Is this the beginning of the end?

[b1scu1t]

I just read this.

http://torrentfreak.com/major-usenet-provider-ordered-to-remove-all-infringing-content-110929/

Does this portend the end of usenet service providers? I know this case is in Netherlands, but am just wondering.

b1scu1t

[mjmacky]

I'm not familiar with them, but they seem to be the news provider backing "usenext" which I always saw ads plastered all over unfound public torrent search results. Maybe they were just the most visible?

[Beck38]

Well, perhaps/probably for that provider, that I've never heard of, and who apparently has some very (VERY) poor lawyers.

But then again, I don't know spit about Dutch law, apparently they don't have constitutional protections surrounding free speech, and don't (as a result) have the kind of 'safe harbor' provisions that other countries have (and if one goes by the news item, apparently any newspaper, website, radio/TV station, et. al., can be ordered to shut down in that country without the complainant having to produce much of any actual proof).

Then again, their judges might be as corrupt there as in those 'other countries' of which I speak.

[Hypatia]

i dont care about this shady beginning because i know about the end if they keep doing what theyve been doing all this time - the offices of the international copyright mafia ring will be blown to pieces, their gang members will be executed publicly, their assets will be arrested and distributed between artists they used to "represent", corrupt judges will be hanged on trees :D
They think they are invincible ,well, money wont save them.


When laws become a puppet in the hands of criminals then Lynch law comes into play. The law of the outraged honest men and women who will protect rights and freedom from the dirty tightening claws of copyright crooks


They never learn.. :naughty:

[Hecks]

The safe harbour provisions and notice & takedown systems of the DMCA have nothing at all to do with First Amendment rights in American law (google "chilling effects DMCA first amendment").

And yes, of course this is the beginning of the end. What do you think all those USPs who have major DCs in the Netherlands are thinking now about carrying binary groups (Astraweb, Giganews, Highwinds etc etc)? It's only a matter of time.

[Hypatia]

It's only a matter of time.

a matter of time before corpses start piling up in the streets, yes :-E

corrupt judges, the international copyright mafia ring they all have violated laws too many times thus redefining themselves into pure criminals. They have stepped outside the law.
They wanna play Don Carleone? Fine by me.

What simple folks do against perpetrators when laws are twisted to such an extent that they are of no use in terms of protection of all these honest men and women?

That's right ;))
Mark my words- they are playing with fire.

[sandman_1]

Nah it isn't the end. :D



Governor Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, I'd like you to join me for a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.

Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. :w00t:

[Sporkk]

I think that eventually they will find a way to stop easy access to copyrighted content. Unless file sharing is made legal they won't give up. I just hope they don't find a way to shut down all decryption software like anydvd as well. I hope streaming services continue to improve so we have other options.

As long as they can control the distribution of their content without removing rights from consumers or censoring the internet I don't see anything wrong with that. However as others have pointed out they are often criminals as well and abuse the law.

[Beck38]

The safe harbour provisions and notice & takedown systems of the DMCA have nothing at all to do with First Amendment rights in American law (google "chilling effects DMCA first amendment").

You need to go back and redo freshman telecommunications law. Perhaps a community college near you offers such.

[mjmacky]

Basically it'll come to an end when the production side decides to compete with filesharing. It's supposed to be easier to do things the legal way rather than the illegal way, but they insist on restricting people. The way content distribution is setup for legal methods is still a bit of a joke (poor speeds, poor quality, DRM hassle and incompatibility, fleeting licensing, etc.). If they decide to make it easier and affordable to obtain digital copies, that'll start to mark the end of illegal filesharing's footprint.

[OldIronTits]

87518

[Hypatia]

Aye, aye!

[zot]

Does anyone know if there any transcripts (Dutch or English) available anywhere?

Since BREIN is heavily bankrolled by Hollywood,which has more than enough money to buy out every last politician and Judge in that tiny country, I expect the historic Dutch copyright haven will end in due time, and we'll need to move on to a friendlier country.

I don't know the facts of the News-Service case (or Dutch law), but unless I'm missing something, I don't understand how a judgement like that could stand, any more than ordering an ISP to retroactively block all warez-related content where ever it might exist. Unlike P2P networks like Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire, at least usenet has history squarely on its side, as it was never designed nor intended for sharing files (let alone copyrighted files). But unlike P2P, a usenet provider has the ability to remove any content on demand. So BREIN and its Hollywood backers could have wiped out any NNTP server with takedown requests alone, but that would have taken real work. Much easier and cheaper to shift the burden of responsibility to the server's owner.

News-Service was a wholesale-only NNTP provider, basically a pass-through NNTP service, yet somehow the company is considered responsible for all content posted on its servers by people it has no direct relationship to? The only (possible) decision made by the provider is which groups to include. The group names were apparently considered by the judge as promoting infringement just by their very name. I seem to remember in the Mininova lawsuit transcripts, the plaintiff's lawyer kept driving in the fact that moderators actively sought out and removed things like (child) pornography, while at the same time ignoring obvious infringements like first-run movies. Similarly, I expect that a USP's decision to decline child-porn group names will be presented as proof that they actively monitor and control content (like arguing that if a USP can do such a thorough job keeping child porn out, why not copyright infringements also?).

But in a conceivable worse case scenario, if News-Service removes all groups with names that begin with "alt.binaries" (and for the sake of argument all other USPs the world over do the same) uploaders could just start posting binaries in vacant text groups or just scattering them all over: downloading via headers would obviously not work if articles are scattered, but NZBs would (conceivably) be unaffected, at least until the articles are targeted by some kind of technological strategy.

It would interesting to see if binary posting clients in the future could scatter the articles into several different groups while giving every article a random name, so that a file could only be found via NZB, similar to the way a few anonymous P2P networks have been set up to be unbrowseable. If providers like News-Service are forced to take down entire groups, posting random articles might be the way to evade such a block.

[Beck38]

Ever since the DMCA became law in the USA, I wondered at the dawn of every day why Hollywood et. al. didn't simply set up a small group of folks (50 would do it) to simply scour the newsgroups and generate take-down orders as an industrial process.

For whatever reasoning (or lack thereof) they decided to spend years and years concentrating on P2P, generating a huge backlash against their tactics everywhere from the justice system to the common 'man on the street'.

Like you say, going after the newsgroups would kinda be like 'whack a mole' , and folks simply using either 'short cut' naming conventions and other simple techniques would mean that more and more effort would be needed to 'whack' those moles. But come on, this is an industry that spends millions to enforce it's ratings system, the effort needed to put a serious crimp on newsgroups would be a pittance compared to the effort on P2P.

It really has appeared over the years that usenet has simply not been on the 'radar', but perhaps now they are simply going after 'low hanging fruit'. Since the world's legal systems have been proven time and again to be 'for sale' to the highest bidder, at this point I'd day that the Dutch were simply, at that level of their system, the 'cheapest' to buy. We'll see as it moves it's way through that system, and how many operations simply pick up and move a a couple hundred miles in any direction.

[mjmacky]

You mentioned something there Beck that I had forgotten about. I now withdraw my bid to ever spend money on another film or tv show until they do away with both DRM and the ratings system. There are so many reasons to hate the industry, that I forget some of them.

[Beck38]

Well, here is the latest thing that the pols are spending their time on at the bidding of the 'copyright trolls', crafting laws to send Justin Bieber to prison:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/11572816419/free-justin-bieber-do-we-really-want-congress-to-make-bieber-felon.shtml

Those hordes of folks sent to state and federal offices last year to 'fix' the 'jobs crises' spent, of course, all their time on things like this, plus making sure their real masters got more tax breaks, voting rights were curtailed or eliminated, access to health care (except for those with 'platinum cards') was as well, and just about everything BUT that which would both create jobs and to anything to fix the countries infrastructure.

I point out to my neighbors all the time that the main freeway in town here hasn't had a complete redo on the roadway since it was built, 50 years ago when I was in grade school. It's a joke, 50 years of summers and harsh winters. We have a couple major bridges that are way past their lifespans, they could sink/fall into the waterways just about at any time (they were last built/replaced again, in the 60's, when folks actually still built things instead of trying to make money by legal actions).

What was it that B. Franklin said about the lawyers? Oh, yes...

[mjmacky]

Oh I see, Justin Bieber was just an example of the consequence of the law. For a second there, I thought they were making it illegal to be Justin Bieber, and I came dangerously close to feeling a calm satisfaction.

One of my guesses is that streaming movies probably account for most instances of privacy. I'm only extracting, but if I examine 20 people I know it breaks down this way:
1 knows how to fileshare
1 kind of knows how to fileshare but watches streaming sites instead
8 purely watch streaming sites as an act of copyright infringement
8 rely solely on their cable boxes
2 have bankrupted themselves on dvds/boxsets/cds and are currently awaiting for credit card approvals to blow a wad on blurays.

Netflix and Hulu are better attempts at reducing streaming piracy than this law would even dream to accomplish, it's really late to the game and without proper logic.

[cola]

The only way they'll win is if they try to compete with piracy. Otherwise, piracy will always be easier.

[Sporkk]

Netflix is possibly going bankrupt. The studios charge to much money to have stuff available for streaming. I think it was a mistake for them to put so much in and not focus on dvd by mail as the priority. If you don't want to buy a movie often netflix is the only legal way to rent it by disc. It is a true alternative to pirating but you have to wait a bit (or a lot) longer. I've been trying to get away from usenet and having some success. I have a htpc recording network tv shows, access to hbo go from a family member, gf has netflix, and Amazon prime has just added streaming as another perk. I think I read somewhere that they are even trying to take away ota broadcasts in the USA! With some tv shows I actually prefer to wait until the entire season is available since they always cancel stuff or it starts sucking half way through.

[Beck38]

Netflix is possibly going bankrupt.

Not anytime soon, unless their CEO makes more completely STUPID ideas (now retracted) of splitting up between physical discs and streaming. Of course, at any time the Repubs could crater the Post Office (they almost already have with the 2006 'lame duck' law forcing them to pay for the retirements IN ADVANCE, so that they are now trying to put 40 years of retiree pensions into escrow in a few short years), or all the ISP's decided to go full hog on capping all the internet connections to absurdly low amounts.

Many studio's put 'FOR SALE ONLY' and 'NOT FOR RENTAL' tags on their discs, trying to stop Netflix and others from buying retail discs and renting them. That didn't work.

I don't know how many times they think they can sell and re-sell things over and over ad. infinitum. They've so screwed up the copyright laws (and gotten the courts to go along with it) that virtually nothing becomes 'public domain' anymore. Same with patents and such. No drug developed in the last 30 years will EVER become generic. Never. Not in the U.S.

[gregb7677]

Basically it'll come to an end when the production side decides to compete with filesharing. It's supposed to be easier to do things the legal way rather than the illegal way, but they insist on restricting people. The way content distribution is setup for legal methods is still a bit of a joke (poor speeds, poor quality, DRM hassle and incompatibility, fleeting licensing, etc.). If they decide to make it easier and affordable to obtain digital copies, that'll start to mark the end of illegal filesharing's footprint. What I have never understood is why they have yet to figure that out. It frankly just seems like common sense, but still they continue to look like idiots.

[mjmacky]

Basically it'll come to an end when the production side decides to compete with filesharing. It's supposed to be easier to do things the legal way rather than the illegal way, but they insist on restricting people. The way content distribution is setup for legal methods is still a bit of a joke (poor speeds, poor quality, DRM hassle and incompatibility, fleeting licensing, etc.). If they decide to make it easier and affordable to obtain digital copies, that'll start to mark the end of illegal filesharing's footprint. What I have never understood is why they have yet to figure that out. It frankly just seems like common sense, but still they continue to look like idiots.

Current theory about why they haven't demonstrated an understanding of that: too fucking stupid and too fucking slimy.

[sandman_1]

For whatever reasoning (or lack thereof) they decided to spend years and years concentrating on P2P, generating a huge backlash against their tactics everywhere from the justice system to the common 'man on the street'.



Easier, more profitable, and less manpower needed to prosecute P2P than Usenet. With P2P, you are uploading content and thus distributing copyrighted material which is more severe than just downloading. Really all they can do with Newsgroups is issue DMCA take downs. They really can't go after just downloaders unless they have some way of gleaning who is downloading what, which would be near impossible unless they had someone in the chain spying on you and that would be in itself breaking the law. IMO another area where Usenet blows P2P away.

[A_T]

Seems News-Service.com has ceased operations (http://www.news-service.com/)


Amsterdam, 4 November 2011



Dear visitor,



On 28 September 2011, the District Court of Amsterdam reached a verdict in the procedure on the merits of the case that Stichting Brein had brought against News-Service.com. The Court has ruled that News- Service.com is to cease ‘recording and offering material protected by copyright and neighbouring rights’ on pain of period penalty payment.

Unfortunately, News-Service.com sees no way of complying with the Court's verdict while ensuring a regular and normal provision of Usenet services. As a consequence, on 28 October, we started interlocutory proceedings and asked the summary Judge to order Brein to cease the execution of the verdict. We have learned today that the summary Judge has denied our claims. This means that we are forced to cease our operations with immediate effect.

However, for reasons of principle, News-Service.com will not accept the verdict and has lodged an appeal.

We would like to thank all relations of News-Service.com for the pleasant working relationship and the trust they have placed in us during the past 15 years.



Kind regards,


Patrick Schreurs and Wierd Bonthuis


News-Service.com

Not sure which resellers this effects.

[Hypatia]

they must appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. the judge is obviously bent

[JustDOSE]

Seems News-Service.com has ceased operations (http://www.news-service.com/)


Amsterdam, 4 November 2011



Dear visitor,



On 28 September 2011, the District Court of Amsterdam reached a verdict in the procedure on the merits of the case that Stichting Brein had brought against News-Service.com. The Court has ruled that News- Service.com is to cease ‘recording and offering material protected by copyright and neighbouring rights’ on pain of period penalty payment.

Unfortunately, News-Service.com sees no way of complying with the Court's verdict while ensuring a regular and normal provision of Usenet services. As a consequence, on 28 October, we started interlocutory proceedings and asked the summary Judge to order Brein to cease the execution of the verdict. We have learned today that the summary Judge has denied our claims. This means that we are forced to cease our operations with immediate effect.

However, for reasons of principle, News-Service.com will not accept the verdict and has lodged an appeal.

We would like to thank all relations of News-Service.com for the pleasant working relationship and the trust they have placed in us during the past 15 years.



Kind regards,


Patrick Schreurs and Wierd Bonthuis


News-Service.com

Not sure which resellers this effects.


usenext, eurofeeds ...... lol that's who's News-Service.com's reseller is.... OMG what will we doo without usenext.... the one who brings all the negative attention.

[mjmacky]

the one who brings all the negative attention.

im guess you know a lil' sumthing bout dat

[JustDOSE]

mjmacky... whoa boy, i hope your fat mom tied you extra tight on that leash today... silly faggot dicks are for chicks

mjmacky likes the cock
http://www.abload.de/img/34534543o0uhf.gif

[mjmacky]

haterz be hatin

And that's an automatic disqualification.

[Disme]

haterz be hatin

And that's an automatic disqualification.

Don't mind JustDOSE ... he's just some retard that tries to impress everybody by posting shit and calling everybody a n00b.

I'm glad some people around here still remember his showing off his so-called super-free-servers that were actually just shit.

He occasionally comes back here when he's out of a job or something until all the newer FST-members start to see him for what he is.

[mjmacky]

that tries to impress everybody by posting shit and calling everybody a n00b.

What gave him that idea? I get the feeling he's never impressed anyone in his life.



mjmacky... whoa boy, i hope your fat mom tied you extra tight on that leash today... silly faggot dicks are for chicks

mjmacky likes the cock


As low on the scale as this edit ranks as far as insults go, it still ranks just above "haterz be hatin" as an attempt to qualify oneself in the use of a communicative language. I guess that would make it sort of like an improvement. However, you should probably keep editing until you've got something intelligible in there.

[zot]

According to top1000.org, new posts made on News-Service.com dropped about 60% compared to last week, so I'm guessing that they decided to block only the alt.binaries.* groups and keep the others (i.e. "text" groups).

Sorting through a hundred thousand plus newsgroups is no small task, so they probably took the easy way out and just blocked everything starting with "alt.binaries" but the fact is that there are also *text* discussion forums within the alt.binaries hierarchy. Such as one of my old favorites, alt.binaries.news-server-comparison -- which is a discussion board about usenet providers that offer binary newsgroups (such providers were relatively rare until recently) and not a place for posting binaries. But I'd be willing to bet that this baby got thrown out with the bath water. :(

[Beck38]

Every once in awhile I take a look at the traffic numbers on usenet, and haven't seen any 'dip' of the numbers at all, in fact it just keeps going up and up. So one server out of hundreds falls off the map, and as far as the 'system' and total traffic counts are concerned, it means... nothing or next to nothing.

At least a couple times a year there are 'the sky is falling' pronouncements.

[zot]

It's worth noting that XSnews.nl instantly rocketed to the top spot the moment that News-Service got knocked off. Obviously the server farm was located in a data center with a lot of reserve capacity, and they were able to just 'open the floodgates' the moment they got the order.

In contrast, if a site like the Pirate Bay, ISOhunt, or KickassTorrents were to suddenly get shut down, it would normally take a while for any of the remaining torrent sites to increase their hosting capacity in order to handle the flood of refugees. At least that was the way it always worked in the past; after a major takedown other sites start shutting their doors to keep from being DoS's offline.

[tryfailrepeat]

In contrast, if a site like the Pirate Bay, ISOhunt, or KickassTorrents were to suddenly get shut down, it would normally take a while for any of the remaining torrent sites to increase their hosting capacity in order to handle the flood of refugees.

File sharing refugees :D hahhhaa i like the sound of that

[Alien5]

Sites don't get shut down that easily, the owners have backups, backups and more backups.

Closing a site doesn't always get the root out, it takes more digging.

[mjmacky]

Sites don't get shut down that easily, the owners have backups, backups and more backups.

Closing a site doesn't always get the root out, it takes more digging.

I don't think warts are the best analogy, since it's (dormant/active) viral.

[Alien5]

There could be more than one way to skin a RIAA wart.