Legal action against newzbin.com

[Spennyboy]

Newzbin has recently received two serious complaints regarding the indexing we perform, and raising doubts as to its legality.

It is likely that we will in the coming weeks be presented with a court case and have to defend our rights. We will be defending ourselves vigorously against both the complainants if necessary and we believe a court will agree with our view that linking to content on Usenet is indeed legal and our method of dealing with unlawful content is appropriate. We believe that, or we wouldn't still be here.

We are not in a position to disclose the identities of these two complainants (though I'm sure you can guess one of them) but we will report more as we can.

These cases are against us, not you. Having an account on Newzbin is not going to be a problem for you.

So, basically, if you start seeing press releases that legal action is commencing against us, don't be alarmed - we know, and indeed it's a good thing that we're getting these issues laid to rest.

Remember these things take time however, so it's unlikely we'll have further news for another few weeks - please don't hassle us for information, we will give you it when we have it.

(Comments are closed: Sorry, but this isn't an invitation for a discussion on the merits of what we do, what we should be doing, or general hysteria around the matter. We have better things to be doing than moderating hysterical comments right now.)

Discuss.

[Ganty]

Only a matter of time I suppose. But hey, Google gets away with it...

[blaggard]

Not good!

[Ganty]

Not good!

It happened to the Pirate Bay not so long ago, they're still doing their business.

[Mule]

Only a matter of time I suppose. But hey, Google gets away with it...

Google aren't focusing on copyright material though.

[SiE]

bloody hell, its all fucking doom and gloom today, the missus's car is fucked, devon raffle is postponed and now this.

[blaggard]

Life's a bit of a winkle sometimes!

[CzarJunkie]

I'm surprised it's taken this long........

[BertRoot]

Yeah no great surprise though I would miss newzxxx.

[ant3b]

oh dear the best indexer by far

[evilsatan]

It happened to the Pirate Bay not so long ago, they're still doing their business.

They are funny as fook with their return letters but a bit too cocky, surely one day they will fall.

As for newzbin I hope they pull through this, don't they index everything then editors produce reports where there are a full fileset? I suppose it is the editors actually producing reports for copyrighted content that is their problem.

Big shame

[Waka]

That's a bit of a choker, they're based in the UK as well aren't they? That could make life a bit more difficult for them.

I hope they pull through - great site.

W.

[photek1000]

I can see this being a long process for them, but hopefully they will be fine.

Best indexing site I use, well only indexing site I use, with occasional trips elsewhere.

Was looking forward to their Christmas sale, hopefully that will still be on.

[marcode]

im surprised it took so long, but tbh, i dont see them shutting down any time soon, they will have been preparing for this day for some time i imagine.

doesnt it seem odd going after those who index newsgroup content rather than go for those who host said content?

they go after hosts of copyright material, they dont go after those who index/search it.. whats different here?

[2die4]

Was looking forward to their Christmas sale, hopefully that will still be on.

I hope so, cannot beat the great newzbin Christmas sale as well! Was hoping to stock up on some weeks! Hopefully it will all work out.

[Northernbloke]

What are the chances of them being forced to handover their subscriber database, plus any records of who downloaded what .nzb files?

Hope their xmas sale will be on as has become customary, although I suspect they'll need the extra few quid for a fighting fund - Good luck to them, hope they win and survive

[marcode]

What are the chances of them being forced to handover their subscriber database, plus any records of who downloaded what .nzb files?

Having an account on Newzbin is not going to be a problem for you.

i think they would have been very foolish to keep logs of anything.

yes, they have account details, but with no logged evidence of what nzb's you downloaded, let alone whether you actually USED said NZB means whoever is suing them is going to have a shitload to prove if they even want to consider going after users.

i think this suit is a case of proving a point. a moot point..

[Waka]

doesnt it seem odd going after those who index newsgroup content rather than go for those who host said content?

Good point, I've wondered how these usenet hosters get away with it (glad they do tho!). Let's hope they don't go after giganews/newshosting...even Virgin host a lot more stuff now than they used to...even if it is for only 3 days

W.

[marcode]

they get away with it cos its a part of the internet thats been going for decades.

originally it was just text discussion groups, then they devised a way to split, encode and upload lots of small text files that can then be downloaded and decoded...

so technically they dont actually hold any binaries or files.. just text.

it fooled em for a while, but newsgroups are the next big targets... considering how well they did against torrents, i dont see much to be concerned about.

[Mobileman]

My subscription expires in 40 hours think i may just go for a 8 week extension at the min

Reckon they wll be fine albeit maybe in a slightly different form or location