British Telecom ordered to blacklist Usenet search engine

British Telecom ordered to blacklist Usenet search engine

arstechnica.com

A judge has ordered British Telecom to begin blocking its subscribers from accessing Newzbin2, a members-only usenet search engine that is heavily used for copyright infringement. The mandated blocking is modeled on the Cleanfeed filtering system currently used to block alleged child pornography.

The original Newzbin was a UK company that billed itself as "Google for Usenet." It made hundreds of thousands of pounds helping its users find content—much of it infringing movies and television shows.

(visit the link for the full news article)

It never ends. As long as they can tell the authorities that they have been 'robbed' of income, they will shut down service by service, monitor channel by channel, and otherwise make the sweeping characterization that the only reason for using Usenet is for nefarious and illegal reasons.....

I find it interesting that public servants everywhere simply accept the claims of big studios and media reps as valid without so much as a moment's hesitation. Why is that?

arstechnica.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The usual answers apply here.

- There are hundreds of other similar sites, and the problem wont go away by blocking one of them.

- Anyone who really wants to and has a bit of technical skill, will be able to bypass the blocking.

- It becomes a banned site, even though it has not actually broken any laws.

- Based on this precedent, they will demand other similar sites be also blocked.

- Based on that precedent, other perfectly legal websites that may perhaps be encouraging lawbreaking (graffiti, euthanasia, etc..) will also be blocked.

- It never ends...

Not sure I understand the furore over this...

The site was well known for enabling the sharing of copyrighted material. It broke the Law.

Imagine if you had spent alot of money making a film only to find it had been pirated and was being shared for free online. You would have been robbed of income.

Now, I am not preaching from a position of moral perfectness. I used to download PC games and Movies all the time, but have since stopped as I would prefer to pay for things I use, as a responsible adult. I do still, however, download TV shows that are on in the States but may take time to get to the UK. That said, I still pay my subscription for my Cable TV, so no one is really losing any money over it.

No offense but wasnt this already posted today ? www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by stumason


the whole copyright thing is bogus. How do you know something is good until you see it? What about watching a movie, realizing it sucked and wanting your money back. Or on the other side, imagine watching a movie and thinking "that is soooo awesome Im gonna buy that one". Imagine going to a restaurant, ordering a meal which looks good on the menu/picture, you order it and it tastes LIKE CRAP. You can demand a refund if you paid, or walk out stating that is AWFUL, im not paying for that.

Or say, you buy (X) cd from (y) artist 3 years ago, it gets damaged and can't be played. You already own the songs, since it is the intellectual property you paid for not the Cd itself. Then you go download it again, which you have to keep doing because cd's are crappy media form. the industy should free of charge replace any media you have already purchased since its whats on the 'disk/tape/etc' that you are paying for.

the music/movie industry want it both ways.. typical

My apologies: A thread already exists for this discussion.

www.abovetopsecret.com...&addstar=1&on=11923272

Please contribute any further comments and information there....

Thread Closed.