RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case
Note: See Usenet.com's reaction at "Usenet.com says RIAA 'whittling down' Betamax case."
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."
Baer noted that in citing the Betamax case, Usenet.com failed to see one important difference between it and Sony. Once Sony sold a Betamax, an early videotape recorder, the company's relationship with the buyer ended. Sony held no sway over what the buyer did with the device after that. Usenet.com, however, maintains an ongoing relationship with the customer and does has some say in how the customer uses the service.
Usenet.com's lawyers could not be reached Tuesday evening.
The two-decade-old Usenet network was one of the early ways to distribute conversations and binary files, long before the Web or peer-to-peer networks existed. Usenet.com is a company that enabled users to access the Usenet network.The RIAA filed suit against Usenet.com in October 2007, accusing the company of encouraging customers to pay up to $19 a month by enticing them with copyrighted music.
The case is highly unusual because of Baer's many findings of discovery misconduct by the Usenet.com side. The rules of discovery in a civil case requires both sides to exchange information. The RIAA produced evidence, however, that Usenet.com destroyed evidence or failed to produce witnesses on multiple occasions.
The RIAA accused Usenet.com of intentionally destroying the contents on seven hard drives that contained employee-generated data; providing false information; and attempting to prevent employees from giving depositions by sending them to Europe.
The judge found the evidence credible but denied the RIAA's motion to hand it a victory based solely on the misconduct. Instead, the judge sanctioned Usenet.com "from asserting (the company's) affirmative defense of protection under the DMCA's safe harbor provision."
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provides refuge to Internet service providers from being held responsible for criminal acts committed by users. Without that and without the Betamax decision, Usenet.com was a sitting duck.
In a brief note posted Tuesday to RIAA.com, the trade group for the music industry said: "We're pleased that the court recognized not just that Usenet.com directly infringed the record companies' copyrights but also took action against the defendants for their egregious litigation misconduct."
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
Does someone have to tell the author how a news feed works?
Usenet.com was a company who provided ACCESS to Usenet by keeping Usenet servers, just like Comcast and numerous other ISP's at one time did. I don't see Comcast being slammed over this, but then again, Comcast never advertised their Usenet service while they had it, you had to find it yourself.
1) Google for the acronym "NNTP" before any of ye go talking with any authority about what USENET is and is not (not the .com, but the real newsgroups) I can't believe I'm backing up Lerianis here...
2) Get offa my lawn!
I used to spend some time in the 4x4 news groupls. Good information and folks in there. Hate to see usenet (not that my ISP offers access anymore...one more reason to dump my ISP...) go by the wayside.
It's unmoderated nature unfortunately also means it's heavily spammed, which has made it far less popular than it was in the past, but it remains an excellent source of both information and discussions/debates/etc, as well as having groups that are more for silly fun.
There are also binary groups which files are uploaded too. Like the rest of Usenet, these groups are categorized, so you can simply browse by category tree to find what you want (or use a search tool if you know a file name or subject line you're looking for.) These groups are also unmoderated, so it goes without saying that is a good amount of illegal material - both in the copyright and the "this used to be classified" sense.
These files, however, account for a really, really, tiny portion of Usenet. Much like every forum system in the world occasionally gets illegal stuff uploaded to it.
What's important to understand is that Usenet is an ad hoc network - there are no central servers for a group, servers simply feed each other whatever gets posted to them - continuously, and automatically. Attempting to filter copyrighted material off of your server is impossible, as it's not just a question of what got posted to yours, it's what it's automatically pulling in from THOUSANDS of other servers. Furthermore, Usenet has over 200,000 groups - yes, that isn't a typo. It is not possible to find every infringing file in hundreds of thousands of groups, which thousands of different feeds supplying your server's version of each group.
Service providers have long been protected from the actions of their users, as courts have understood that being required to police content would make a small company instantly backrupt, and a large one forced to have a HUGE policing staff, which they would only be able to pay for by passing the enormous bill onto customers. The second the safe harbor laws are no longer in effect, the entire internet as we know it is effectively dead.
IANAL, but this is likely a VERY dangerous precedent, which could be used to sue ISPs, modern forum admins... and well, pretty much anyone that allows a user to contribute anything in any way..
The only reason the RIAA won this case is that sadly, very few people know how Usenet actually works... including apparently the author of this blog. Please do a bit of research next time.
There are a number of websites that are making their money by essentially selling the ability to download illicit files faster. Usenet.com is one of them?they're not just selling read/write access to Usenet, they're actually promoting themselves as a way to download binary files. I'm pretty sure I've seen "Download it from Usenet.com" links (which, of course, lead to membership-fee-based signup page) on several bittorrent search sites.
PS. Anyone that buys music from an RIAA member is a cat sniffer!
Now theres a cage match for you.
RIAA meet PETA :)~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlHNUESEEP4&feature=PlayList&p=1C0B5919245215AF&index=0
Perverts!!!
In the US, though, especially when the interests of large corporations versus the interests of the general consumers are concerned, this stupidity seems to take on epidemic proportions.
That, or they have already all been lobbied by the likes of Micro$oft, RIA, MAFIAA ...
Now not so much. These guys are way late.
RT
[CNET editor's note: Prohibited spam deleted.]
Someone commented on Comcast etc... Don't most of them outsource that to Giganews? I guess newsgroup replication is a crime if the replicated content is copyrighted. So not just Giganews ( the big dog here), but every replicated usenet service provider is at risk of being sued. Not good.
- by igorz07 July 2, 2009 7:05 AM PDT
- So, if usenet.com is responsible to the RIAA for its content, then usenet providers should (theoretically) also be responsible to their customers for virus-infested binaries that form the majority of usenet content.
- Reply to this comment
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(24 Comments)Pursued by both customers and 3rd parties, it sounds like curtains for usenet. Not that it will be missed