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."
Re:Two very silly companies (Score:2, Interesting)
This news is really bad. We may end up seeing all Usenet providers that provide all of the alt groups getting sued into oblivion. This could be the end of Usenet as we know it.
hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Can the RIAA be countersued? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just wondering...
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: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.
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:Maybe you should have done a FUCKING search of (Score:4, Interesting)
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:Okay, newbies, usenet.com is NOT usenet (Score:3, Interesting)
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 pretty beefy hardware and uses a ton of bandwidth, and 3) such a small percentage of users even know what Usenet is that it's just not worth it for most ISP to bother with.
Re:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy (Score:1, Interesting)
Go ahead - report them to the interested parties, if there is one.
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:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy (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 competitor used more traditional methods like CD/DVD ripping )
I stopped to pirate long ago. The result is that I've become almost completely unaware of the 'music' world. The only result is that I stopped buying music ( still listen my old CD though ) and the last place I would think to go is a karaoke.
Limiting access of your customer to music is not a good idea ( regardless how legally they get their music ) - imagine running your business if your customers never heard any of your songs
However, making sure all for-profit companies complies with the law IS what you should really hope for.
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:The average user does not know about usenet (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 the code. I now use a more efficient client, News Rover that handles the huge influx of headers with ease,
You are correct; the average user is clueless about usenet. But that's just fine with me. The users that do know about it have been enjoying years of downloading bliss.
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:Ahh crap-DISMANTLE ONE SERVER AT A TIME (Score:1, Interesting)
I for one agree with the court, and think the author(s) of the I-brief are stretching more than a little bit.
Re:First rule of Usenet (Score:3, Interesting)
Misepelling things [vrx.net] is how usenet grows.
Re:Usenet is pretty vulnerable. (Score:3, Interesting)
Very, very few of us could actually receive, much less store for even a few hours, a more-or-less complete USENET feed. It currently pushes something on the order of 300MB/s 24/7/365 (yes, uppercase "B" in that).
Streisanded on a desert island (Score:3, Interesting)
Well... some found it difficult. But I never did.
Keep in mind what makes an "official" usenet group means it's on "the list" of newsgroup names maintained by spaf then dave lawrence and now vixie at isc.
Unofficially a group - any group or hierarchy - was real if decwrl carried it. That's how reid created alt, he just stuck it in decwrls distribution list. vixie woreked for him at the time writing bind and administering decwrl. hoptoad (gilmore) and nasa ames (moffet) picked it up and it spread out from there.
But, outside of the "big 7" (sci/comp/rec etc) and alt there are other hierarchies.
decwrl is alas sadly gone now, but reid and vixie still work together, now at ISC.
Making a new hierarchy would be as simple as the right email to the right person from the right person. There's a non-zero chance I'm one of those persons. I'm pretty sure paul won't like the idea. But that's just Paul.
Keep in mind there are serious usenet sites outside the us.
Antigua would be a good place for another one and this might be a good business oppertunity for somebody. As a long time self appointed expert on usenet naming I'd suggest the "pokertax" hierarchy. Or maybe the "riaa" hierarchy. Or "mpaa".
Perhaps to split things up to keep it easy to organize you'd want riaa.mp3, mpaa.video and pokertax.microsoft for starters.