4 ms·

Ooops... Erm, what should I be using instead?

• jrockway 15y ago
  Usenet.
  • vabole 15y ago
    That's interesting, why don't we hear much about fighting copyright infringement on usenet? Even though it would seem that taking down a usenet server is easier than trying to disable a p2p network.
    • modernerd 15y ago
      Usenet service providers and search engines have taken most of the legal heat[1][2], presumably because they're easier targets than anonymous usenet users. [1]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/17/big_record_labels_file_suit_against_usenet_dot_com/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/17/big_record_labels_fi... [2]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/30/usenet_search_engine/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/30/usenet_search_engine...
      • vdm 15y ago
        But they're not anonymous, they pay a credit card subscription. This enables prosecutions for child porn offences, even if the offence was carried out in another jurisdiction.
        • modernerd 15y ago
          BitTorrent requires you to give up your IP address to join a swarm of users downloading a file. Usenet doesn't. That's what I meant by anonymous.
          • pyre 15y ago
            The Usenet server is centralized though. They could sue the provider to get the names of everyone that downloaded a set of posts. This is made much easier by the fact that most popular Usenet servers are paid for nowadays (especially ones that carry alt.binaries.*).
            • modernerd 15y ago
              They would first have to pass laws to force Usenet providers to log their customers' viewing and download history. Many Usenet providers make a 'will not track' promise to their customers. This is from Giganews' homepage, for example: "We will never sell your information to third parties or track what you download." http://www.giganews.com/ http://www.giganews.com/
            • cma 15y ago
              Has anyone ever been prosecuted for downloading something? Every case I have seen is about uploading, otherwise you can't even safely browse youtube--someone might have used a copyrighted song in their cat fart video.
            • jrockway 15y ago
              They could. The answer they'd get is, "it's too expensive to store everything people downloaded, and our paying customers don't want us storing that information anyway." A law could be passed requiring Usenet providers in country X to log downloads, but then you could just use a server hosted in some other country. Preventing people from copying information is like preventing water from being wet. You fail.
        • shii 15y ago
          I don't know why anyone would use a real credit card tied to their name & SSN for Usenet. That's just asking for trouble, considering how more and more people are mentioning it on public boards. The day I saw a post on how to download nzbs from Usenet from Lifehacker complete with detailing how to setup sab and sickbeard + couchpotato, I almost had a heart attack.
          • jrockway 15y ago
            Usenet is protected by "common carrier" legal immunity, not by secrecy. I am sure the MPAA and RIAA know what Usenet is... but consider how flaky their "we have proof of you uploading the video to us" cases are, and then consider how they would go after people who didn't even upload anything.
        • zebra_beard 15y ago
          Most major NNTP providers purportedly don't track user downloads. Some of them even claim to not retain upload logs.
          • jrockway 15y ago
            It's also somewhat difficult to determine, given a file on Usenet, which provider it came from.
• pwg 15y ago
  I2P: http://www.i2p2.de/ http://www.i2p2.de/
• josefresco 15y ago
  Apparently you missed the direct download movement a couple years back. BT is history for the leading edge consumer pirates, DD sites are the next wave and are not long for this world given how popular they have become.
  • lhnz 15y ago
    Disagree. For niche content, private torrent sites are still king.
  • hessenwolf 15y ago
    Example?