High Court Finds Newzbin Liable For Copyright Infringement

[megabyteme]

The biggest issue here is...

v) Newzbin profited from infringement.

Any site/index that is designed to take in regular, monthly income from subscribers is asking for a huge lawsuit. And, just like Napster, it is incredibly bold (read stupid) to create a publicly traded company on that model.

[Rart]

That aspect had surprised me as well at first read - I had absolutely no idea Newzbin was a publically traded company. It almost seems like a death wish.

Nor did I realize the extent of Newzbin's userbase (and consequently the actual profit they make from a seemingly harmless small yearly fee).

[willpower12]

Let me be the first to say that that is a load of bullshit.
Ok. All I had to say.

I couldn't agree more...

So does this mean I'm going to have to switch to another program?

Any suggestions for an alternative?

[unoriginal]

The biggest issue here is...

v) Newzbin profited from infringement.

Any site/index that is designed to take in regular, monthly income from subscribers is asking for a huge lawsuit. And, just like Napster, it is incredibly bold (read stupid) to create a publicly traded company on that model.

I don't think they were publicly traded as in a stock exchange sense. I think the shares were referring to people who initially put up money at the beginning to start newzbin and then got a regular disbursement or dividend based off that. I could be reading the decision wrong but that's how it looks to me. More like a venture capital type arrangement than one where Joe Sixpack can put down 20 for a couple shares in a company listed on the NYSE.

[darkmawl]

I do not totally disagree with this sentence. Had Newsbin just been a plain search engine for NZB files they would be OK, but they indexed everything with indicated they wanted people to find illegal items.

In that case you assist people doing something illegal so it does not really come as an shocker. It's a thin line though, where does it stop? When do we hold someone accountable? Had they called those thing "Legal TV items" or whatever would they have then still been held accountable?

[megabyteme]

I do remember that Napster was of the "Joe Sixpack" type. This article reads similarly to me, but these stories are often twisted out of proportion. You certainly could be correct about the venture capitalist arrangement.

Its accounts for 2009 reveal that it turned over in excess of £1 million, yielded a profit of more than £360,000 and paid dividends on ordinary shares of £415,000. It has around 700,000 members.

Edit- I tried to find a per share price and came up empty handed. Looks like you are right. Good catch!

[c0ld]

As someone on another forum pointed out, the 700,000 members thing is a BS figure. They'd only need 10% of that for a £1mil turnover. I'd imagine 90% were dormant accounts.

I don't mind that they made money from it. They provided a service that was well worth the small cost.

[megabyteme]

The problem with sites/indexes turning a profit is that it gives the movie/record industries a valid argument against filesharing. It is the difference between a library and a retail store. Greed hurts the community every time.

[c0ld]

I'd imagine even binsearch turns a tidy profit. Most ratio based private trackers are cash cows too. Once you accept the fact that a sizeable site needs expensive servers and so needs a working business model to pay for them, it isn't a huge leap to see some profit too.

[ipa]

All of these match or very nearly match the design of nearly every other filesharing protocol, whether it be through DDL, BT, or other usenet indexing sites (although arguably more toward user indexed/private sites than to public, automatic sites). Does this signal that there's far more to come in the future from this decision?

I think it's pretty clear that any site that is organized around facilitating the download of a hash file of any kind that gives the end user the ability to download copyright infringing files is likely to be held liable. Profit is a secondary consideration that is included in order to prove intent, damages, criminal liability, etc. If they can show a site's browse page and it has 99% copyrighted movies, tv shows, games, etc. and the rules and organization of the site apparently provide structure to this kind of material being shared, then it is easy to infer that the site explicitly intends to facilitate copyright infringement.

I wonder whether the spotting sites or simple indexing sites might be a bit safer. I agree that the more automatic a site is, the less likely they are to be held liable, but more along the lines of binsearch than nzbs.org.


Newzbin has publicly responded, but they don't offer anything substantial to support their assertions, just generalizations about the entertainment industry and stuff like this:

“The site provides a generalised search facility for binary content found on Usenet and not infringing material. Any of the material we index can be found on any one of a thousand sites on the Internet so pursuit of us is a futile waste of everyone’s time and money,” they added.

http://torrentfreak.com/newzbin-slam...-defeat-100330