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.
The Industry has a right to their entitlement. It is their product.
If you purchase a 'copy' of THEIR product you are still bound by THEIR entitlements/restrictions.
You do not supplant theirs with your own....that is what pirates do.
If you buy a product and it breaks...or you break it....and it is no longer functional you are required to purchase a replacement [under whatever is the manufacturer's restriction/practise]
That's it....whether you like it or not.
If you don't like it you flick your teeth at them and take your custom elsewhere.
That is the freedom of choice of the consumer.
If you believe emphatically that the world is wrong...and you are right...and have been wronged by everyone.....then it is your right to sue for restitution.
No-where....is there legislation in place that empowers piracy as a legitimate practice.
It's a capital offence on the high seas.
If it were on the net then there would be a tangible reduction in its popularity.
If a customer cannot be bothered to read a EULA or any OTHER form of Contract then that is his choice [albeit a bad one]....good luck with REAL Contracts/purchases...such as Real Estate. When it bite you in the bum you can always smile and say "at least I didn't waste time reading it".
They do.
It's called Technet...
I am not going to read a 20 page EULA for a 99 cent game. Get real Jafo, if that is even possible for you. If i buy 20 games a weak, I am not going to spend hours reading these EULA's. Seriously, try very hard not to be a talking head for the industry.
I should also mention in this country, mortgages are not subject to change at the will of the financial institutions that produce them which means, you're not wasting your time reading something because it will be in effect for, typically, several years. Most people, not all, sign very few mortgages in their lifetime as well.
I see the seller/buyer relationship as a negotiation. I'm negotiating. I'm telling you (well, media companies) that if you want my money you need to stop acting like I'm not really buying anything of substance from you - a limited license to do something some of the time if you feel I should be allowed to and its not too much trouble for you.
Fortunately, you (Jafo) are not the person I'm really negotiating with. And I'm already not buying from companies with restrictive licenses. And it seems every year I'm willing to wait longer for what media I do buy to get cheaper before I finally commit to a purchase, knowing full well I'm going to be treated like crap and I really shouldn't have to pay much for the priviledge.
I also write my congressman and senator whenever IP legislation comes up that would give you MORE rights than you (as a IP producer) already have. I've even donated to the EFF. And they can peel away DMCA restrictions and limit what you can do with EULAs and I'll be JUST FINE with a more limited copyright.
So, hey, you can keep saying GTH, you have no rights as a consumer and I can say, yeah, but only after you get my money and until we get some legislators that aren't in the pockets of the media monopolies.
Edit: Well, way to show that you understand our concerns. When you can't convince the market that your products are worth the money, go for the legal recourse.
I'm not a 'talking head' for ANY Industry.
I am a consumer, just like you.
Just because I happen to accept whatever restrictions/obstacles are put in front of me by those who have a RIGHT to do so does NOT make me a 'talking head' or particularly pro-Industry, either.
Respecting the rights of others is expected of a Community's/Society's members....and Industry is a part of that same Community/society whether you like it/them or not.
Not liking their rights does not justify stepping on them.
They have a right to produce consumer content.
You, as a consumer have a right to exercise choice....either to buy or to not.
When/if you buy you are obliged to accept whatever terms are in place regarding the use/abuse of that purchase.
If you believe one sector of society has an unfair advantage over another then you have recourse to petition for change, and/or sue for equality.
You can ALWAYS breach/violate whatever 'agreements/restrictions' are in place, but you will do so at YOUR risk.
Nothing [physical] prevents you from speeding. Only your willingness to comply with established regulations.
When you breech those regulations you can enjoy the repercussions.
Speed limits are arbitrary....how well they are policed is piece-meal. Penalties vary.
All you can expect is that if/when you are caught you will pay.
The problem with all this perception of 'entitlement' is that WHEN a "consumer" [note the quotes] has issue with restrictive covenant instead of saying "fuck the man...I am not going to buy his product" he says "fuck the man...I will pirate his product instead".
See...the legal course of action is to deny the Producer a sale and shop elsewhere.
The ILLEGAL way is to take his product anyway through piracy.
If the producer/Industry fucks with your rights/enjoyment/life.....WALK AWAY.
If EVERYONE walked away....they would change their methods/rules to entice the customers back.
Instead...these self-righteous promoters/users of warez claim they are giving it to 'the man'.
They aren't.
They are adding to the problem by yet MORE restrictive limitations being placed on software and it's accessibility/use.
Crime screws the honest person....at every level of the criminal/justice system.
We all pay.
The only people who profit from all of this are the distributors of the warez, typically through advertising, etc.
As to how much is involved in organized crime and money laundering....well...who can tell.
Piracy is a growth industry....just like drugs and prostitution.
The Y generation Al Capone would likely have been into it as well....
"The problem with all this perception of 'entitlement' is that WHEN a "consumer" [note the quotes] has issue with restrictive covenant instead of saying "fuck the man...I am not going to buy his product" he says "fuck the man...I will pirate his product instead"." Nope. The product already pretty much sucks. Its a luxury and a trivial one at that. You see a great number of pirates and assume they were potential customers. They aren't. Instead of your product, I'll buy a different one. Maybe I'll go read a book. I won't waste time trying to figure out how to unpack warez and crack serials and evade the copyright police. I'm busy. There are plenty of other ways for me to spend my time that are a lot more interesting and I'd assume way to much liability. A kid has the time and the energy, but he doesn't have a lot to lose if he gets arrested / caught. Blood from a stone. Adults do. Wealthier educated adults who grew up in the game-playing demographic even more so. I'm not about to put my house, my career, my retirement, my life at the whim of some judge and a bunch of shark lawyers for Disney / MGM / Paramount / EA / etc... So I guess, I've already walked away. Fat lot of good it seems to do. People see the decline in PC gaming, music sales, etc... as a symptom of console sales and piracy. Not as a general disinterest in putting up with bologna. /GenX, not GenY, those slackers.
"The problem with all this perception of 'entitlement' is that WHEN a "consumer" [note the quotes] has issue with restrictive covenant instead of saying "fuck the man...I am not going to buy his product" he says "fuck the man...I will pirate his product instead"."
Nope. The product already pretty much sucks. Its a luxury and a trivial one at that. You see a great number of pirates and assume they were potential customers. They aren't. Instead of your product, I'll buy a different one. Maybe I'll go read a book. I won't waste time trying to figure out how to unpack warez and crack serials and evade the copyright police. I'm busy. There are plenty of other ways for me to spend my time that are a lot more interesting and I'd assume way to much liability.
A kid has the time and the energy, but he doesn't have a lot to lose if he gets arrested / caught. Blood from a stone. Adults do. Wealthier educated adults who grew up in the game-playing demographic even more so. I'm not about to put my house, my career, my retirement, my life at the whim of some judge and a bunch of shark lawyers for Disney / MGM / Paramount / EA / etc...
So I guess, I've already walked away. Fat lot of good it seems to do. People see the decline in PC gaming, music sales, etc... as a symptom of console sales and piracy. Not as a general disinterest in putting up with bologna.
/GenX, not GenY, those slackers.
A curious aside [I've mentioned it in similar threads to this before]....I'm into driving sims.....one of the best is by SimBin....who at one time [thanks to arsehole pirates] decided the appropriate form of DRM was a blasted rootkit [Starforce] that not only was an exploit and security issue but also buggered your system's burner performance.
When I upgraded [to this machine] I didn't install the game again.....for months....until I found a suitable no-CD 'crack' that would enable a 'legitimate use' of the game but without the anti-piracy knee-capping.
Yes, I broke SimBin's rules by bypassing their DRM... but it was a particularly BAD one. Actually most are not.
BTW...I'm a repeat customer of theirs....as their sims are probably the best....and fortunately not all used Starforce.
Either way....good or bad....I purchased the software.....though most games these days are online downloads...so needing CDs in the drive and/or Starfoce is a thing of the past.
Maybe...just maybe the Industry IS listening....
OMG, you broke their EULA? You thieving dishonorable pirate. Don't let PoSmedley hear that.
Of course, if you ask me, the software you PAID FOR, was broken, and all you did was fix it. I can't imagine a court holding you liable for just getting what you already bought to work.
Hence the idea of parental accountability.
BTW...I'm also a supporter of Corporal Punishment.
Oh yeah, definitely destroy a couple of parent's lives with a million dollar judgment because they didn't have a degree in network administration to know what was going on with all the blinking lights on their router.
I see bankruptcy, loss of home, kid winding up in foster care...
Nice. Good job industry. Kudos. Your virtual sales you think you missed out on just destroyed a family.
How about this Jafo, I'll sell you a book, but only after you read a 20-40 page EULA, and as you are leaving the store, I'll let you know I can change that EULA anytime I want without notice. In fact, why stop there? Let's have a 20-40 page EULA for every single product we purchase, every day. We'll spend half our lives reading EULA... great productivity.
OK...to counter...
How about this, Nesrie.
The entire commercial/Internet/software Industry formulates a specific code of practice that suits the specifics of its Industry appropriately, addressing all the short-comings of existing legislation formulated at a time BEFORE modern Internet-related issues emerged.
Or,
Existing legislation is amended to include such variations...so just as with ALL distributed product there is appropriate protection.
Copyright. Consumer protection.
When you buy a book you buy a product subjected to copyright law.
Your purchase is tacit agreement to abide by that law.
Do you have to read it?....it's bloody long....longer than some pissy little EULA.
No, you don't.
EULAs won't NEED to, either...once they are ACCEPTED as a standard. [and being a standard means they won't be subject to fatuous amendment]
I might add, however....there aren't too many laws/covenants/ etc that haven't changed over time...it's the nature of the beast.
My professional practice is protected by inherent copyright. I don't have to do one single thing to enjoy its protection....but just so no-one else needs to read up on Copyright law I put in a simple note which outlines users' rights granted to them through its purchase/commission.
All they need to do is know what their kids are doing. It's called parental responsibility.
It doesn't end with the sweating and panting of the beast with 2 backs.
If only the world required a 'License to Breed'....
I think standards in the industry would be a wonderful start, an excellent one in fact. Something consumers can rely or fall back on when a company just doesn't do what it's supposed to do... even if there is no body to actually express your grievance, maybe a company that sells a game so broken it doesn't run out of the box (NWN) the rest of the industry can actually say you know, you make it that much harder for us to sell our products when you screw your customers like that instead of patting them on the back telling them they know how hard it is to be a developer/publisher. And while I agree that laws change, I think we both know that the way EULA's are written (I've actually read a few), you could buy a game in a store and by the time you got home and installed it that EULA might have already changed.
My goal is not to catch, fine and/or throw all the pirates in jail. Most of them probably don't have the funds to recover how much they stole, and we (where I live) don't have enough rooms in the cells for the drug offenders as it is. My goal is also not to try force the industry to give their work away for free either.
I would rather see the pirates shifted into paying customers, and the industry given a fair price for their work. While there will always be a certain amount of pirates no matter what anyone does, just like there are always shoplifters, I don't think the public would be as accepting as they are now of the behavior if their arguments (the pirates) held little or no water. Peer pressure can do a lot more to steer people away from doing something illegal than any long-winded EULA or lawsuits that hit less than 1% of the population offending.
Sometimes reading the EULA is more entertaining than playing the game it belongs to....
I *know*. Wouldn't it be *NICE*. But the end result of your favored policy is families that are already stressed, working two jobs, getting ready to send their tech savvy 16 year old to college, worrying about putting Grandma in a home, also need to be watching their kid at 1:00am because he might be using their internet in a way they don't entirely understand.
And then the judgment that is handed down is hundreds or thousands of times the value of what he supposedly "stole". And chances are, he was sharing parts of files so its impossible to know how much it was actually distributed. And you don't even know if those files were actually used, because a lot of them sit on some collector's hard drive. Given how much music one digital pirate can have on their hard drive, it would take them years to actually listen to all those MP3s. This isn't to defend them; they broke the law. But the way the law is being used on the punitive side doesn't help anyone, and it has a chilling affect on perfectly legitimate practices.
I don't have a solution. I just know the industry's 'we might or might not know it was your IP address that was used, you might not have any idea what was going on because your wifi accepted all comers, but settle out of court or we'll destroy your life' isn't a good one.
Now why on earth can't digital products be individually serialized to the individual customer (public key cryptography, embedded steganographic signatures) so you can track the primary leaks and prosecute the hell out of THEM. I'd much rather see the industry taking out warez groups that specialize in early distribution and cracking, than some kid who wanted to download a game thats essentially and effectively been in the public domain for months.
Man, you guys sure know how to mangle a thread All this arguing and high tensions. The only thing that should be running around here High is Me Not our tempers
You on the Meth again?
Also, I read most of this and I vote for Nesrie. (Partly because I fear for my life.)
What were we voting for again...?
Anyway all I want is to not be treated like a chump by a company (fat chance) and until that happens people are gonna treat them like chumps. The differnce is that its legal for me to be hung out to dry as a customer not the other way around.
Piracy is bad mmm'kay?
No no no, Meth is a BAD drug. Mary Jane on the other hand...well...that's another story
Jafo - I take it you do not believe in ripping a music CD to your PC to listen to our making mix CDs or copying a CD to play in the car?
There was talk about this before I think, watermarks or something. This is way above my head though, I just remember the conversations about the idea. The problem is though, it doesn't matter how secure your computer is, if certain people are targeting you or you have a moment of bad judgment, your computer can be exposed and accounts hacked which means even if my copy of say Tropico 3 showed up online, that doesn't mean I intentionally put it there. Plus this wouldn't fix the in house leaks. I mean there were copies of games floating around before official versions even hit the shelves so there is no real sale or consumer data attached to those.
I wouldn't be entirely opposed to the idea, but as it is, the industry doesn't seem as concerned with making sure they are actually targeting the right people as I would like them to be. Like you, I think this IP address thing is a pretty weak link and needs another step before the threat of a lawsuit hits someone's mailbox.
I like the idea though, the idea of putting in place a system to track down thieves as opposed to punishing paying customers. Without the uploaders, there wouldn't be anything to download after all.
In Australia, just a few short years ago it was actually illegal, as it had always been, but also had always not been policed/pursued.
The ACCC eventually declared that making backups of work-related 'mission-critical' software was justified and allowable, irrespective of formal Copyright Law.
BTW...they [ACCC] also declared that US Co who Trademarked an Australian generic term for sheepskin boots [Uggboots] had no status/relevance/authority over the name in Australia....so the company who ORIGINALLY marketed them under that name could continue to do so....and THE US Co's DEMANDS that Australian Dictionaries were altered to reference THEIR company name under the word 'uggboot' was also laughed off/rejected.
The absolute insult was the US Co had originally been sourcing the boots from the Australian manufacturers [makes sense...they ARE Australian]...but wanted to undercut and source from the Chinese.
The poor bastard US public now buys crap quality at premium prices.....or they can always get them from the source....made just the same for the past 50 years.
FIFTY YEARS really does make it generic.
As for MP3 conversions of CDs....yes, it's now included as acceptable in Copyright legislation [now aligned with US Law] under the auspices of 'fair use'.
In house leaks are impossible to fix after the fact. They might as well have stolen the source code and the trade secrets. With a watermark, you can identify the early leaks in your distribution system and their sources, and those are generally the ones that come to dominate the pirate ecosystem. It penalizes early adopters who get hacked, I suppose, and loose their files into the wild, but it allows you to target zero-day groups that somehow managed to snag a copy off of a retailers loading dock before release day because you would know which retailer can't secure their products and probably has a member of a cracking group working for them. (glances over at the local games retailer). It offers a cryptographically secure way of tying the product in the wild to the person who was responsible for leaking it. As opposed to the whole 'your IP was cached on this tracker' thing. The trackers are apparently now injecting random IPs just to thwart the sort of automated lawsuit generation that was going on. Of course all that does is increase the chance of catching innocents in the drag net.
Its the first copy that leaks out that bares most of the responsibility for distribution. Once its out in the wild, how can adding one more copy to the potentially infinite number that are out there be prosecuted? Adding 1 to infinity doesn't make infinity any bigger except in the eyes of the law its exactly as bad as the first one. You need to go after the groups that are actively enabling piracy - the initial seeders. Not the parents of kids who download everything they see whether they are going to use it or not, and are potential future customers, IMHO.
Because every parent knows what their child is doing 24/7... That's an absolute unrealistic response. Either you have no kids or your unable to admit your not perfect. Not everyone works in the computer field. They might be a construction worker that bought their kid a computer because they wanted to give their kid a nice gift. They are not knowledgable about the illegal activities that can be carried out on a computer. Does that mean people in construction should not have a "license to breed", you pompous prick. Also, your incessent insulting of the "moronic/young/children" is moronic in itself since your insulting the consumers if not the number one demographic for your upcoming product, a VIDEO GAME.
On piracy lawsuits.. they are ridiculous. The punishment should fit the crime. If a kid steals a 50 dollar game and then the parents are sued for thousands/millions of dollars ruining their lives for petty theft it is absolutely ridiculous and anyone defending such a practice is only part of the greed. I could care less about the penalties of copyrights and how they effect what they are able to impose on these poor saps. I look at the real world effect. This one person you caught is not leading to the finacial ruin of the creator he should not owe as much as they are charging. Charge him for court costs and retail cost of how many copies he downloaded/uploaded. Then throw a reasonable hundreds of dollars fine on him for good measure or charge him with a misdemeanor. That would be a punishment that fit the crime.
These lawsuits are able to use such harsh penalties because of the nature of torrents, but I don't think the judges are looking at the real world damages. Sure the kid download 1 illegal copy of a 50 dollar game and then they are chaged with uploading to a swarm making it possible for thousands of other copies to be downloaded. Do they ever look at the share ratio? Because it is that ratio that shows just how much this person illegally downloaded and uploaded. Did he realy upload to thousands of people or is his share ratio .003? I would be willing to stake my life that people who have been sued may have illegally uploaded 10% of 1 illegal copy and downloaded 100% of 1 illegal copy. Thats at worst a 60 dollar crime in the real world. Except for the Nintendo kid.. He was the origin making that game available.. It was a dumb mistake, but I'm still not going to cheer some dumb kid's mistake leading to his financial ruin for the rest of his life. Because unlike you I'm willing to admit that we all have sinned in some way or another and were all guilty of making mistakes..
Heres a wink for good measure..
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