AfterDawn: News

EMI loses case to Usenet provider

The German Usenet provider United Newsserver has won an appeal in a suit that was initiated by EMI.

The large record label had wanted to block access to music on the provider through an injunction but a German court has found that the company is not legally repsonsible for the misdeeds of Usenet users.



In May 2007, the court sided with EMI and the IFPI was quick to praise the decision. People "who make illegal content available on the Internet cannot bail out of their resposibilities", said local IFPI boss Peter Zombik at the time.

As could be expected Newsserver CEO Heinz-Dieter Elbracht was very content by the decision. "Usenet has become a platform for the exchange of all kinds of information. It should be in the interest of all users, providers and rights holders to find solutions to act together against inevitable cases of people breaking the law on Usenet."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 15 Jan 2008 22:52

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• 9 comments

• mediabob

  owned

  15.1.2008 23:19 #1

• hikaricor

  You think this is going to stop the stupidity of lawyers? HAH
  
  They'll just find some other snake-assed way of fucking with newsgroups.
  These are the same kind of people who are trying to tell us that ripping CDs we own for personal use is not legal.

  15.1.2008 23:33 #2

• xSModder

  Originally posted by hikaricor: You think this is going to stop the stupidity of lawyers? HAH
  
  They'll just find some other snake-assed way of messing with newsgroups.
  These are the same kind of people who are trying to tell us that ripping CDs we own for personal use is not legal.It's so true. I'm glad the newsgroups won. IRC and newsgroups are practically the only safe havens anymore. And even then, they aren't that safe.

  16.1.2008 01:27 #3

• badkrma

  ...and until they come crashing through the door, usenet is still king for all media types. We need more companies standing up to these kinds of attacks even if it is to protect their own interests in the bottom line, make them "go fish" for another way...

  16.1.2008 17:14 #4

• ZippyDSM

  well newsgroups are not that diffrent than torrents sooner or later the media mafia will break thier knees :P

  17.1.2008 02:33 #5

• borhan9

  There will be a loop hole that will be found and this issue will keep going.

  15.2.2008 16:51 #6

• simpsim1

  Originally posted by ZippyDSM: well newsgroups are not that diffrent than torrents sooner or later the media mafia will break thier knees :PMaybe so, but the good news is that Usenet is a harder target to go after. It's basically an Internet in it's own right, with servers dotted all over the world. You could take one or two down, but people would just go elsewhere instead. Another thing to note is that it's not P2P. It only takes one person to post an article. Also, thanks to propagation, what is on one server generally filters out to them all sooner or later.
  
  No I think that Usenet will survive for a while yet... At least until the next big thing comes along.
  

  My opinions come with no warranty whatsoever, but are totally open-source, so you can reverse engineer or decompile them as you see fit. All other rights reserved.
  
  Bricked PSP? Live in the UK? I can pandorize your battery for you free of charge (Postage required). PM me if you want to know more.

  15.2.2008 17:01 #7

• varnull

  Nice double standards in operation here from what I can see.. On one hand the German courts uphold that obtaining pirate content from PAID newsgroup accounts is fine, while at the same time deciding that a p2p tracker run from Switzerland and free to all is breaking the law..
  It's the same issue.. a tracker is also not responsible for the actions of 1 person.
  
  So it's ok to get hold of pirate material if YOU PAY a third party to access it? I think the judges are scared that if newsgroup servers are raided their downloading of child porn will come out.

  15.2.2008 18:12 #8

• simpsim1

  I guess they see the BT Tracker services as more of a threat, since they are free to start with. The justification for that train of thought would be that if a person is wanting to obtain material without paying for it, then he/she is hardly likely to go out and spend 10 to 20 dollars a month to do the same thing.

  15.2.2008 18:21 #9