RIAA moves on to a new target - Usenet
Posted on 17/10/07 22:06 by Seán Byrne                             
RIAA moves on to a new target - Usenet

Following the RIAA's success in the first file sharing lawsuit that went to trial, the RIAA has moved on to its next target - Usenet.  The RIAA says that newsgroups contain millions of copyrighted song recordings that are in violation of federal law and has now filed a lawsuit against Usenet.com.  It alleges that Usenet.com, which is based in Fargo, N.D., in the south district of New York enables and encourages its customers to download and distribute millions of the record label's recordings without permission.  It targeted this Usenet provider in particular claiming that it encourages customers to purchase a subscription by enticing them with copyrighted music.  It also claims that this provider has chosen to load groups from Usenet on to its servers that are explicitly dedicated to copyright infringement. 

For those unfamiliar with Usenet, it started off as a very popular way to distribute discussions and binary file content, long before the web, never mind Internet based P2P file sharing.  Newsgroups feature a hierarchical structure, much like a discussion forum, but in the forum of x.y.z.etc, such as microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware as an example of a text-only discussion group or alt.binaries.music as an example of a binary file news group containing music content.  These Usenet archives are replicated with other Usenet providers around the world.  To reduce the overall size of the Usenet archive a provider holds, a provider only stores binary files for a certain period of time, so the number of binary newsgroups and the binary retention time vary from provider to provider.  A few newsgroup providers do not store any binaries at all, such as Google's Usenet archive.  See this Wikipedia article to see what Usenet is all about and how it works.

What concerns the RIAA, at least in its lawsuit is that there are 652 newsgroups containing "MP3" in their names.  If the RIAA wins its case against Usenet.com, it will likely start targeting other Usenet providers as well as Internet Service Providers and Universities that carry binary newsgroups.  For example, the ISPs AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, just to name a few all offer Usenet access. 

Thanks to DamnedIfIknow for letting us know about this news.  This user made the following comment:  Well, they finally got around to suing a usenet news server provider. If successful, the MPAA and BSA won't be far behind. I can see a mass exodus of U.S. based providers to offshore countries where the DMCA and U.S. laws in general don't apply. Good work RIAA!

Reactions
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By pinkish, Wed 17 Oct 2007 22:33
this is sooo crappy...
By Dave (guest), Thu 18 Oct 2007 04:59
So much for this being a free country. if these idiots keep getting their way we will lose the rest of our freedoms.
By btspm, Thu 18 Oct 2007 05:26
btspmWay to drag freedom into the discussion Dave. Usenet piracy isn't even remotely about fair use rights. It's about getting shit for free. God forbid they start taking away our other freedoms. Like the freedom to strangle a puppy in broad daylight and drink its blood. Or the freedom to rape a senior citizen with a rusty steak knife. Oh? What's that you say? Reasonable people don't consider those actions defensible? Advocating for that kind of "freedom" would create a backlash against arguments for reasonable laws protecting reasonable behavior? Yeah. Didn't think that one through too well, did you? If you want to pirate intellectual property that you never paid for, fine. But don't bitch about the rightful copyright owners trying to stop you. And don't muddy the waters of the fair use rights debate by trying to equate your cheapskate ass with Captain Fucking America fighting for consumer freedom.
By shaolin007, Thu 18 Oct 2007 07:16
shaolin007Correct me if I am wrong, but how can they go after news servers when the postings they are talking about are nothing but jibberish without the proper programs? If anything, I think they would go after the programs that collect and translate the data into something usable ;because without it, the data is worthless. Outlook express can download the files but they are usually encoded with something it can't translate. Also, what if you have a partial file? Or missing pieces? It is still not in a usable form. Is it still illegal? Binaries on newsgroups are a totally different animal than downloading the the file in a whole piece. For one, the file could be in 50 pieces. Two, the file could be incomplete and require par repair. Three, the file pieces could be encoded with something that requires another program to decode. It is not a simple point and click download.
By H3rB3i, Thu 18 Oct 2007 10:26
H3rB3idigg it!!! http://digg.com/music/RIAA_moves_on_to_a_new_target_Usenet
This message was edited at: 18-10-2007 10:27
By rla, Fri 19 Oct 2007 00:20
Ho hummmm! zzzzzzzz! The RIAA has reached such a level of insignificance that they have become the "mouse the roared". The RIAA issues one grandiose press release after another while their artists are slowly cutting ties and marketing directly with those who actually make decent deals that protect the artists. In the mean time the RIAA scrapes the bottom of the remaining barrels trying to come up with pots of gold, like they once had, and pushing legislation through congress that will ultimately result in some politicians being fired by their constituents. When is the recording industry going to get it? The public is through with them. They have burned their bridges with consumers who have witnessed their antics. The industry has had every opportunity to become innovative, to build promotional bridges with corporations, technology developers and broadcasters, to build new marketing concepts and to make fair deals with their artists. Instead they bully, intimidate consumers and use this "my way or the highway" attitude when they have no real power left. Keep trying RIAA; You are laughable. Ohhh! don't forget to investigate those music-o- hold boxes. You might scrape up a few civil suits there.
By BitRate, Fri 19 Oct 2007 04:59
RIAA's next target: Your bathroom
By Zod, Fri 19 Oct 2007 18:37
ZodSomething like p2p is able to be monitored because anyone can join as a peer and see the existing ip's. How can destroy usenet? If the companies host out of the united states, unless they have a warrant to monitor your internet activity, how are they going to control that. Quite often the US government doesn't seem to quite grasp the globalness of the internet and that somewhere out there are countries where whatever they made illegal is legal.
By BitRate, Mon 22 Oct 2007 04:07
A lot of ISPs are removing their nntp servers as they don't find them viable any longer. This will force users to pay for access to high volume news servers overseas. The RIAA has no influence outside the US (supposedly) so tracking these copyright infringers via usenet is going to be hard.
By John Feeney (guest), Mon 22 Oct 2007 16:22
Running parallel too this story, providers have already agreed to support such action if RIAA moves forward. Comcast is current shadowing the concept by addressing the users connection ability. The cleaning up process will begin by not allowing access too such service through main stream services. If your determined to obtain Copy Protected material, you can. It just won't be as easy and you'll have too change providers.
By CanadianAlien, Mon 5 Nov 2007 10:23
While the RIAA is chasing people for downloading MP3's on Usenet ... child pornographers are dumping images and video all over Usenet. Doesn't it seem obscene that copyright protection laws are enforced before child porn laws? So, what happens if Usenet service providers are successfully prosecuted? News servers get pushed offshore and out of reach and child pornographers get more freedom to distribute. That seems obscene!

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