Question on downloading from ISP's newsgroups

My current DSL ISP seems to have an acceptable retention and a barely-acceptable transfer speed. I'm willing to try newsgroups over BT.

My question is, has anyone ever gotten a letter from the MPAA or RIAA for downloading movies or music through their ISP's newsgroups?

My assumption is no, since my understanding is:

1. The **AA seem to go after uploaders or "sharers", not downloaders
2. The **AA can't get a proper subpoena since they don't have a view into your download activity

(Apologies if the question's been asked before)

Ive been doing it for a couple months now and I havnt gotten anything yet. Not really a long enough period to tell, but I have used enough bandwidth though.

I have downloaded 6,224GB since 06/26/2005 and that is everything from movies to e-books, and I have never heard anything from Giganews. Don't expect to either unless I'm starting to upload a bunch of stuff every day.

You get busted using other methods because you have to connect to other users for files. On occasion, these other people you connect to represent 'the bad guys'. When this happens... well, we all know what happens then.

With Usenet you are connecting to no one. You are connecting to a private server farm that does not keep records on what is downloaded or by whom. No one since 1985 has been sued for downloading off Usenet. Uploading, is a differnt story. Some providers do keep records on who has uploaded the articles. Uploading is optional, and should be left to those in the know.

so...

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The **AA seem to go after uploaders or "sharers", not downloaders

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You are not connecting to them like in other methods. So, they have no way of tracing or even knowing of your activity.

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The **AA can't get a proper subpoena since they don't have a view into your download activity

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The answer to the first question answers this question. They would have no cause for a subpoena. But, saying they drew your name out of a hat, some kangaroo court issued a subpoena, your provider gave you up without a court fight. They would get vapor, how many gigs you have downloaded but not of what or where from.

Thanks for the feedback on your experience and for your answers. It also sounds like the answer is the same regardless of whether you use your ISP or a paid usenet provider like GN.

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Originally Posted by i.dragonfly

Thanks for the feedback on your experience and for your answers. It also sounds like the answer is the same regardless of whether you use your ISP or a paid usenet provider like GN.

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I was wondering this as well. I understand how usenet is safer, but are there advantages to paying for a private server rather than going through your ISP.

ExtraSharp: The main differences are...

The amount of groups that they host - Some ISP News Servers have only a limited amount of the Groups. Paid for usually have most.

and the retention of the files (the time the file will stay on the server before its deleted). - My ISP is lucky to get 24 hours retention, paid for are usually much longer, even several months on some of them.


Personally I have both. I use the ISP servers to get the bulk downloaded then a cheap host that only allows a limited amount to be downloaded to fill in the gaps.

Using Grabit (others will probably be the same) if you get so much of a rar file and the ISP server loses it I can select to continue the file using the paid for host.

I don't know why, but some people feel safer paying Giganews $25-$30/month even though their ISP outsources newsgroups to Giganews and news.isp.giganews.com with an alias name news.[isp].com is a free bundled service from the ISP.

There really is no need to be worried about downloading from the usenet, no records are kept by pay servers like Newshosting or Usenetserver. If you are really worried about privacy though, I would suggest using a pay server like Usenetserver or Easynews that offers secure access through SSL for free. Giganews charges $5.00 extra bucks for this feature:cry: Go figure.

Check out this story on slyck about Usenetserver, pretty cool read:

http://www.slyck.com/story1385.html