Newzbin has arguably been the "Best" source and index listing of what is posted to BBS Newsgroups around the world. BBS stands for Bulletin Board System and almost every Internet Provider in the entire world provides access to them as part of your Internet package. Whether you're old enough to remember or not, BBS's are the Foundation of the Internet. These are the Original Internet. In many ways this is what the Internet was built on. If you had to compare it to something physical, use this example. You buy some land and build a house. That land is the Earth, your foundation. That land, that Earth, is the BBS system of Newsgroups. It's what the Internet was built on. Think of every website in existence as a "House", sitting on the land. Without getting extremely technical that's the best analogy I can give. It is a flawed analogy, it's not exactly accurate, but it's close enough.
I've been a free member and user of Newzbin for well over the last ten years (No, it's not just for pirates and hackers). in a way you could also compare BBS Newsgroups to MIRC back in the day before ICQ and Yahoo Instant Messenger and Skype. Think of Newzbin as a site that would tell you what everyone was talking about in various channels on MIRC. That's what Newzbin was. You had to either be a paid member of the site or you had to be INVITED by a paid member and were given a basic free membership. It wasn't always "Invite Only", but when they switched to that system everyone had to make new accounts and if you weren't already paid or re-invited you were locked out, sorry about your bad luck. Luckily, as I was a free member, a friend (who was just a random Internet stranger at the time) re-invited me and I was allowed back in.
Some people, namely those who used Newzbin's service, are going to greatly suffer because of this. It was an invaluable tool to help people find needed information quickly and easily. Any information at all from examples such as "Legal Statutes from cases dating back to the Early 19th Century" to "Online Legal Copies of Every Book in the Library of Congress" to "Discussions being held by College Physics Professors" and also "Doctors Sharing Research Up-To-The-Minute". It was as much a listing of communications as these very same forums are. BBS Newsgroups are nothing more then that. People talking back and forth in topics just like this. The exception is back then our ability to post and reply wasn't set up like this, so every post made, whether it be a new topic or a reply to that topic where it's own "Thread". Newzbin helped organize those threads and posts and show you where things were so you could quickly find them.
Sadly how-ever, as with many technological innovations in our day, some people chose to use these for evil purposes. Even though these "Newsgroups" are intended for communication, and to provide a backbone for the rest of the Internet, they are also used to host and share files with limited "retention". Every ISP on the GLOBE must have space on the BBS Newsgroups for their systems to work. I don't know why or how it's set up exactly, I don't work for the cable company so I can't tell you why they even have to be there at all, but they do. More and more ISP's these days Are Limiting or Flat Out DENYING their customers access to these Newsgroups. If your ISP isn't giving you access to them, you're not getting everything you're paying for and you should call them and DEMAND Access as a Paying Customer. Far be it from me to tell you what to do, it's no skin off my shoulder if you enjoy wasting your money, but I know I don't like wasting mine.
When I say some people use Newsgroups and by default the listings on Newzbin for "Evil" I mean piracy of course. Newsgroups go by the more common term Usenet. Still, Newzbin as a website did NOT HOST OR SHARE ANY FILES. All it did was tell people where files were at, in what groups they were listed, and what the file names were. It did this because technically these posts on various Newsgroups were the same as the other topics or "threads" or "conversations", it just so happens some of them are pieces, usually .rar's, of games or movies. The same kinds of things that can be found on any Torrent site.
Newzbin did nothing wrong. People did have LEGITIMATE USES for it, just like they do Fogbugs, or Photobucket, or many other sites. Newzbin was closed because they owe money to people I believe. I didn't know anything about any of this or it's legal trouble before finding THIS ARTICLE when I tried to log-on to Newzbin today.
If you know or heard anything about this or find a site that talks a little more in depth, please let me know as I'd like to find out all I can about it being shut down.
Hopefully some of you out there see this for what it is regardless of what the causes are. Another place being closed because someone thinks they're losing money over piracy and pressured some Government to take action. Newzbin wasn't just a site for pirates or other thieves. It had real value. Eventually, slowing, this is going to turn into a legal and virtual "Witch-hunt" by Governments to shut down more and more sites limiting knowledge and people's freedoms Online.
Though the most likely possibility is that no copyright holder will ever wish to endure the bad press from suing a person who paid him for the license to play the game and was just replacing a broken CD. So will never know for sure if that particular situation is legal or not.
You are a unique creation....borrowed from the genetic input of two other unique creations...and so on and so on.
Your child (hypothetically) will be a unique creation made from two..etc etc
Much like software and shared codes etc, etc..... You can try and seperate the two, human life and other...but each is a unique individual creation ... there is no copyright on you, however.
Consequences aside...this does not involve consequences, but if you want to throw them in...stealing is stealing....no matter what the source.....the topic that keeps coming is up is that it is okay to steal this and not that. Guess what...the line has been blurred...it's too late. So, human DNA is up for grabs.
And..the NY courts just overturned a mans request to patent his DNA. Precedent.
And reverse engineering IS used with DNA to find cures, causes, treatments, etc by using volunteers skin cells to create stem cells. So...if someone decides YOU or YOUR child are the perfect healthy role model and have what they need to do some reverse engineering to create STEM CELLS from you or your child...what is to stop them from cloning?Forget clonong another you...what about your individual cells into stem cells to put into someone else or experiment on..or just store in a lab for whatever..? And where do your rights begin and end on how DNA can be obtained..hair samples, nail clippings, randomly while you are in for a medical procedure?
You can't have your cake and eat it to. Once the lines are blurred, it's open season on what anyone wants to copy, trade, steal, borrow, pirate, etc because everyone wants to argue why widgetA is acceptable to rape and widgetB is off limits.
Probably the use of the adjective 'ridiculous' sums up this person's opinion/s of copyright/IP and its abuse....thus making all his/her responses fatuous at best.
In a Community [here] involved with artists'/skinners' IP and its distribution/protection there's not going to be a lot of supporters of such prejudiced opinion....
If he's suing him for the cost of the game, I doubt a lot of folks would have a problem with it. Especially the ones who went out and bought a new copy after their original got destroyed. Would you apply this theory to music CD's and DVD's as well? Just because we paid for something doesn't give us the right to illegally replace it after we broke it. Blurry, blurry lines abound.
And bad press isn't stopping the people in the 'Hurt Locker' case. I doubt people are writing down the names of all invlolved in that case with plans to boycott all their future movies, DVd's, etc.
Um, I pay for a license to use the software, not for the media it comes on. If it can be argued that I don't own the software, it can also be argued that I have a right to use it regardless of what I did to the media, because the physical media is not the same as the license.
That said, I don't have a license to distribute it in the process of obtaining a new copy, and that is where people are getting nailed. Nobody (well, nobody SANE) would sue me if I went to a friends house, copied the DVD I already owned but scratched, and never did anything other than watch it, as is my right to do so.
This is not the same as torrent'ing the Hurt Locker before it's even been released. They can hang those guys out to dry for all I care, so long as they, you know, actually did the deed, instead of getting picked up because their rotating IP was cached by a tracker.
If you're copying HIS DVD because yours is scratched, you may as well be pirating off the web. It's not legal. Making a back up copy of your own before it was scratched...a copy for yourself with no intent to distribute on line, physically or whatever, would be more appropriate. When you buy a book (fiction, instructional, etc.) , you're buying the authors words, research, developement, etc, , so if the book gets torn or water damaged, you don't go to the bookstore and say 'I have the right to a new one, I payed for the words in the last one'. Then again, the MPAA is arguing that even ONE copy is illegal and filed suit against DVD copying software companies.
If I ruin my DVD or music CD (scratches, etc.) I have never viewed it as my right to just go and download an illegal copy or ask someone to burn me a copy of theirs. I don't know where people get this. You don't go and steal a new pair of jeans when you bust the knees out in the first pair.
Its not piracy if I already bought a license to watch it / run it / listen to it. Its the act of distribution. I never purchased a right to distribute, only the copyright holder has that right. The media being damaged is irrelevant. What if I repaired the media. Did I pirate it then? You want to get my friend in trouble, feel free, but I personally did nothing wrong by restoring the media.
If you don't believe me, go look up the legislation. I'm even entitled to make a backup for personal use. What is to say my friend isn't the backup. (The MPAA is suing for bypassing the encryption under the contributory infringement provisions in the DMCA ... not for making a backup copy)
Besides, I could get people (other than myself) put in jail by posting copyrighted media (like a football game) on a digital billboard where they couldn't help but see it if it was anything OTHER than the distribution. What if I found the DVD on the ground, ownerless. Am I going to jail if I don't turn it in? (well, actually yes, but only if I actually use it - since I don't have a license and presumably the software would impress that fact on me)
And of course I don't have a right to the physical media, like a book, because thats a tangible good that would deprive the store of physical property. You're conflating the two.
IANAL. This is not legal advice.
You are entitled to make a backup of your own purchased product...but not someone else's. That 'friend' is duplicating his product [legal] and distributing it to you [illegal] - whether you once owned a copy or not.
I think you both need to read up on the law. I think the EFF has a primer.
I purchased a license to use the product. How I come by the actual bits is irrelevant so long as I hold that license. If I make those bits available to others, particularly others who do not have a license, that is where I can be found liable. You aren't entitled to be paid twice for your IP just because a copy was made for someone who was already entitled to a copy. If we're licensed for 20 machines, we still only bother to buy one DVD with the software but you would argue making 19 more duplicates was infringement. This is not physical media. Copying bits, no matter the origination of those bits, doesn't deprive you of anything. Unlicensed people having access to those bits does.
Of course you can sue someone for anything. Its only a question whether you will actually win, and usually you need to be able to show damages. Good luck with that.
This is what I mean by blurry.
Let's take your side of the argument. You're friend is sill in the wrong.
You can't have your cake and eat it to.
The 'Hurt Locker' case is going after about 50,000 of your 'friends'. What if all (open your mind, since I opened mine) 50,000 were just replacing damaged copies for friends? It's still illegal.
It's the same cavalier attitude as in the quote I highlighted that has so many pirating. Everybody points at the other guy and says it's not their own fault. It's why people started suing the bars when they wrecked their own car because they couldn't stop themselves from getting drunk. "Well, they sold it to me."
Nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions. You have validated, for me, everything I said in post #66. People just need to stop making excuses, pick a side and 'own it'. You're either for or against it. You're fine with pirating and torrents, or your not. The in between stuff should be left to the lawyers and may the guy with the most money and best lawyer win.
Yes, I'll give you that under Section 117 of the copyright act, he (my friend) is infringing on the exclusive distribution right in that scenario. He's not competent to judge that I have a license unless he's a licensed distributor.
However, I have a license to use the software. The fact that someone else broke the civil law doesn't have anything to do with my license unless the license explicitly states that I'm not allowed to use the software if the media is damaged. Federal, criminal law hasn't even been approached because that has an even higher standard (financial gain).
However, as I said, good luck showing damages in court over a case of personal restoration of media. These aren't blue jeans. No one has suffered a loss. Next time, I'll make sure my friend is an authorized party and I gave him the backup to hold and not use.
Oh please. I *am* being responsible. I paid for a license. Anything more than that, IP holders wanting to get paid multiple times because of CD rot, is not my ethical responsibility. I know you're used to dealing with pirates. I'm not one of them. I'm actually a holder of multiple copyrights myself. I'm just not about to say, yeah, you're right, you're entitled to get paid anytime somebody scratches a CD. Thats ridiculous and definitely not what the copyright law intended.
AS for the Hurt locker, those aren't my friends:
but if every one of them had paid for the Hurt locker once already in DVD format, and their DVDs were all defective? Well then I'd definitely be on their side.
Obviously not. Don't be absurd. If the Licence is for 20 then the software, no matter how it is purchased...download or CD - can be installed/used on 20 occasions [ignoring repeat installs - potential activations/frequency issue]...so no-one argues that.
The issue is with who is entitled to duplicate a product for a third party.
Answer....the copyright holder and/or his agents.
No-one else.
Breaches of COPY-right typically involve the unauthorised DISTRIBUTION of a product. Now whether there is a substantive 'physicality' of medium needed to demonstrate this 'distribution' is utter bullshit and is the most-commonly used argument used by the naive to justify piracy.
No-one was deprived....ergo no harm was done.
Crap.
Simple as that.
Check out that poor sod who was so eager to show he had a Nintendo game bought before its authorised release that he uploaded it to a site to prove he had it.....and thus inadvertently/intentionally made it available to others .... he's now facing a lifetime of financial ruin.
Courts found in favour of Nintendo...to the tune of millions.
BUT....no-one was supposedly 'disadvantaged'....no 'physical' media was involved in the distribution.
Guy is still fucked, though....and rightly.
The legal recourse is to require replacement from the vendor. Internet download is typically NOT an authorised replacement avenue.
And in the Nintendo case, I absolutely agree. Whether he intended it or not, he distributed the media and he had no right to do so and had incurred huge civil liability.
Civil cases are ALL ABOUT harm.
In civil cases, you need to show damages. In a case of someone restoring media already owned, its a sheer technicality that the distribution right is being violated. And you'd be crazy to take a case to court of someone (who had a license) restoring a damaged CD when their co-worker in the next cubicle had a copy. You'd spend more in court costs than you could ever recover, and you'd definitely be the bad guy because you already got paid for every copy in circulation.
But you're talking about public distribution and I'm talking about a private one. They are completely different in terms of liability.
And what about right of first sale. Lets say I buy my friends copy, use it (as one would a backup) to restore my damaged one (which I purchased and have every right to), and then sell it back to him. You're telling me the IP holder still deserves to make another sale? Right of first sale says the copy I bought from him is now mine. What if I already owned two copies, and I use one to restore the other. Distribution right being violated again?
I'm not saying it is. Hold the distributors responsible, just as they are doing. Every one of those torrenter's clearly violated the distribution right because of the nature of torrent.
But what if the vendor no longer produces the media? What if the vendor has terrible customer service? What then? Something I am very concerned about is the so-called 'digital heritage' and its loss.
And yes, I expect the Community [here] to support my views about how ridiculous current copyright laws are. Customers certainly don't like to be abused, hence why many favour Stardock products. Copy protection creates pirates.
This quote above is the only reason I am here - not to defend piracy which damages companies (like Stardock) that I happen to want to stick around. At its core, copyright is about encouraging production of new intellectual products. It is not about preventing physical theft (eg., bluejeans) or even duplication - just duplication that harms the IP holder. Copyright has increasingly favored media conglomerates who would LOVE and actively lobby to sell you media that eventually self-destructs or is rendered obsolete so as to deprive you of the right to enjoy what you paid for, all at the expense of the consumer who pays to enforce the copyright laws.
People "get this" because they aren't stealing in the above scenario. They are finding a practical way to enforce THEIR rights while technically committing a minor violation of civil law, not even on the scale of parking on the wrong side of the street. Just because pirates make all sorts of excuses for their behavior is no reason to allow the pendulum to swing the other way to the point that simply maintaining your media collection requires either a ridiculous investment in backup media, or to risk bankruptcy through litigation. If companies want to discourage THIS, they need to make it a lot easier to restore media when it gets corrupted.
Now of course if the download happens to be a torrent, then all bets are off. Then you're a distributor.
This is just the copyright holders wanting to sell their work as products AND licenses with the benefits of neither for the consumer. The prejudice here isn't just in "that" persons camp Jafo, but yours too.
Have your friend post an open blog (all hypothetical) listing everything he owns and is willing to make copies of for everyone whose disk got scratched or stepped on or melted or whatever (we're not talking 'defects' at point of purchase). Have him post it publicly on Blogger or WordPress, somewhere high profile and send me the link so I can forward it to all of the copyright holders listed. The only stipulation is that he will also publish the name and address of every person he makes a copy for on the same page, along with their product key number for verification (encrypted of course so only the copyright owners can verify it).
Then let me know which one, the one offering or the one taking him up on the offer has the best and most excuses for why they don't want to do it.
It's illegal, but I would be willing to let that be the final word on it and prove me wrong.
I'm willing to bet that no one gets their cake, let alone eat it.
Once there were LPs [records on vinyl] ...they got scratched...end of story...you bought a new one or lived with the clicks,pops and jumps.
Then there were Compact Cassettes .... they tangled/broke in your player....you bought a new one...or learned how to splice tape.
Now there are CDs/DVDs.
What, pray tell, empowers the modern me-generation to expect some kind of FREE replacement?
If the purchase is faulty...you have consumer rights for a replacement of merchantable quality [fit for its intended purpose].
If you lose/scratch/bend/spindle OR mutilate it for whatever reason well let's hope you were suitably entertained by/with its destruction.
Neither God nor anyone else gives you eternal life.....not with a purchase....
Enjoy your straw man much, Po? He's not the internet's friend, he's mine.
Oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact that producing the digital replacement costs $0.00 and the ones that already paid for a 'license' aren't rubes.
@Jafo They don't sell 'media', they sell licenses. So you can't expect me to go to them to replace 'media'. Especially when their life span (the company that owns the copyright) is often less than a decade. They can feel free to sue everyone for whatever they think they owe, though. And we'll see how it plays out, and whether it encourages the creation of new content.
If I have a flat tire, I don't go to a dealership that says 'you can't get a replacement tire from anyone but us but we'll be happy to sell you a new car'.
And for what its worth, I suspect I'm not part of your 'modern' generation.
Or taped it off the radio. Or got a mix tape from a friend. Even the Romans copied media. Thats why the Bible exists.
Just willing to call it what it is. Stealing. I don't see the need to pussy foot around it or blame the 'dealer'. The loop holes in the laws that everyone wants to exploit and misrepresent, whether the laws are written well and clear or more the case not..is your straw man.
Take the challenge and prove me wrong. Stand up for your rights. You have your point and your conviction. It's your money. OWN it and stop making excuses.
* Reproducing digital media costs 0.00? The money that goes into software development for just one game would entitle them to ask a lot more than a mere $80.00 for your first copy. Now you want to put a cap on what they can earn after the product you purchased is just plain worn out or damaged by no fault of theres? Unfortunately, we will all pay for this attitude when they get tired of fighting pirates and start charging prices more in line with what it costs for research and development to begin with. Not to mention the money they have to spend to thwart pirating in encryption, law suites, etc, because someone thinks it's okay to have a friend burn them a new copy.
You already paid for all that with your one (and only) license. No where in the EULA does it say this license is revoked the moment you scratch your CD. For all you know, that scratch eliminated a SINGLE BIT. So yeah, you should have to pay full price to replace it. Absolutely. Because they need to pay to develop the content *again*.
Not my job to finance your poor business model. And I thought Stardock was doing adequately without intrusive copy protection. This is the same argument that was used in the Betamax case, and it still doesn't hold up. If I had my way, copyright would revert to the original terms of the law, if not a strictly right of first sale approach, and shrink wrap EULAs would be illegal.
I'm done. You guys hate *the appearance* of piracy so much you've lost perspective.
When I buy a CD I get a shiny, round thing with a hole in the middle [dunno about you] ....and I stick it in a 'machine' and it makes noises.
It has an inherent 'license' for my use. That use is limited.
If I chuck the thing out the window I cannot expect to go somewhere and get a replacement [free] just because I still have the box it came in.
If I buy something and the company goes bust so any potential avenue of replacement is lost, well, guess what....Siddons Industries in Australia made tools GUARANTEED FOR LIFE - no ifs, no buts. If it broke they replaced it - Free.
Then a US company bought Siddons and due to the reality of Law they qualified the guarantee [on the exact same product] to 100 years - because 'ever' is a long time...and is legally unenforceable. [of course Sidchrome never had to worry....they stood behind their product as it was, anyway]. So what I bought 30 years ago now has a use-by date it never had before.
When a company goes belly-up then that's that. It happens all the time. How many customers/consumers get shafted when some Co files for bankruptcy? Answer - most of them.
It's a fact of life.
Deal....
I do, just not always necessarily the way you and Disney and Microsoft et al., think you're entitled to have me deal. And I doubt you're as squeaky clean as you seem to think you are. But I still pay and have paid for everything I use. Go figure. I'm still using software that is no longer supported from companies that no longer exist.
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