Bits The Changing Face Of The Usenet

We analyse the current state of the Usenet in light of BT blocking access to Newzbin.

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2011/08/15/changing-face-usenet/1

 

Nice article guys. Tbh I've never used the Usenet at all, but it is scary seeing the way these corporate types equate 1 act of piracy to one lost sale. I have friends who pirate lots of stuff (they know I don't approve), and it's all Torrent stuff but I know for a fact they wouldn't buy what they download because a) alot of it isn't available in legal form, and b) they simply couldn't afford it. Really think the outright blocking like this is just wrong.

People are crying out for a simple, easy to use, cost effective, unified, digital media service and the big corporates have completely failed to provide anything like that. Look at iPlayer, it's limited to BBC content but it's been massively successful, and this is the BBC, the most wasteful organisation on earth! People want a huge back catologue of TV & Film to choose from and they want high resolution and high bit rate where possible and don't want to be charged more for HD! Unfortunately as long as the Pirated option gives the user more choice at a higher quality with more convenience Piracy in the form we have now will undoubtedly continue. Lets hope UltraViolet takes us one step closer to a superior service...

 

Just give us Steam with FullHD blu-ray movies and download speeds that max our connection. THEN I will be happy.

 

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I dont understand the movie industry at all. Atleast the music industry has woken up a bit with itunes and other online music stores.
I personally subscribe to spotify premium now when i never use to buy or listen to much music before. I purchased maybe 1 album a year before all the internet sharing kicked in. Then I used napster, and now I am spending £5 a month on spotify. I have never spent so much money on music in my life, but it is so easy to find music and just stream it now. The monthly subscription is well worth it.
If they had the same sort of thing for movies, then I would probably subscribe to that too. And not movies that came out years ago either. I want movies out NOW, ones that are showing on the cinema. I am not particularly fussed about going to the cinema to watch them, I would probably prefer to watch it in the comfort of my own home with a cup of tea and relaxing on the sofa, pausing when I want to go loo or answer the phone.
Give us spotify for movies, and I WILL subscribe.

 

Just another example of the lethargy of the media industries to get with the times. People using Usenet (including me) are quite happy to pay for access to it. If the movie industry etc offered decent download services, they'd be getting that money rather than the Usenet providers.

 

It seems to me that this article is really about censorship. Newzbin has been censored for those using BT and, if the movie industry has a say, usenet itself will be censored. It's a very slippery slope.

Today it is Newzbin and anything the copyright industry dislikes in order to protect the "industry".

Tomorrow it is any site that discusses extreme views to protect us from terrorism.

In the end it will be any criticism the government doesn't like to protect us from ourselves.

So much for free speech and freedom of information within Western society. The really ironic thing is that we shake our heads in disgust when China censors internet access for political reasons but we consider it ok to do it because a relatively small industry claims it is losing money.

Piracy in one form or another will always exist but mass piracy is a symptom of the market refusing to offer a suitable alternative.

Right now, it seems that a pirate can obtain any movie or TV show in whatever resolution they like relatively easily. For free. A legitimate user can do none of these things.

If copyright owners wish to protect their IP then they should set up a service that not only matches piracy but makes it a real doddle for anyone to obtain anything they like for a reasonable sum.

If they don't do it soon they may lose the opportunity to do it under their own terms.

Recent events in the UK should be a warning to them. First MP's expenses came out, then News International's undue influence. How long before the governments of the world are forced to expose their real interactions with lobbyists? Does the movie industry believe the general public will be supportive if they discover just how much undue political influence has been bought over the past decade?

 

The only surprising thing about them attacking usenet has to be how long it took them.

Perhaps at the start it was something different but as I understand it for many years now it's basically been there to illegally download stuff (for a monthy fee). I remember years ago they were attacking all the music services and torrents and the like all the usenet users were quietly laughing as they could download pretty well whatever they liked as no one had noticed them.

 

Has BT blocked the site yet? Virginmedia haven't but I'm sure if one does, they all will follow.

 

Good article Ben.

There was a time (many years ago) that I relied upon Usenet for technical support information for hardware and software (think post-BBS but pre-forum era). This was when web content wasn't the best and most hardware & software companies weren't yet switched on to the web for customer support.

The wealth of content was great, you just had to sort the wheat from the chaff, just like you do now with tech support forum postings. However, the breadth of specialist detail available was great.

Life moves on, everything I used Usenet for is now catered for in forum's, handily indexed by the all powerful Google. Finding stuff is much easier.

I do agree that for the likes of the media business, a scatter gun approach is easier than selective action but where will it stop?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you just described the streaming option of Netflix or LoveFilm? Granted it's not quite movies out now (I share your sentiment on cinemas) but it's pretty close...

Previous housemate used to use LiveFilm on his PS3 and said it was fantastic...

 

@Snips I'm not sure how quick Virgin will be to follow. BT have been ordered to use their CleanFeed technology (which was invented to block child pornography, now its resources are being stretched for civil matters). AFAIK no other ISP has such infrastructure in place. There are other methods available (DNS blocking is touted a lot, but personally I think that's a ridiculously ill thought-out idea) but I sincerely doubt any ISPs are going to act without a court order.

 

Made a nice lengthy reply but pressed "dicsuss in the forums" instead of post comment.



TL;DR. Conservative (not limited to parties) political and business practices will be their own downfall.

 

I remember the 70's The music industry was all over "pirating their music with cassettes and that it would destroy the music industry.

Then came out the VCR's and the Movie industry was all over "pirating movies with VHS tapes" and that it would destroy the industry

It did not happen.

In the early 90's came out the cd writer and the music industry was all over "Pirating their music with CD writables" and that it would destroy the industry.

Then came out the DVD writers and the movie industry was all over "Pirating their movies with DVD writables" would destroy the industry.

It did not happen.

Then in early 2000 came internet downloading with P2P (Peer to Peer) Emule, kazaa etc. And both the Music and Movie industry was all over "Pirating their music/movies" would destroy their industry.

It did not happen.

See a patern here?

Take a look at this and see how all the pirating above affect the industry...

 

Let's face it, if these corporations, "interest groups" and governments had their way, the whole of the internet would be censored. I doubt there is anything on the 'net which one group or another isn't rabidly opposed to.

That said, I'm still unimpressed with the situation for streaming media. I want lossless audio - only way I can remotely get that at the minute is "buy the CD". I want high-bitrate HD films - same, for most things, I have to purchase physical media.

The other reason I like physical media is that when my ISP is messing around (which they seem to do quite a bit) I can pop a film on or a CD or whatever and read a book. If my ISP goes down, that's it, streaming is right out the window. It's not my PC, router or modem, it's the fact that Virgin inherited the fibreoptic network from Telewest, who inherited it from NTL, who inherited it from Cable London. It's years old, and needs an overhaul... but it would cost too much to do so.

 

I can't see the closure of one aggregator site will have even the slightest effect on usenet in general. Such sites (and as far as I know, there are still quite a few) make things easier and faster than grabbing all the post titles for a group and searching manually, but are by no means essential. It's a similar situation to Share/Winny/PerfectDark: aggregator sites list post names or file hashes, but have nothing to do with the actual distribution end.

At least, this was the case a few years ago. I haven't checked back since HDTV became available over here (both OTA and Blu-ray), making the days of a.b.hdtv and enormous MPEG2 transport streams (or D-VHS. I wonder if anyone even still owns any of those?) obsolete.

 

Streaming on Lovefilm is like watching a badly damaged VHS. The quality is horrendous!

 

Added to this, the selection of streaming files is really poor. I used to be signed up to LoveFilm but almost every film I wanted to watch was via the postal service only.

 

Please, let's not use Steam as a model for online film distribution!

You might be happy that all of your back catalogue of games will evaporate in a few years, when Valve decide that supporting the activation servers is too much trouble. You might be willing to put up with that (although I still play Total Annihilation, for instance).

What's much less acceptable is the idea that my entire back catalogue of films might go the same way.

If they're going to do it, it needs to be unencrypted, or at least about as encrypted as a DVD, which means much the same thing.

 

streaming isnt that great for video as isp's throttle you down (or can do) or you can have a bandwidth limit.

few hours of streaming nascar with a couple of racebuddy streams, about 6gig of bandwidth...