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.
Piracy rates soar in line with the growing number of people who get access to the internet, multiple computers in the home etc. Tell me that 10 million 12 to 15 year olds (and that's just a small demographic of teens) give a flying crap about EULA when they download the latest Green Day or whatever CD illegally. Or a copy of the movie their parents won't let them see in the theater. How many even know what it stands for or have ever read one?The numbers are against you. And they have nothing to do with whether someone thinks the EULA is fair or not. SO companies will do what they have the right to to do to protect their product. If you feel they step on your rights in doing so, change the laws. Some 'kid' hearing your argument is just what I started my discussion about. They will make it their excuse to do something they knew was illegal to begin with before they ever heard of EULA. It's that kind of irresponsible behavior and attitude of people who think it's okay to break the law because they can that perpetuates the problem, keeps it going, and fuels the fire that is out of control.
Oh right, because they need an excuse. Give me a break. Its bad, not because I am exercising my right to complain about what the rights holders are doing, but because you can't control your distribution and suing people isn't working very well. And yet you are still in business. How is that?
Why are you harping about minor EULA violations when you know that warez kiddies don't have any clue what an EULA is. The only people you have traction with on the whole 'You should OBEY THE EULA' argument are the same people who already pretty much are. And for some stipulations in EULAs (seriously ... buy new license because of a CD scratch??? Seriously????!)
Now on the other hand, I *am* affected by media conglomerates who want to sell me the same thing I already paid for OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER, changing the media format by, for example, obsoleting the old device - every 5-10 years. Seriously. Try to buy a record player now. Or a casette player. I suppose you can still get a CD player ... for a bit longer.
Now I have to upconvert all my DVDs to play on the new television (the old one was obsoleted by the spectrum digital transition - those poorly shielded converters SUCK) without looking like crap.
Just keep reaching into my pocket to let me keep the things I already had. Feel free. I'm fine buying the new hardware. It happens. What I'm not fine with is paying for a new license for media I already supposedly owned.
My position doesn't fail at all.
My 'position' enables me to efficiently remove people from accessing Stardock's Communities when they violate Stardock's IP....that's the gist of my interface with piracy.
Sad, but satisfying.
Whatever opinion I 'hold on to' makes no difference to whether piracy rates soar or not. I'd be a bit of a wanker to think my opinion affected anyone - particularly opinionated, moronic children hell-bent on getting IT ALL for free.
Lots of people can say [correctly] that piracy is wrong....and, no, it won't do diddly-squat to piracy rates, one way or another.
Kids will still [want to] steal because they have a naive, misguided belief that what they do is 'right' and 'just'.
That phrase...."sticking it to the man"
Who the fuck IS this "man"?
I'm a man. I've been one [an adult] for 35 years. Am I the "man"?
Are you/they "sticking it to ME"?
Well, fuck them, too....
It's "their" content.
Why the fuck can't they be allowed to determine how they are paid, and when?
Read what Jefferson said about natural rights. You really think an economy can run when people just stop producing and rest on republishing the same stuff over and over and over expecting to get paid for it again? How the hell is your resting on your laurels encouraging innovation. I have to produce new *things* or I don't get paid. Why are you so special that your idea is considered new for 107 years?
I really NEED to pay another $20 to get a copy of the White Album for my new gadget. The fact that I owned it in 3 different formats before... oh well. The Beatles need sacrifice!
I kinda like Pink Floyd....I did so even before DarkSide.
I Have all of their records....those vinyl things.
I 'had' all of them again on cassette [most died eventually].
I have them all [now] also on CD
I have many on DVD.
I also have been to their concerts.
...and since they split been to 'both halves'....
All bought legitimately.
It's the way the world actiually works...and is a consequence of 40 years of medium development.
I really do not care that the format changes...as long as each rendition is an improvement / more convenient, etc.
YOUR decision to change television/whatever thus making one media redundant/non-functional is YOUR decision.....suck up your lower lip and live with it.
And, yes...you can STILL get turntables and cassette decks.
I will never agree with you on that. Sorry. You haven't added anything new by changing the media, which you've already told me is not what I'm buying with the license. And I understand there is additional labor involved in upconversion - digital editing, etc. Thats fine. But how does it come out to be more expensive than producing the media was originally?
Yes yes, your ideas are what everybody needs. I've just stopped consuming media. Period.
Why would I bother to EVER PRODUCE ANYTHING if the 'State' simply took it away from me?
Look out, boys...we are getting close to debates re socialism vs capitalism.
Better be bloody careful....if you are anti-capitalism then you are un-American....they are the Lords of Capitalism....
If my IP is simply taken from me then I will cease creating any....I'll just sit in a corner and make patterns in my drool.
If THEY take that...well good luck to them.
Brick wall.
You buy the media. You break/lose the media...you buy a replacement.
You buy a Licence...you lose the media...you download its replacement.
Two different worlds...two different times...two different situations.
Stop combining them.
I spend a lot of time lambasting pirates and calling their motives into question. Two months ago I was even giving RavenX a difficult time about it. Obviously I don't pirate games.
But Torrents are very useful. I download roughly 10 GB a month of releases of operating systems like CentOS and Debian for testing and evaluation. Projects without large financial backing (read: CentOS) ask that users download torrented versions to save on bandwidth costs.
There you go, I'm a 100% legal torrent user. : )
"Why would I bother to EVER PRODUCE ANYTHING if the 'State' simply took it away from me?
Look out, boys...we are getting close to debates re socialism vs capitalism."
Gee, thats not what I'm arguing. I'm saying why is it, if I produce a widget, I get paid once. You produce a photograph, and you get paid forever.
How does that happen. Maybe I should get paid everytime someone uses my widget. Everytime they turn the key and start their engine I automatically get paid again.
ALL of this debate is based around the current reality of available options for media conversion. You NOW can very easily buy a CD...duplicate it in secons...or transfer it to an MP3 player, etc. and YOUR Laws typically allow that to happen or do nothing to prohibit it.
That being the case you presume it MUST apply to every and all circumstances/instances of product duplication.
It won't, not necessarily.
Back when I bought all those versions of Floyds works....that was the only LEGAL way....and at the dawn of each medium there was no other way to practically do it, anyway.
Kids these days are spoiled with options/alternatives...yet they still want it all.
Because you clearly do not have an appropriate business model for your widget production.
Your failure to have one is no justification for denying others theirs.
This is too easy.
You won't get paid every time they turn the key and start the engine...just as the photographer doesn't get paid each time you open the album and look at the photo.
But...
someone makes a copy of your widget and uses that...instead of the one YOU made and were PAID FOR....then you should be paid, just as the person copying the photo has to pay.
Copyright.
If everybody did what you claim is a valid business model, everybody would produce a few things of value, stop, and live off the royalties and subscription fees - essentially what the execs at the media conglomerates are doing. Service economy. Like they say, let me know how thats been working out for you. Copyright was great until they started lobbying congress to change the original deal.
This has very little to do with piracy. It has everything to do with the way IP holders view the value of their 'contribution' to society. Entitlement is what it looks like from here. You can't have a discussion about the rights of consumers without acusing them of enabling piracy.
I'm not enabling piracy by saying the balance has shifted to an unnatural position. Just look at Disney, which survives by recycling 100 year old content, rebranding public domain works, copyrighting the product, and selling it for decades.
Sorry thats a patent. Seven to eleven years on average. Not 100 + the life of the inventor.
I could adjust your photo analogy, but thats pretty much where software license subscriptions are getting. If I moved an engine from one car to another, you'd say I should get paid again.
I've never said any such thing....probably because I haven't had cause to say it...not in 55 years that I remember.....
You will need to phrase that more appropriately....as misquoting/inferring/assuming will always get you screwed.
Yes, patents have their own rules/limitations...but you'd get paid for that second widget.
Patent vs Copyright is another old one. Defining what is Art and what is creation/invention is another.
Not worth a rehash.
Oh....and it wasn't MY 'photo analogy'...it was yours. See #185.
I used it too....[cheque's in the mail].....
You were already wrong about the above quote. If I duplicate a protected CD, even for the purposes of converting it to another format, I'm violating the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA.
The fact that you don't see the comparison between moving an engine between one car and another, and moving licensed materials from one media to another, isn't really my problem.
I just see a ton of entitlement from somebody who thinks everyone is a child who wants to deny him the fruits of his labors. Not my intention in the slightest. I want to recover what it means to BUY something. Meaning, take it apart, see what makes it tick, adapt it to new purposes. Not have to pay for it again just because you want to use it again. You know. Own it. Not copy it, not give it away to everyone else. Basically all the rights the EULA denies, because your business model needs ME to protect it. Clearly the media holders can't protect it on their own. They need to tie up the courts with civil litigation.
An analogy is a comparison. You made a comparison between turning an engine over and viewing a photo. So yes, your analogy. My comparison was different. Are we having fun with semantics yet?
Viewing a photo is essentially a reperformance. Something that you are not allowed to do with many types of digital media without paying royalties. For example, playing a tape of a football game in a sports bar.
But you're willing to make someone else a criminal in order to do it by copying your friends disk/or downloading an illegal torrent thus keeping the pirates going. You're 'rights' now has the word 'accomplice' attached to it. And you don't see yourself as violating existing laws because you put yourself above the law.
Oh give it a rest Smedley. If you want to accuse me of something, besides debating reasonably well and being just as stubborn as you, at least try to make it something I actually did, not something I simply think is an abomination of civil law. I'm probably squeakier clean than you and your 'closet'. I know I've never produced a derivative work and published it that my fair use rights were even in question, and the only torrents I've participated in were for Linux distros.
The people who respect others copyrights and obey the law are often the ones who hate copyrights and the law the most. Stands to reason, doesn't it?
I gotta love this stance. If the wall doesn't work, build a bigger wall. Always works right?
No. What I am saying is that the distributors will not be left with any other choice unless the laws are changed. I didn't say it was the answer, just that it was inevitable. They have a right to protect their product and to use the law to do it. Instead of a person whining about their how rights are violated, change the fucking laws. Help find a way to put an end to the pirating that uses and abuses the your argument just for the sake of breaking the law and getting what they want. Educate the ignorant who don't get that pirating for the sake of getting it free is wrong.
The numbers of illegal torrents speak to this. Look at the sites and the comments left by the people stealing the stuff. I have NEVER seen one that said 'Thanks. I scratched my original disc and feel I have the right to acquire another copy without having to pay.' Instead they bitch about the cracks not working or bitch at the seeder that he needs to seed a more recent version and so on. Hell, even when they are getting it for free they bitch and whine. I wouldn't be surprised to see one of these yo-yo's turn around and sue a poster one day cause they infected their computer with some Trojan. I see the difference between your argument and those that just feel entitled to take it because they can. (I don't have to agree with either) The ones that have never bought a license or original copy. But the latter are the ones that are the large..VERY large majority of people breaking the law. Until THEY are dealt with or until YOU change the laws...the rights you value and feel are being violated will continue to be and it will get worse. I'm not saying it's right just that they had the right to pursue protection of their product.
The laws don't work as they are, Smedley. Why do you think making them even more restrictive is going to accomplish anything. All you're doing is pissing off normal people who are actually willing to pay you a fair price for your work. But thats not good enough. The free market isn't good enough. You need laws to make your business model viable, because otherwise, nobody would fall for the scam of remarketing the same thing in a different package.
The problem is I can't convince people to bend over to get screwed. This doesn't surprise me at all. I don't know why it surpises other people. How convincing of an argument is to tell someon that they are better giving companies money for their hard earned work who have proven, time and time again, they have absolutely no interest in supporting their paying customer base. The entire industry is built around these dumb-ass EULA's that nobody reads because they are twenty pages long, written in legalese and my favorite part, are subject to change without notice or agreement. That's why I say generally I follow EULA's. My life finite. I am not going spend it reading every overwritten unfair EULA that comes my way. I am just not going to do it. I don't think it's reasonable to ask me to. If they want to sum it up in a page, then I might read them, but that wouldn't change the fact that they can change it any damn time they want. The industry demands that. I think it is an unreasonable stance, and I think while it may not "cause" piracy, it fuels it.
I think the scratched CD is an excellent example of the problem this industry has as well. Do you know there a several places I can go to get a copy of Windows 7 if something were to happen to my legal disc. Do you know there a dozen households I can go to to get that disc or the download files if something were to happen to the physical media I use. All I need is that key, the physical media doesn't matter. I have purchased a license to use Windows 7, and if something happens to that disc, I don't have to worry about it. I just get to install my OS again, connect to the server, and the server will see its a legit copy because it IS a legit copy. But you want industry to start targetting me for doing that? I paid for it. Me acquiring another disc didn't cost Microsoft a darn thing. I got it elsewhere, off their network. I think they should provide it on their network to paying customers, at a small cost if need be to cover the cost of hosting the files, but if they won't do it, I can go somwhere else.
Do you know what gaming industry stance is. Messed up your disc, fk you. This is their response to a paying customer. Somone who opened up their wallet, whipped out their credit card, or just clicked a button to actually pay for their hard work. FK you. Do you know that a pirate doesn't have to worry about their discs getting scratched, or whether or not some server is going to be yanked just about a year later to save money or push everyone into the sequel. They don't have to worry about multiplayer servers requiring logins, they don't even have to worry about any of this shit paying customers do. All they have to worry about is this miniscule percentage chance of being caught.
Consumers are dealing with a industry that says pay us for unfinished products, and if you don't like it, too bad. Pay us for utilities that don't work, if you don't like it, too bad. If you do a chargeback on us, we'll ban you for life. If you say something we don't like, we'll take your library of games away forever. Refunds are not an option in software industry land (majority of cases). If you want customer service, pay out the nose for phone service, e-mail service or expect customers service tickets to take two weeks or longer to give you some cookie cutter answers that doesn't fix your problem. We're dealing with an industry that say's its okay to sell a lifetime subscription to an MMO one day and then two weeks later declare the game is F2P and tell that consuers, too bad. Boy weren't you a sucker to actually give us money. We're dealing with an industry that points to piracy as a reason and justification to treat their paying customers like theives and shit on the bottom of their shoes. We're dealing with publisher who think it's okay to print misinformation on their retail boxes and just shrug when someone says hey, this content isn't as advertised. We're dealing an industry that is so confident in their DRM schemes, most the time they won't even say what is.
I hear all the time about the complaints that pirates have this ridiculous sense of entitlement that they use to justify being thieves. Well guess what, the industry has it's own sense of entitlement. I mean just look at the what the publishers are doing now, while piracy rates are skyrocketing (in some countries actually go down in countries like the USA and Japan), while there are too many people to count stealing their products, they want to target the secondary market which consist of people who are generally are not pirates! If you are buying your games used, you are still trying to be legit. It would be just as easy for someone who buys a used copy of a game to go steal it as it is for someone who buys it new to steal it.
The industry needs to police itself, but they don't give a shit. How on earth do you think we're supposed to convert pirates into paying customers when the industry continues as it is. They spout the same mantra yea after year, trying to convince everyone that the best solution is just to take that swiss cheese wall of theirs and stack some more layers on it.
Just a few years ago, i would pay 50-60 dollars for my games, a bit less for my utilities and eagerly await for my product to arrive and begin play as soon as that puppy was released. Now, I almost never pay retail price. I wait until dozens of people post on forums to see how bad the DRM is, see if the product is even close to what they said it is. I paid just under twenty dollars for Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 with one of EA's sale. You know what my reward is for that? 1 out 3 times I load up dragon age, it tells me my profile doesn't have the DLC in the saved game I am loading so i can't play it. Then it throws me back into the menu, and i try again and it works. So pretty much every week i get a reminder from EA that one day, my game is not going to fuction properly when they yank their servers, and EA loves yanking their servers. Meanwhile, when that happens, some pirate who paid zero dollars is going to have their game run smoothly. But hey, I guess I am out of place. After all, I'm the "bad guy" right, the consumer who pays for her products but at the same times say you know what, this sucks.
Yeah, Nesrie, you have it exactly right. PoSmedley will now accuse you of promoting piracy or being 'the rare case' that is not representative of the normal person who plays PC games, who is a thief and a scoundrel.
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