I first got online in the days before the web existed, and spent much of my time on Usenet, that group of message boards that was useful for discussions of all types. While obviously much of those conversations moved to the web or email over the years, it's still pretty ridiculous to see the entertainment industry continue to attack Usenet and basically act as if all of Usenet is illegal. As we noted a little over a month ago, a court in the Netherlands sided with anti-piracy group BREIN, and ordered Usenet provider News-Service (NSE) to wave a magic wand and somehow figure out which Usenet posts were infringing and which weren't. Not surprisingly, that's impossible, and NSE has announced that it's just shutting down entirely instead. NSE was the largest Usenet provider in Europe. And now it's dead. Because the entertainment industry refuses to adapt, and thus blames the technology for how the technology is used, a useful (legal) service is gone. For what it's worth, NSE will continue to appeal the court's ruling... but only on principle. As an operating effort, it appears NSE is dead. Another one killed by the entertainment industry.

We've seen a few other cases like this and never can understand how a court thinks it's reasonable for a third party service provider to know how to block its system from being used for infringement, but that's exactly what's happened in the Court of Amsterdam. Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has apparently won a lawsuit against Usenet provider News-Service.com (NSE). The court has ordered NSE to magically make all infringing works available via Usenet disappear. Of course, if you understood how third party systems work, you would know that the only way to do that is to no longer be an open platform, which takes away all the value of such a service. NSE responded pretty much as you would expected -- in shock about the impossibility of the order:

We are very disappointed with the Court’s verdict. It is technically as well as economically unfeasible to check the contents of the 15 to 20 million messages that are exchanged on a daily basis. Added to which, there is no automated way of checking whether Usenet messages contain copyrighted material or whether permission has been obtained for the distribution of such material.

It's kind of amazing that a court of law can't understand how the internet works. For its part, BREIN claims that this is "a breakthrough step." Yeah, taking down major communication platforms because the organizations you represent refuse to adapt. That's a "breakthrough"?

Perfect 10, the failed "adult magazine" publisher that many say has always really been in the "suing people for infringement" business, rather than the publishing business, has sued again. The company seems to lose nearly all of its copyright infringement lawsuits in the US (though, it's helped create a very useful body of case law), but it just keeps on suing. The latest lawsuit is against usenet service provider Giganews. The complaint points out that the content is stored on Giganews' own servers, but (at least from the description) seems to ignore that the content comes from Usenet and users, not from Giganews itself. And, of course, Giganews has a registered DMCA agent, so it has safe harbor protections from users. It's unclear from the report linked here if Perfect 10 filed takedowns, but given Perfect 10's history of questionable or bogus takedown notices, you have to assume that even if they did, there's a decent chance they were faulty. At what point is this company finally put out of its misery?

With all the pointless talk about whether or not Twitter/Facebook were somehow instrumental in the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, Shocklee points us to an interesting predecessor: the mostly forgotten news of how some geeks in Moscow used Usenet during a 1991 coup attempt to spread news around the world, even as the official media was totally cut off:

USSR, August 19 1991: While Mikhaïl Gorbatchev was on holiday in his datcha located in Crimea, Eight apparatchiks attempted to seize power over the state. Hostile to reforms, the “Gang of Eight” tried to prevent the Perestoika reforms and the loss of their satellite states. These eight orthodox Communists launched an attempted coup d’état by installing themselves as The State Committee of the State of Emergency. After Gobatchev returned he tried to restore order and save face, but it was clear that this episode would eventually lead to his downfall.

In this well documented event, there is an interesting historically episode which is often overlooked. During the two days of the coup the Russian media was shut down, and thus not covering Boris Yeltsin ranting on top of a tank for the crowd, nor the shock of the international community. All channels were blacked-out except for one; Usenet, which is the grandfather of chat-rooms and is capable or surviving without the Internet. For these precious 48 hours, a few dozen individuals contributed to this last means of communication with the outside world.

Obviously, it's not an identical situation to what's been going on today, but there is an interesting parallel, about how people gravitate to tools of communication in such events. And, no, I'm not serious about the "Usenet revolution" claims, but it is neat to see what was effectively an early version of the way that people in various countries have used today's online social networking tools to communicate with the outside world. At the very least, it's a fun historical read, that covers a story that many folks probably know nothing about.

We found it a bit troubling earlier this year when a Dutch court found that Usenet community FTD was guilty of copyright infringement because its users merely linked to Usenet locations where unauthorized copies of movies resided. An appeals court has now apparently reversed much of that decision -- noting that just linking to infringing works is not infringement, and that downloading for personal use is also not infringement. However, it oddly still kept the injunction on FTD because it claimed that FTD promoted unauthorized uploads, saying that most "spotters" (who point out where the files are) also are uploaders. Of course, as we had noted recently, the movie studio's "evidence" on this was that one of its own investigators uploaded and spotted a film.

TorrentFreak has some disturbing news coming out of the legal fight in the Netherlands between anti-piracy group BREIN and Usenet community provider FTD. Apparently BREIN had somewhere around 15 "investigators" acting as FTD members -- and they may be using the actions of at least one to prove their legal point. FTD has argued, reasonably, that its members are not uploading content, but merely pointing out where it is available. BREIN argued, in response, that it was often the same users who would upload and point it out. Their evidence? A user who uploaded and pointed out the same movie. The problem? The guy who did that... works for BREIN. That sounds like planting evidence, a tactic law enforcement is sometimes seen to employ -- but BREIN is a private organization. Apparently, BRIEN is so closely tied to Dutch law enforcement that they seem to think they're part of it -- even going so far as to copy some law enforcement abuses.

I hadn't been following the story of Newzbin very closely. It was yet another Usenet indexer harassed and shut down by lawsuits from the entertainment industry. At some point, it begins to get tedious to try to follow all of the different sites that Hollywood gives free advertising to by suing, so we just skip over a bunch. However, it is amusing to find out that after Newzbin shut down (due to money issues from fighting the lawsuit), the site reappeared through a convoluted set of circumstances, involving some hackers getting into the old Newzbin system a while back and regularly copying the whole thing, a rent-back leasing arrangement with the domain (which allowed for it to be sold off), and some other random (but shadowy) parties. My guess is that the Hollywood folks aren't going to believe any of this, and will insist that Newzbin is still being operated by the same folks, but it does seem like yet another example of what a useless game of whac-a-mole the industry keeps playing. It used to be whenever they shut down one such site, another similar one would pop up. These days, it might even be the same exact site. At some point, isn't it time to realize that going after these sites isn't stopping anything?

I'd been avoiding writing about the Newzbin case, because, honestly, I didn't have much to say about it -- but people keep submitting it, so here's a very quick post. Newzbin, one of a bunch of Usenet aggregators, was found liable for copyright infringement of its users in a UK court. The ruling doesn't appear all that different from similar rulings elsewhere, with courts focusing on staff actively promoting the infringing nature of content on the site. In this case, it told site "editors" to promote works that were almost certainly infringing. Whether or not this makes sense in the larger picture, the message is clear: if you actively promote infringing activities, courts are not going to look kindly on your activities, even if the actual infringement is done by users. This trend has been clear for quite some time, and I'm still confused why any site would encourage its users to infringe these days. It's just asking for a legal beatdown.

Earlier this year, we noted that the Dutch Usenet community FTD was suing BREIN, the local "anti-piracy" group, for suggesting that FTD was a criminal operation. As the case moves forward, FTD is pointing out that as a Usenet group, all that it enables is discussions and doesn't see how discussions -- even if about file sharing -- should be infringing themselves. In response, BREIN still insists that a Usenet provider can, in fact, be a criminal organization, and asked the court to fine FTD $70,000 per day if it doesn't get people to stop talking about file sharing. But, no, copyright doesn't conflict with free speech at all... right?

Anti-piracy groups often have a way with massively stretching the truth when it comes to copyright law and anyone they dislike. The Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN apparently put out a wholly misleading article entitled: "You do not pay for it, it's unlawful." This line was taken from MPAA propaganda that has been sent around to public schools -- but, of course, it is wrong. There are tons of things that you don't pay for that are perfect lawful. To make matters worse, the article then accused a Dutch Usenet community called FTD of being "criminal." Knowing that it is not criminal, the group is now suing BREIN for falsely smearing its image by saying that it is criminal and for falsely portraying copyright law in the Netherlands.