Thoughts on recent lawsuits against usenet indexing sites

[dumwaldo]

with the great minds that patronize this forum i find it hard to believe that nobody has any thoughts on the recent lawsuits filed against usenet indexing sites.

before i go spouting off i was wondering if anybody has any thoughts they would like to vocalize regarding these potentially landmark lawsuits.

peace,
dumwaldo

[Mazer]

Well it seems that so far only websites that index NZB files are being sued, not the actual usenet server operators. My guess is that if they did then Google would end up on their list of defendants because of their groups.google.com site. Nobody want's to sue that juggeranut; can you imagine the army of high priced lawyers that Google could conjure. A recent article at ars technica suggests that the tech industry is so much bigger than the entertainment industry that for a meager investment Sillicon Valley could bury Hollywood.

The RIAA and MPAA know this. The only way they'll ever get the tech industry to do their bidding is by lobbying for new laws, because even their legal department isn't big enough to take on the likes of Intel, IBM, and Cisco, the primary suppliers of hardware for usenet sites. However they do have the budget to launch a FUD campaign by suing smaller web site operators, the usenet portals that have made that network so popular recently. I think if we had more insight into their finances we might discover that the RIAA and MPAA spend almost as much money on publicists, spokesmen, and newswire press releases to spin and advertize their lawsuits as they spend filing those lawsuits.

Maybe the reason there isn't much discussion going on here is because of www.p2pconsortium.com, specifically this thread.

[JackSpratts]

Originally Posted by dumwaldo

with the great minds that patronize this forum i find it hard to believe that nobody has any thoughts on the recent lawsuits filed against usenet indexing sites.

before i go spouting off i was wondering if anybody has any thoughts they would like to vocalize regarding these potentially landmark lawsuits.

peace,
dumwaldo

hey waldo, by all means, spout off. i'd like to hear your opinion. you can't hear mine on the specifics because i'm not a user, not that my mind's all that great anyway.

in general i'm against constraining information in a free society, even if it seems to lead to security & profit issues. i have zero sympathy for media conglomerates, and barely any more for well meaning political leaders, such as there are.

not that i assign any metaphysical values to my philosophy, but i consider locking up knowledge "evil," and letting it out in dribs and drabs only slightly less so. i'd call it criminal, but that's a statutory description, and as we unfortunately know, inaccurate at this present time. it happens, but it's the rare circumstance where hoarders of information get prosecuted.

knowledge belongs to the world. if people don't like it they should exit the info business and leave it for those who appreciate this.

as for untested take-down notices and nzb sites caving, well, it's another example of this culture's visceral hostility towards individual independence, in spite of it's ambivalence towards "kleptocracies." honestly though, i'd like to see a little backbone, at least one in a while.

- js.

[napho]

I have a massive stake in Usenet, namely my $10/month bill!!!
It's amazing that the copyright holders haven't gone after Usenet servers directly a long time ago. There must be some legal precedent preventing them. Indexing sites are all pretty much the same, be they eDonkey, G2, or Usenet, so it's no surprise that they're broadening their attack.

[dumwaldo]

Originally Posted by napho

I have a massive stake in Usenet, namely my $10/month bill!!!
It's amazing that the copyright holders haven't gone after Usenet servers directly a long time ago. There must be some legal precedent preventing them. Indexing sites are all pretty much the same, be they eDonkey, G2, or Usenet, so it's no surprise that they're broadening their attack.

Usenet providers are protected by something called "common carrier status". Wikipedia defines that as, an organization that transports a product or service using its facilities, or those of other carriers, and offers its services to the general public.


My personal feelings on what is happening, or rather about to happen, to binnews are mixed. I think it is ironic and almost karma like that they will most likely meet their demise through this lawsuit but on the other side i think it could be a tremendous boon to usenet.

Binnews.com started the whole usenet indexing thing only to become shunned by the larger part of the community when they started charging for site use. D9 probably made some pretty good money off the site but now it is all about to go back into the site for legal defense that will likely bankrupt the site. It's almost as if a circle is closing.

I also think usenet stands to benefit by some mainstream exposure. The more people that sign up with premium providers the more money those providers will have to offer longer retention and reliable service. More money for the providers and better service for us. It is a win/win situation.

The thing that I think I am most surprised about is how much respect i have for D9. He made his mark on usenet by having the first big usenet indexing site. He could easily just take the money and run, but he is going to fight the losing battle that can make usenet a household term.

See, in my vision of the future, P2P is dead. Everybody uses newsgroups and companies like giganews have so much money the copyright cartel is scared of them. In my vision of the future, copyright infringment allegations need to actually include some bonafide evidence. Associations that are granted permission to represent thousands of copyright owners en masse will have to actually download the content and not simply copy a header. They will have to have some type of data validation but worst of all they will have to file those lawsuits one by one and in compliance with due process, not in batches of hundreds at a time.

I USED TO think my vision of the future was a pipe dream. Hey, maybe it is not just a stoned fantasy.

thats one of my two cents,
dumwaldo

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by dumwaldo

I also think usenet stands to benefit by some mainstream exposure. The more people that sign up with premium providers the more money those providers will have to offer longer retention and reliable service. More money for the providers and better service for us. It is a win/win situation.

Yeah, the people trying to stop file sharing are going to loose out a third time I think. They've tried the cut-the-head-off-the-snake strategy twice before, first by shutting Napster down and then by shutting Suprnova down, and both times it backfired on them. Usenet has many portals and they can all be shut down, but unlike Napster and Suprnova which were immediately replaced by dozens of clones, the indexing sites might be shut down for good. But like you say, the lawsuits and takedown notices are bringing lots of attention to the usenet phenomenon, and their strategy will fail again.