The Recording Industry Association of America has prevailed in its copyright fight against Usenet.com, according to court documents…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 enabled users access to 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 destroying 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.
RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case | CNET News — Question: Who is next?
0
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
I can’t identify anything unusual in this case. RIAA itself has been sanctioned for discovery violations and now Usenet has. Not unusual at all.
Once you accept the notion of copyright law as it has developed apart from its original purpose, this ruling is on its merits is well grounded.
Lets go back to the initial laws and undo 50 years of political payoffs.
I had an Easynews account for years, but dropped it. They advertise they keep no logs.
There goes the NET..
They now have a foot hold over the USENET.
GET what you can and get out fast…
usenet.com…..that’s significantly different from triumphing against usenet. although, essentially it would just have the net effect of encouraging providers to dump certain usenet groups. if that happens, two more things will just rise to take it’s place. and those things might be free
They seem to win lots of cases. Where are the cases they lost?
#3 – ECA – There goes the NET..
They now have a foot hold over the USENET.
No, they don’t. They won a case against Usenet.com, a company charging people to download stuff from Usenet.
The article is misleading in that it comfuses usenet, a part of the internet, separate from the world wide web, with usenet.com, which is a commercial isp of sorts.
Usenet, one of my favorite areas of the net, has been slowly fading for about 10 years. First was degradation of newsgroups into idiotic shouting matches following the election of GWB and the subsequent 9.11.2001 attacks and the wars that followed. Next, AOL dropped newsgroups, at a time when a fair number of folks used AOL as their isp. Then, Andrew Cuomo managed to scare off a host of other isps from carrying all newsgroups. Many of them eventually dropped the service altogether. Slowly, postings diminished, even in benign groups. Of course, 95% of internet users have never even head of USENET.
Interestingly enough, I’d never heard of usenet.com.
As for the RIAA, as usual, the only worthwhile thing they ever did was establish the equalization curve for LPs. They could burn in hell as far as I’m concerned.
#4,
true, but its a foot hold to Usenet.
They have been trying to get a hold on the Usenet for years and cant figure out how.
#5,
They dont win lots of cases..VERY FEW have ever gone to court. TO MANY are settled out of court.
#6,
yes, confusion and SCARE TACTICS.. an ISP does not want problems. so they TRY not to do anything to force then into court.
#7,
I understand. But they are trying to get to the Newsgroups and Usegroups for years and cant figure out HOW. its international, its anonymous, easy to FAKE/fool your location, its almost TOTALLY untraceable..
I agree that file sharing and usenet in general help business. I can’t tell you how many shareware programs I have tried and bought. In fact, I never buy software without a trial period now. I’m sure many file sharers have downloaded ( illegally? ) programs and ended up purchasing the program later. But, the fact remains, the RIAA has court decisions saying that file sharing is illegal. They do not want us to try the music, movies, or programs via downloading. It’s inevitable, they will shut down the Internet to get what they want….your money.
#9 – ECA
Usenet is too distributed for them to stop. The only way they can get at it is to force ISPs to log all downloads.
the first rule of usenet is “do not talk about usenet”.
Usenet is dying.
I’m now getting to my groups through a free portal and all it handles is text which is actually all I need it to handle.
As such a few servers scattered around should be able to handle the English speaking world all by themselves.