Originally Posted by
ExtraSharp
I suddenly had a huge list of porn/movie/dvds available to me in my list of newsgroups. I couldn't believe it. Why would my ISP allow news from these groups? It seems like they are encouraging illegal file sharing? Its like there is a underground black market file exchange feature built in to my monthly ISP fees.
'Illegal' according to... what? You? 'Legal'? Anything you can think of that may be 'legal' to you, is 'illegal' somewhere on the planet, same in reverse. If you don't like usenet, find an ISP that doesn't have a news-server, which is the majority of ISP's in the U.S. You'll find that the price is identical, running an small usenet server (or jobbing it out) is so small a cost that you won't be saving much, if anything.
Commercial quality news-servers run at least $15/month, if not more, or about double what dialup ISP's run. And most operate in the U.S., with the most 'restrictive' laws with most judges willing to burn the constitution if it'll advance rich interests like the MPAA. But ISP's and those commercial servers arn't quaking in their boots, far from it, as most of the 'laws' legality have yet to be tested against that constitution, which I suggest you read with a large attention paid to copyright issues; and the fact that virtually all the changes made (particularly in recent years) have been done with changes to the edges of that constitution, without actually AMDENDING the thing, as is required!
Eventually, we will see a Betamax Vrs. MPAA showdown, but until then the forces that have made those changes want to sit back and use fear to 'keep people in line', rather than bring it to a head.
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