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A Piece of Internet History
,----[ Quote ]
| This week marks the end of an era for one
| of the earliest pieces of Internet
| history, which got its start at Duke more
| than 30 years ago.
`----
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html
Usenet's home shuts down today
,----[ Quote ]
| Duke University in North Carolina is
| where Usenet began, and today the
| institution is shutting down its Usenet
| server. The college cites "low usage and
| rising costs" for the decision.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/20/usenet_duke_server/
Duke To Shut Down Usenet Server
,----[ Quote ]
| Rantastic and other readers wrote about
| the shutdown of the British Usenet
| indexer Newzbin today; the site sank
| under the weight of a lawsuit and
| outstanding debt. Combine these stories
| with the recent news of Microsoft
| shuttering its newsgroups, along with
| other recent stories, and the picture
| does not look bright for Usenet.
`----
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/05/18/2342241/Duke-To-Shut-Down-Usenet-Server
Usenet gets attention and Giganews tries to avoid it?
,----[ Quote ]
| When the poorly thought out strategies
| for dealing with online copyright
| infringement started to take effect, I
| said at the time that we would see a
| migration towards Usenet. I am aware of
| whats called the âfirst rule of Usenetâ
| which is not to talk about Usenet, but
| since I have no interests in infringing
| copyright by downloading such material
| and my Usenet interest is mainly
| comp.os.linux.advocacy, I really donât
| have a problem breaking that âruleâ. I
| expect what passes today as âthe sceneâ
| will have words about that.
|
| [...]
|
| I would suggest that people put the IPkat
| out for the night and realize this
| problem is far too deep routed for any
| one (or collection) of court victories to
| change.
`----
http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/usenet-gets-attention-and-giganews-tries-to-avoid-it/
COLA is actually one of the few groups that are still active.
The Copyright Cartel is disconnecting servers (see below)
Recent:
Filesharing laws to hit websites and newsgroups too
,----[ Quote ]
| The government is planning to award itself
| powers to change copyright law almost at
| will, in expectation that new anti-peer-to-
| peer laws will drive infringement to other
| services such as Rapidshare and newsgroups.
|
| The measure, which is the most severe
| contained in the Digital Economy Bill
| published today, will be interpreted as a
| major victory for rights holder
| organisations. It will grant the Business
| Secretary Lord Mandelson and his successors
| undprecedented control over civil
| enforcement of copyright.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/20/digital_economy_bill/
AT&T Quits Free Usenet Access July 15th
,----[ Quote ]
| Caves to demands that it âprotect its customers from child pornographyâ even
| though discontinuing free service will do little to fight the problem since
| pedophiles will simply switch to third party premium Usenet services.
`----
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86599/att-quits-free-usenet-access-july-15th/
RIAA Wastes Little Time Trying To Extend Interpretation Of Usenet.com Victory
,----[ Quote ]
| Last week we wrote about the RIAA's victory against Usenet.com, noting that
| it really wasn't that big a deal precedent-wise, given the rather specific
| circumstances involved in the case. Specifically, the company Usenet.com
| clearly destroyed evidence, which pretty much doomed the case, and on top of
| that engaged in activity that was egregious in terms of making it quite clear
| that it encouraged illegal activity through the use of its service. But, of
| course, the RIAA and its friends (as per usual) are having a field day
| claiming this is a big deal.
`----
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090704/1630575445.shtml
RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case
,----[ Quote ]
| The Recording Industry Association of America has prevailed in its copyright
| fight against Usenet.com, according to court documents.
|
| In a decision that hands the RIAA an overwhelming victory, U.S. District
| Judge Harold Baer of the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of the
| music industry on all its main theories: that Usenet.com is guilty of direct,
| contributory, and vicarious infringement. In addition, and perhaps most
| important for future cases, Baer said that Usenet.com can't claim protection
| under the Sony Betamax decision. That ruling says companies can't be held
| liable for contributory infringement if the device they create is "capable of
| significant non-infringing uses."
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10276607-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Three Strikes Rejected In Spain
,----[ Quote ]
| It seems like the recording industry's grand plan to get ISPs to be their
| copyright police isn't getting very far. Consumer and legal backlash around
| the world seems to have stopped it cold. The latest is in Spain, where the
| entire concept of a three strikes regime has been taken off the table.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090623/1918135337.shtml
Usenet Community Takes Anti-Piracy Group to Court
,----[ Quote ]
| A Usenet discussion community is taking notorious anti-piracy outfit BREIN to
| court. BREIN, which has taken action against many Usenet and BitTorrent sites
| including Demonoid and Mininova, has declared the activities of FTD illegal.
| Angered by these claims, FTD is now taking BREIN to court to force it to eat
| its words.
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/usenet-community-takes-anti-piracy-group-to-court-090515/
A Modest Proposal: Three-Strikes for Print
,----[ Quote ]
| Yesterday the French parliament adopted a proposal to create
| a "three-strikes" system that would kick people off the Internet if they are
| accused of copyright infringement three times.
`----
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/modest-proposal-three-strikes-print
Pirate Bay Judge Accused Of Conflict In Another Case As Well
,----[ Quote ]
| So now they've turned up another recent case (article in Swedish, here's the
| Google translation), this time involving BMW, where the judge appears to have
| been connected to the lawyers representing BMW as well.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090506/1029274770.shtml
Pirate Bay Judge Accused of Bias, Calls for a Retrial
,----[ Quote ]
| One of the biggest cases in file-sharing history ended last week with The
| Pirate Bay Four sentenced to huge fines and jail time. Today it is revealed
| that far from being impartial, the judge in the case is a member of
| pro-copyright groups - along with Henrik PontÃn, Monique Wadsted and Peter
| Danowsky. There are loud calls for a retrial.
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-lawyer-is-biased-calls-for-a-retrial-090423/
Comcast to shut down free Usenet access
,----[ Quote ]
| Comcast is just the latest of the large ISPs to buckle under to MAFIAA
| pressure from the music and movie cartels, but that doesn't mean that they
| deserve to get away with this.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/10/07/comcast-shut-free-usenet-access
Usenet: Not Dead Yet
,----[ Quote ]
| Over the last few years, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
| and other organizations looking to eliminate the illegal swapping of digital
| media files have attacked the problem through the courts, publicity
| campaigns, and other means.
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151989-1/usenet_not_dead_yet.html
Related:
Comcast, NetZero latest providers to bow to Cuomo's Usenet campaign
,----[ Quote ]
| But in reality, Cuomo's pressure tactics have misfired. They led Time Warner
| Cable to pull the plug on some 100,000 Usenet discussion groups, including
| such hotbeds of illicit content as talk.politics and
| misc.activism.progressive. Verizon Communications deleted such unlawful
| discussion groups as us.military, ny.politics, alt.society.labor-unions, and
| alt.politics.democrats. AT&T and Time Warner Cable have taken similar steps.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10002624-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Verizon offers details of Usenet deletion: alt.* groups, others gone
,----[ Quote ]
| Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups--out of
| roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist. In a press release, he took credit for
| the companies' blunderbuss-style newsgroup removal by saying: "We are
| attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers...I commend
| the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of
| responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry."
|
| [...]
|
| What this means in practice is that, thanks to the New York state attorney
| general, Verizon customers will lose out on innocent discussions. Verizon is
| retaining only eight newsgroup hierarchies, even though over 1,000
| hierarchies exist.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9967119-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Usenet Villified In NY Deal With ISPs
,----[ Quote ]
| Time Warner Cable will turn off all newsgroup access, while Sprint plans to
| cut access to the whole alt.* segment. Verizon may follow Sprint's example.
|
| Blocking all newsgroups does appear to be a broad approach to a problem
| involving a minority of such groups. As with the Internet in general, not
| everything in Usenet poses a threat. But no one wants to be tainted with even
| a suggestion of being soft on child porn, hence the rush to apply censorship
| with a sweeping axe rather than a skillfully-wielded scalpel.
`----
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/11/usenet-villified-in-ny-deal-with-isps
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