is an anachronism."
So, please, can you explain to me what's the better technology that arose that made NNTP an anachronism? Because I honestly say I don't know the current technology that is better than NNTP doing its stuff on technical grounds.
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For most people, web-based services are a better medium for online discussions.
NNTP was never a particularly good protocol for distributing large binaries; it is unreliable, and places unreasonable storage demands on the NNTP hosting providers, which in turn leads to short retention times for binaries. It was just that all of the alternatives that existed 20 years ago were worse! Modern P2P protocols fill that role now, and do a better job.
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"USNET's other advantages are a single UI "
Not only a single UI but the specific UI that suits my needs/preferences, which doesn't need to be the same that fits others.
"and a single searchable archive of all your posts."
And local retention if I want to and exactly the way I want to, and the ability to score messages by the criteria better fits me, and a logical and common hierarchy to find/subscribe to info...
I honestly believe that the only way to say that web-based service is a better tool for on-line dis
Re:Usenet is a dinosaur (Score:4, Insightful)
> Technology has moved on, and Usenet is an anachronism.
As a distributed content provider subdivided by categories, usenet was better than most centralized systems we have today. It doesn't matter if they are implemented in the cloud: if fb throws you out, who cares how many redundant servers they have.
Usenet did leave people with too much freedom, so alternatives who removed such control creeped in. Now we are at the stage of megaupload and company that is replacing bittorrent that is replacing p2p. See an involution? You become the dumb terminal again.
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vulnerable to legal pressure
What really is obsolete is "law" when corporate entities can achieve their aims by using quasi-legal (i.e. illegal) means. They and their agents thus put all their property and lives outside the protection of society...
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Let's admit it, nowadays Usenet is just another warez distribution network.
Except for a few diehard nerds everyone switched to online forums long ago.
Usenet has always been a Warez distribution network. Now however, it's 99% viruses disguised as warez.
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Let's admit it, nowadays Usenet is just another warez distribution network. Except for a few diehard nerds everyone switched to online forums long ago.
Usenet has always been a Warez distribution network.
Well, yeah, it's had the binaries for a *long* time, but I'm pretty sure the OP was also implying that once upon a time this wasn't its primary purpose. The first thing I ever used on the Internet- circa 1993- was Usenet newsgroups via a text-based newsreader (before the web *really* took off and a while before I ever used a browser).
Back then it *was*- along with Internet-based BBSs- still a major part of online discussions. Nowadays... well, yeah, it *is* "just another warez distribution network". I sti
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Re:The only way to win. (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
But not for you, (Score:2)
When we stop trying to acquire their product, we will win. Boycotts do work.
The boycott merely shifts production to other --- less volitile --- markets.
Blue Sky, Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks are in no danger whatever. They produce a timeless family-oriented product to the highest of technical and creative standards.
Now and again one of their products may falter in its initial theatrical release, but find its audience a generation or two later. MGM's "Wizard of Oz" didn't have a solid anchorage until the introduction of color television in the fifties.
But the geek may be more tr