Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

RIAA Sues Usenet.com

Posted by kdawson on Tue Oct 16, 2007 05:03 PM
from the not-the-same-as-suing-usenet dept.
Government The Courts Media Music News
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."
+ -
story

Related Stories

Submission: RIAA Launches Attack on Usenet by Anonymous Coward
[+] Your Rights Online: Usenet.com May Find Safe Harbor From RIAA lawsuit 126 comments
Daneal writes "Ars Technica has some interesting analysis of the RIAA's lawsuit against Usenet.com. There's reason to believe that Usenet.com — and most other Usenet providers — could qualify for protection under the DMCA's Safe Harbor provision. 'The DMCA's Safe Harbor provision provides protection for ISPs from copyright infringement lawsuits as long as they take down offending material once they are served with a notice of infringement. "Whether the Safe Harbor applies is the central legal question that is going to be raised," EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann told Ars. An RIAA spokesperson tells Ars that the group has issued "many" takedown notices to Usenet.com, but von Lohmann says that the volume of takedown notices isn't what counts. "The DMCA's Safe Harbor makes it very clear," von Lohmann said. "The number of notices doesn't matter as long as you take the infringing content down."'"
[+] Your Rights Online: RIAA Victory Over Usenet.com In Copyright Case 289 comments
ozydingo writes "The RIAA has scored a victory in a decision on a copyright case that they filed back in 2007. US District Judge Harold Baer ruled in favor of the music industry on all its main theories: that Usenet.com is guilty of direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. In addition, and perhaps most important for future cases, Baer said that Usenet.com can't claim protection under the Sony Betamax decision stating that companies can't be held liable of contributory infringement if the device is 'capable of significant non-infringing uses.' Bear noted that Usenet.com differed from Sony in that the sale of a Betamax recorder was a one-time deal, while Usenet.com's interaction with its users was an ongoing relationship. The RIAA stated in a brief note, 'We're pleased that the court recognized not just that Usenet.com directly infringed the record companies' copyrights but also took action against the defendants for their egregious litigation misconduct.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

RIAA Sues Usenet.com 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Ahh crap (Score:5, Funny)

    by Barny (103770) <bakadamage-slashdot@yahoo.com> on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:05PM (#21002621) Journal
    Guess IRC and finally Gopher will be up next :/

    • Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Threni (635302) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:09PM (#21002657)
      Took 'em years to get around to Usenet, though. Why? Perhaps they've only just heard about it?

      • Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Funny)

        by MightyMartian (840721) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:19PM (#21002811) Journal

        Took 'em years to get around to Usenet, though. Why? Perhaps they've only just heard about it?


        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)

        by Otter (3800) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:35PM (#21002985) Journal
        Why? Perhaps they've only just heard about it?

        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)

          by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @06:45PM (#21003707)

          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.

          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)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2007, @07:35PM (#21004173)
            This seems like it there may be a precedent for this case already:

            http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2006dltr0019.html [duke.edu]
            • For those who don't want to take the time to read the "iBrief" (wtf?), it says that AOL's usenet service should not have qualified AOL under the safe harbor provisions. However, the article uses a very narrow interpretation of the definition of "ISP": a party that offers transmission, routing, or provision of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user's choosing. The article says that the user does not control where the usenet post goes after they make it, so the user has not specified a point of transmission, so with respect to usenet, AOL does not qualify as an ISP.

              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:Ahh crap (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:35PM (#21002991)
        Probably because they can't track who is using it as easily as P2P programs or torrents. To go after users will require them to get logs from the providers, which won't happen without a subpoena. Also, it seems like they're going after Usenet.com because they were branding their service as a way to get copies of content. I wonder if they will go after other providers, who are advertising the ability to have 20GB/month worth of conversations with other usenet users, but make no mention of copyrighted material that is available?

          • Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Interesting)

            by sumdumass (711423) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @09:29PM (#21005183) Journal
            Actually, the laws in the US says copying and distributing. There really isn't anything they can do to you for just obtaining a copy. Well, maybe if you know it is pirated or stolen, but if you don't then there really isn't anything.

            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)

        by stefanlasiewski (63134) <slashdot@nOSpaM.stefanco.com> on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:39PM (#21003051) Homepage Journal
        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.

        • Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Interesting)

          by entropy42 (109731) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @06:38PM (#21003649) Homepage
          I was the original owner of usenet.com - I registered it in 1994 or thereabouts. I sold it to someone (not sure if the present owner or not) for six figures in the late '90s.

          Heh, a google search for paulp@usenet.com (my address at the time) yields exactly one result [emoticon.com].

          • Re:Ahh crap (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Korin43 (881732) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @08:47PM (#21004809) Homepage Journal
            I think the point is that Usenet.com doesn't just have copywrited music, it's a major part of their advertising. Like if phone companies advertised as "A great way to plan terrorist attacks!" or something. (not that I think they should lose, I just think that it's more complicated than people are making it)

      • First rule of Usenet (Score:5, Funny)

        by gmezero (4448) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @06:03PM (#21003299) Homepage
        USENET FAQ

        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:Ahh crap (Score:4, Funny)

      by HTH NE1 (675604) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:19PM (#21002803)

      Guess IRC and finally Gopher will be up next :/
      Jasper: [whispering] Are they talking about the bordello?
      Abe: No! The burlesque house. So just keep your mouth shut.

  • I read it for the articles (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:06PM (#21002629)
    Pay no attention to those alt.binaries. subscriptions.

  • GG RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by visualight (468005) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:09PM (#21002653) Homepage
    Now everyone will know about usenet and how to access it.

  • Think of the pigeons! (Score:5, Funny)

    by SirJorgelOfBorgel (897488) * on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:10PM (#21002661)
    I guess pigeons will be next. Woe is ye, oh little beasties of high capacity and ludicrous latency!

  • What's next? (Score:5, Funny)

    by noidentity (188756) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:10PM (#21002665)
    RIAA sues HTTP.com, RIAA sues USB 2.0, RIAA sues self?

  • Misread - RIAA USES Usenet (Score:4, Funny)

    by SpeedyDX (1014595) <speedyphoenix.gmail@com> on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:11PM (#21002681)
    I misread the title as "RIAA Uses Usenet.com".

    Wow, what a difference two letters make, huh?

  • next up (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 (568564) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:12PM (#21002703) Homepage
    The complaint, filed in the federal District Court in New York, accuses Usenet.com of providing access to millions of copyright-infringing files

    Next up, the RIAA sues Nike, for their involvement in a "massive, global-scale sneaker net"

  • I warned you people!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by commodoresloat (172735) * on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:19PM (#21002805) Homepage
    See what happens when you talk about Usenet?

    • Re:I warned you people!! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Xemu (50595) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:44PM (#21003099) Homepage
      When someone discusses Usenet, inevitably, someone (me! me!) will point out that what the RIAA is doing is very similar to what Hitler and the Nazis were wishing for.

      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:I warned you people!! (Score:5, Funny)

        by Mean Variance (913229) <mean.variance@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 16 2007, @06:05PM (#21003331)

        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?

        Godwin's Law has been triggered. Stop the thread.

  • Does not compute. (Score:5, Funny)

    by IcebergSlim (450399) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:25PM (#21002883)
    WTF? Usenet predates the WWW and is essentially just a protocol; they might as well sue "email" as well.

  • Please (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blhack (921171) * on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:26PM (#21002891)
    Please, for the love of god, don't let this story go any further....please nobody post this to digg, or reddit, or any other place that will get it even more publicity. What the MAFRIAA wants is for all of us to be up in arms, and if we get the 14 year old ZOMFG HACK-ZORES on the case that is exactly what will happen.

    usenet will go the way of bittorrent.

    NOthing to see here folks, move along. /quickly now //QUICKLY!

    • Re:Please (Score:5, Informative)

      by moore.dustin (942289) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:37PM (#21003031)
      What way did bittorrent go exactly? My 'torrent use' has not been effected in the least from anything the RIAA or bittorrent themselves have done. As for usenet, even if it is shut down, only the name will take a hit. The whole community will reorganize 3 days later at a new domain, the same community, and a new vigor of secrecy. I mean really, the RIAA cannot do anything to stop us(Us being geeks/nerds). No matter what they do, we change our ways, improve our position against them(RIAA), and continue to do what we want, share files. Darknets and private trackers are already commonplace because of the RIAA - it just goes to show that the only thing that can control what the community does is the community itself.

  • Okay, newbies, usenet.com is NOT usenet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature (593017) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:29PM (#21002921) Journal

    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.

  • Pointless (Score:5, Informative)

    by jemenake (595948) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @05:48PM (#21003147)
    If the RIAA's main complaint is that Usenet.com is offering access to alt.binaries.*, that's a little pointless. Now that NZB files are all the rage, the various pieces of each posting don't even have to be in one newsgroup, because the reference them by message-id. So, I could chop "Stairway to Heaven" into 20 pieces, post one piece to soc.singles, another piece to alt.flame, etc. etc... and then post the NZB somewhere and any NZB-aware program will be able to go get them. So... trying to shut off alt.binaries isn't going to stop anything.

  • Good Luck Riaa, Usenet servers are ISP's in law. (Score:5, Informative)

    by plasmacutter (901737) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @08:08PM (#21004457) Journal
    to quote this informed poster [slashdot.org] from a previous usenet related infringement story.

    The problem for the MPAA is that Usenet providers have been deemed to be 17 USC 512(a) service providers. That means they can't be successfully sued for copyright infringement for material traversing their networks, and they need not even respond to takedown notices for such material. Yep, it's their own law, the DMCA, working against them. Though before that law, the Netcom case left them pretty hamstrung anyway.


    Let's hope Usenet.com has good lawyers who know about this.

  • I'm waiting for them to sue localhost (Score:5, Funny)

    by r_jensen11 (598210) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @09:03PM (#21004951)
    16,548,583 songs available? And I can download them at blazing fast speeds? Those bastards are going to fear our wrath!
        • Yep. Not only that -- the massive storage and bandwidth -- but you need to get a newsfeed. And that's not as easy as it used to be, when you could basically ask the sysop of your local university nicely. I'm not even sure what the commercial news servers would charge for a real UUCP newsfeed, or if they'd sell you one at all (why would they want to create competition for themselves?).

          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)

        by droopycom (470921) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @06:03PM (#21003307)
        Actually, usenet.com (like any host taking part of the usenet network) is actually hosting the content.

        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)

        by HTH NE1 (675604) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @06:12PM (#21003423)

        And if I remember correctly, it takes some work to create a new group.
        Not so much under alt.*. As I recall some misbehaving servers would automatically newgroup a newsgroup just by receiving a posting for it. (Do they still bar any proposals for the creation of binaries groups under rec? Do any comp.binaries.* groups survive today?)

        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:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy (Score:5, Informative)

      by SomeJoel (1061138) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @06:51PM (#21003775)
      Most slashdotters that are against the RIAA/MPAA for their tactics would also be against the piracy you described. Typically, this community accepts "personal use" type file-sharing, where the song/movie is not then sold on the black market. In fact, the RIAA would be perfectly in the right to sue in this case. However, they should sue the pirating karaoke bars that are making profits because of piracy, not the medium from which they obtained them. Furthermore, they should not have to pay $220,000 per track in any case, but rather something more along the lines of actual loss (maybe a grand total of $300,000 as you cited in your example).

    • Re:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kindbud (90044) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @09:09PM (#21005017) Homepage
      So by your +5 Interesting logic, if instead you had a clothing store and your competition was selling counterfeit designer labels and hurting your business, the proper response response by the designer would be to sue the trucking company that delivered the counterfeit clothing?

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.