Usenet Hit Too: MPAA Shuts Down Newzbin
Newzbin has called it quits after legal fees have left the Usenet indexing site all dried up.
It's highly likely that the Motion Picture Association (MPA) did a victory dance on Monday after Usenet indexing site Newzbin announced it had finally closed its doors. According to a single line statement, Newzbin shut down as a result of losing its legal battle against the MPA earlier this year. The site was found liable for copyright infringement and ordered to pay the MPA's hefty court costs.
Rather than offer a full explanation, the Newzbin site now mysteriously links to this blog post as a form of explanation--much to the surprise of the actual author. In a nutshell, the site was in the red thanks to the lawsuit, and simply couldn't stay afloat.
"Apparently Newzbin has been put into administration yesterday because it couldn’t pay its debts," the blog reads. "Word is that they owe the MPA £230,000 (over $327K USD) just in interim costs, and that’s without a full costs ruling or a decision on damages. Apparently they also owe a software development house over £500k ($712K USD). They also stopped taking payments a few weeks back."
Typically the news media has focused on the battle between the RIAA, the MPAA, BitTorrent tracking sites, and peer-to-peer networks. Rarely do we ever hear about organizations going after Usenet-related groups. However Newzbin--popularized by its .NZB format which simplified Usenet for general users--and the lawsuit's outcome could change all of that, possibly starting a legal fire that could spread to other Newsgroup-related outfits.
Originally Newzbin was sent a threatening letter in regards to tracking copyrighted material. However the inevitable lawsuit followed thereafter, and in February 2010 Newzbin was found liable and ordered to stop indexing copyrighted material such as television episodes and movies. The additional order to pay the MPA's court fees evidently threw a wrench in the entire operation, and sent Newzbin into bankruptcy.
There's already chatter about liquidating the Newzbin servers over on the #newzbin IRC channel, however no other official statements have been released. The courts have also yet to address settlements due to damages caused by the infringement, so stay tuned for that cliffhanger.
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and here I was thinking usenet and torrents would be the one safe haven after P2P went down. PSSSHHHH
i would think users could donate just like Wikipedia did. Or a charge to help them with court battles if you want to use there services. Sort of like paying for your freedom to use such services and put back into the community. Pay to stand stronger in court, to the war effort lol
i would think users could donate just like Wikipedia did. Or a charge to help them with court battles if you want to use there services. Sort of like paying for your freedom to use such services and put back into the community. Pay to stand stronger in court, to the war effort lol
If those users had the money to bail .NZB they wouldn't be pirating in the first place.
I love newsgroups for my TV shows. They max out my connection speed (unlike torrents), and the search function of Newsbin Pro is pretty amazing. Well, I guess it'll be back to a) getting overcharged for cable and b) having to buy/rent the DVD in case I forgot to set the PVR/blackout/station goes off the air.
I thought Usenet mostly died when AT&T or someone blocked all traffic through their ISPs. Anyway, it's funny that there's still a newzbin IRC channel, in that IRC is still alive and kicking. When I used to download songs back in college, or when my friends would download videos and whatnot, it was ALWAYS through IRC. We never bothered with Napster, BitTorrent (which was barely becoming popular), warez sites or the like.
There was some pretty serious illegal activity happening on the various IRC networks, though they may have cleaned some of it up. I have to imagine you can still get all the pirated content you like through IRC if you can be bothered to look for it.
Anyone here still use IRC, is piracy still as rampant as it used to be?
binsearch.info
That is all.
Hey good for them, they'll never see any of those ridiculous legal fees since the people these corporates sue never have any money, and piracy will flinch and continue on as usual.
"Okay guys, site's down, what's the next best one?"
and here I was thinking usenet and torrents would be the one safe haven after P2P went down. PSSSHHHH
Noway, Usenet and IRC networks will be around long after every other protocol dies, including Bit Torrent. It's just a matter of time before BT has its day as recent reports have shown it's not that hard to track users down unless you are using a high sped/high bandwidth VPN or Seedbox. Your ISP is more then willing to succumb to the groups that round up your IP and fire off a letter without even questioning why they are stalking their customers.
Don't worry, in good time SkyNet will rise and take revenge upon MPAA/RIAA and save the Internets and us humans.
I suppose the downside of Usenet was that it is a centralized system, whereas torrents are completely de-centralized, therefore is much, much more difficult to shut down the system.
I will stay with torrents until one of us dies. Screw the MPAA/RIAA!
It's only a matter of time before there's anonymous P2P and MPAA and RIAA won't be able to do anything about it.
I keep my mouth shut normally but i have to say something again thats been said countless times in different ways. I dont consider myself a pirate but i will and do download stuff that i think is questionable. When i go to a movie i pay and more often then not its terrible. Some movies MUST be seen in a theatre but other rehashed baby vomit can be barely tolerated on my comp. Sometimes i download them and turn them off 10 minutes in they are so bad.
So if they want us to pay good money to watch something, make it worthwhile and stop remaking movies from 20 years ago.
As for the current game companies, they spend more money on advertising then developing a game, so i have occasionally DL'd games. I fell for the BS too many times to pay up front. The ones that I heard were good I bought. DA origins and Crysis series being the latest and Mass Effect i just bought the other day. This weekend i am going to buy Modern Warfare because everyone at work loves it. Not everyone is a pirate MPAA and whoever reads this. Some of us just just dont trust that whats inside the shiny new wrapper is worth the price you expect us to pay.
/me weeps
It's only a matter of time before there's anonymous P2P and MPAA and RIAA won't be able to do anything about it.
Private torrents with a encrypted connection?
Burning a disc and giving it to all your friends?
Anyone here still use IRC, is piracy still as rampant as it used to be?
Well, they brought down the packetnews.com search engine but it was quickly replaced... The problem is that there's no rating system for the packs in place so you may end up downloading a broken archive with no way to check beforehand.
Think of the money they would save (because they are the ones paying these lawyers to sue these sites into submission and as previously stated it does not affect the amount pirated) if they would just tell the lawyers to take a flying leap and just accept that some people are going to steal their material no matter what they do. They have not won a battle that netted them anywhere near the cash they have bleed out in this war. The amount of money they make in the box office/media sales/tv licensing is insane and they could just be happy with that. Apparently though enough is not enough (I guess the good ones have to pay for all the bad ones they green lighted)... Pixar doesn't seem to have this problem though, could it be because they actually love producing great movies? If studio's quit being in it for the money they would make substantially more money in the long run. Fire the lawyers and make better movies with the money you save!
I was a member of Newbin for 8 years and it was a great site, the MPA have made an example of "The Best", but there are plenty of other sites doing the same although not quite so slick !!!. I'm sure the code will resurface in some form or other as is being talked about, only time will tell !!!. Respect to the guys they did a great job.......Sites like these are for the pro's unlike P2P..........
Air jordan...(*crap deleted*)...
Speaking of Usenet, jerk-off, this ain't it! Don't come in here and start spamming ads in random threads!
1. FUCK MPAA
2. FUCK RIAA
3. All of the above
4. Go to 1.
Corporations are smart enough to have their base in tax havens, when are admins going to learn you have your servers in a non-extradition country? Setup shop in places that lawyers can't go, and have a backup site in another country.
This weekend i am going to buy Modern Warfare because everyone at work loves it.
Don't do it. It's a horrible game and you will be wasting your money once again!
To me, charging a company like this for piracy is like charging Ford for robbing a bank when their car model is used as a getaway car.
Bah... newsgroups? Left those a year ago for hosting sites. Don't get me started how much better hosting sites are than usenet anyday. Usenet and newsgroups = passe. Wayy too easy to get stuff on hosting sites for a faction of the cost + its always there or using google found elsewhere. Go Hosting people.. usenet is bygone era tech.
Seems to me every time one is shut down another one takes it's place.
You can use directl usenet nzb search engine...
http://us.tutorials-newsgroup.com/fichier_nzb.php