RIAA shifts legal battle to a new front, sues Usenet access provider

The article:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071016-riaa-shifts-legal-battle-to-a-new-front-sues-usenet-access-provider.html

I came across this developing story on Monday, and thought I might use it here. The story started off with this story, but I found this story (top link) yesterday, and thought it was more complete.

When I first found this, I read the title as "RIAA sues Usenet." I didn't know a lot about Usenet, but I do know that it is a newsgroup protocol, and I didn't quite understand how RIAA could sue a protocol. After reading the Slashdot comments, I realized that I was not alone in my lack of knowledge. I read that they were suing Usenet.com, a paid access portal to Usenet that offers anonymity. Thus, the RIAA is not suing the Usenet protocol, but a company that provides access. Also from the Slashdot comments, I gleaned the main complaint was access to alt.binaries, and the poster mentioned that any file could be split and put on different groups, so "trying to shut off alt.binaries isn't going to stop anything" (Slashdot comment)

On to the actual article, which begins by mentioning how the RIAA is moving on to attack Usenet, after they were successful in some of their other file-sharing cases. As I mentioned before, they are attacking Usenet through a paid provider. The RIAA claims that Usenet.com's offering is basically the same as a P2P network (some of which they previously sued), and that the site advertises itself as "'the hottest way of sharing MP3 files over the Internet' without getting caught."

The next section in the article begins with an "initiation" in Usenet, including how it is used for copyright violation. It talks about how Usenet.com (not Usenet) works, and the services they offer, including "blazing speeds and anonymous access." Those prospects, according to the article, "[have] the RIAA up in arms," and the article then talks about how the RIAA describes Usenet.com. After this, it talks about how the MPAA is also after Usenet, and how recent rulings (MGM v. Grokster) "[make] it easier for right-holders to extract damages from companies whose products promote copyright infringement." Then the article brings up the issue that there is a great deal of content on Usenet that is not copyrighted material, like discussions of religion. This section is finished by mentioning that Usenet.com had not commented yet, but, in disclaimers, they clearly state that they do not condone obtaining copyrighted material, but they do condone making copyrighted material available.

The last section covers possible protection of Usenet from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. It goes on to list some cases where "newsgroup provides [found] shelter in DMCA's Safe Harbor." Following this, it details how Usenet.com can avoid the RIAA by restricting (to the best of their abilities, anyway) access to "infringing content" and "by suspending the accounts of repeat offenders." The article finishes by saying that it is likely that the RIAA with never fully be able to "stamp out copyright infringement" on Usenet, because of its long life and "decentralized nature."

A lot of my opinion is at the top, so there isn't quite as much down here. As I implied at the beginning, I have never directly used Usenet. At least, I don't think I did. I have accessed Internet groups before, like Google Groups, but I did not use them for illicit downloading of copyrighted material, mainly because I didn't know that I could. I never really heard a lot about Usenet, and this could be caused by what I saw in another Slashdot comment (but I have seen it other places): "The first rule of Usenet is you don't talk about Usenet." This could also be why the RIAA hasn't attacked before now, since this is a very old technology, dating back to before the Internet.

Now, one may ask, "Do you agree with the RIAA's decision to attack Usenet?" I would be inclined to answer with a resounding "No." From what I understand, Usenet is a newsgroup system, with the key word here being "news." Its original intent, therefore is for news, and I imagine that it is still used for this purpose. In technical terms, it was the original "file-sharing" system, just the "files" were all text. Later (or at the beginning, I'm not sure), the text files became other types of files (the copyright infringing types), and the train began rolling to how it is (I assume, again) now. Networks like Napster were, on the other hand, designed from the ground up to be used for transferring music files, most of which were copyrighted. So, the RIAA was correct in attacking them. But, I think they err in attacking Usenet.