If and when the **AA have Usenet shut down after the piece appears, feel free to blame Biggs. He’s making me write it.
I occasionally mention Usenet when talking about piracy here, but I’ve never really explained what it is or what it does. I’m still not going to explain what it is, technically, (that’s what Wikipedia’s for), but I will put it in layman’s terms. Think of Usenet as a big, unregulated, uncontrollable message board in the sky. The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy even logged onto Usenet when he needed to know the star of Radioactive Man!
The key difference with Usenet is that users can attach files to their messages. That’s the gist of it, at least. And since you can attach a file to a message you can, conceivably, attach many files to many messages. That’s what people do. You’ll find these file-laden posts on something called binary groups. And that’s where the piracy aspect comes into play. Literally thousands of groups devoted to literally thousands of categories, each one filled with all sorts of pirated content. Entire albums, entire movies, entire video games—getting 0day DreamCast games back in the day was top-notch—et cetera. Basically, Usenet rules and is what all the cool kids use. Hopefully you’ll be able to use it, too, after this.
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The one and only, PVD. Don’t worry, the pic is relevent.
What’s the most exciting part about the holidays? There aren’t any, unless you’re 7-years-old and get oodles of presents under a dangerously dry tree or metal pole or some other object. Like, who wants to go through the stress of talking to your relatives about what they want? The only smart way to do is to hand out cash to each and every one of your special guys and gals and let them buy whatever they want. Yes, it would be smarter to realize that exchanging money or gifts is a zero-sum affair, but the holidays are all about the spirit of giving, the spirit of going into mountains of credit card debt.
So, given that cheery (yet logical!) introduction, what could I possibly recommend you spend your hard-earned dollars on this Christmastime?
A few things, as a matter of fact.
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The RIAA has now set its sights on Usenet, that decentralized network of discussion groups, some of which happen to host copyrighted material. The cartel filed suit against www.usenet.com, a Usenet access provider, for offering—get this—”essentially the same functionality” as the Groksters of the world. (When was the last time anyone used Grokster? Why don’t we mention BearShare while we’re at it…) Usenet, if you’re not familiar, can be thought of as a giant decentralized message board of sorts, only you can attach files to your posts. That’s the Reader’s Digest version, at least. Since Usenet is sorta hard to figure out and not everyone has access to it (some ISPs give you access as part of your regular Internet subscription), it hasn’t been on the RIAA’s radar. But believe me when I tell you, having used it to “get things” for six years now, it’s the best resource for things out there for the average guy. Not everyone has access to topsites and the like.
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