It’s safe to say that I shed no tears yesterday when, for all intents and purposes, The Pirate Bay ceased to be. Suffice it to say that if Usenet comes under attack next I will not be a happy camper. (I know, I know: The first rule of Usenet is not to talk about Usenet, but bear with the story for a minute.) The RIAA just won a lawsuit against usenet.com, which, as you might guess, is a premium Usenet provider.
The court case, in the Southern District of New York, found usenet.com guilty of “direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement.” And perhaps more worrying is that usenet.com cannot defend itself using the ol’ Sony Betamax decision. In a nutshell that says that so long as there is a significant, non-infringing use of a device/service you can’t sue it into oblivion.
For those not in the know, Usenet, which is as old as the dinosaurs, can be described, in a very dumbed-down way, as a big, decentralized message board, but one where you can attach files. I’ll leave it at that.
Of course, this is “only” a district court’s opinion, so make of it what you will. And it’s worth stressing, of course, that usenet.com != Usenet. (For the record, I use newsdemon.com, and my brother uses giganews.com. They’re pretty comparable based on our unscientific “let’s see how long it takes to download SomeFile” tests.)
The second rule of Usenet…
via Slashdot
“but one where you can attach files”
Does the term ‘Non binary’ mean anything to you??
I subscribe to 11 groups out of none where you can attach files..
Wake up and smell the Napalm(Insert appropriate smiley).
P.J.Berg
Since I don’t download music, I’m exceedingly untroubled by this news.
Curious,
A buddy of mine uses giganews (usenet.com) to download all kinds of stuff – he showed me how to do it and given the time and effort, it wasn’t really my cup of tea; but I know enough to be dangerous at least. The news out there doesn’t actually state what the lawsuit really means to usenet.com. Are they going to have to fork over subscribers, download history, etc.? i.e. are routine users screwed? or is the company screwed?
“but one where you can attach files”
“Does the term ‘Non binary’ mean anything to you??”
Does the term YEnc or MIME mean anything to you? Both are pretty efficient ways of transcoding binary files to ASCII files. Many newsgroups allow file posting. The 11 you joined don’t. Boo hoo for you.
The CG story doesn’t explain what usenet.com was found guilty of. Please clarify!
Looks like I will have to get my twink pics from somewhere else…Usenet has everything, except rec.fashion.lane.bryant and alt.music.foundry.
Usenet…..Your Mom’s Box.