Something nobody's mentioned here, given that most of our distinguished contributors are admittedly ignorant of what _is_ on Usenet news groups, is the fact that many of them carry binary copies of music and video. One can pull whole TV series off the news groups. Time Warner's main business is NOT providing internet service. It is "intelectual property" - a market they desperately want to control.
I can get British TV series off of Usenet that I can't get through BBC America or other "legitimate" sources, and I can get them without them having been edited, dumbed-down and censored (supposedly to better appeal to American tastes).
We tend to think censorship goes one way, that it's material from the U.S. that gets censored for other countries. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Have you ever heard of Bittorrent? You can get what you want from there. Bittorrent is the modern replacement for USENET NEWS (for Warez, that is). That's how I watch my Grand Sumo Tournaments.
As far as the censorship angle goes, I think that's a minor consideration. I think the major one being the huge amount of space and bandwidth USENET NEWS uses in relation to the small number of users.
Jeffrey.
On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Jonathan Hutchins hutchins@tarcanfel.org wrote:
Something nobody's mentioned here, given that most of our distinguished contributors are admittedly ignorant of what _is_ on Usenet news groups, is the fact that many of them carry binary copies of music and video. One can pull whole TV series off the news groups. Time Warner's main business is NOT providing internet service. It is "intelectual property" - a market they desperately want to control.
I can get British TV series off of Usenet that I can't get through BBC America or other "legitimate" sources, and I can get them without them having been edited, dumbed-down and censored (supposedly to better appeal to American tastes).
We tend to think censorship goes one way, that it's material from the U.S. that gets censored for other countries. Nothing could be further from the truth.
--- On Sun, 6/29/08, Jeffrey Watts jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com wrote:
Have you ever heard of Bittorrent? You can get what you want from there. Bittorrent is the modern replacement for USENET NEWS (for Warez, that is). That's how I watch my Grand Sumo Tournaments.
On a practical note, bittorrent is also not a good replacement for Usenet NEWS for "warez" and other such copyright infringing stuff, at least for the uploaders and downloaders who want to avoid civil copyright-infringement lawsuits. Any Bittorrent client can record all the IP addresses of all the other clients which connect to it, making the system very public. Bittorrent also requires that one remain connected to the transfer file for hours to days, sometimes weeks, giving the law enforcement body watching their file transfer plenty of time to link an IP address to a person.
Usenet NEWS, on the other hand, allows one user to upload anonymously (often to an unintentionally-insecure NNTP server), upload all files exactly once to one location very quickly, and then disappear. The end users all download from the Usenet NEWS server on their ISP, and the ISP isn't watching because of "common carrier" provisions. Anonymity means more stuff ends up on Usenet NEWS than on Bittorrent, and the previously mentioned "lost postings" problem is neatly resolved with PAR and PAR2 files (which can be anonymously reposted later on if necessary).
It's really weird that someone engaging in copyright infringement is defending replacing a system which made it very hard for law enforcement to catch up with copyright infringement violations, with another system that makes it somewhat easy for law enforcement to catch up with copyright infringement violations.
You said that you liked watching British television that you can't get here. I pointed out that you ought to look at using Bittorrent. I also mentioned that that's how I get my high-def Grand Sumo Tournaments six times a year. I'm personally not worried that Asashoryu is going to come and kick my ass for downloading the Natsu Basho via Bittorrent. I'd welcome the opportunity to watch them in high-def on TWC via PPV. And yes, I buy all of my music.
Anyhow, I'm not "defending" the replacement of a system. I'm the voice of Father Time letting the grumpy old men of the world know that USENET news is:
1) Outdated technology 2) Too expensive 3) Unable to scale 4) Obsoleted by non-distributed forum technology
So please if you don't mind, stop putting words into my mouth. I'm not saying that there's nothing interesting on News. I used to use it all the time. Here's what I'm saying, and I'm going to put separately with emphasis so y'all can feel me proper:
USENET NEWS IS DYING BECAUSE IT'S NO LONGER A GOOD TECHNOLOGY. YOU OUGHT TO CONSIDER MOVING TO A NEWER TECHNOLOGY, PERHAPS ONE INVENTED IN THE 1990S. I HEAR THERE IS THIS THING OUT THERE CALLED "THE WORLD WIDE WEB". CHECK IT OUT.
Anyhow, sarcasm and good humor aside, it's struggling now for good reason, and not because Time Warner (or any other provider) is evil. It's simply too expensive to maintain, it's wasteful of bandwidth and storage, and doesn't have enough users to justify the cost. Most people have moved on to web-based alternatives. You ought to try and move your community before the lights go out.
Jeffrey.
On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 3:10 AM, Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
It's really weird that someone engaging in copyright infringement is defending replacing a system which made it very hard for law enforcement to catch up with copyright infringement violations, with another system that makes it somewhat easy for law enforcement to catch up with copyright infringement violations.
Sorry, confused Jonathan with Leo a bit.
J.
On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 3:54 AM, Jeffrey Watts jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com wrote:
You said that you liked watching British television that you can't get here. I pointed out that you ought to look at using Bittorrent. I also mentioned that that's how I get my high-def Grand Sumo Tournaments six times a year. I'm personally not worried that Asashoryu is going to come and kick my ass for downloading the Natsu Basho via Bittorrent. I'd welcome the opportunity to watch them in high-def on TWC via PPV. And yes, I buy all of my music.
--- On Mon, 6/30/08, Jeffrey Watts jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com wrote:
USENET NEWS IS DYING BECAUSE IT'S NO LONGER A GOOD TECHNOLOGY. YOU OUGHT TO CONSIDER MOVING TO A NEWER TECHNOLOGY, PERHAPS ONE INVENTED IN THE 1990S. I HEAR THERE IS THIS THING OUT THERE CALLED "THE WORLD WIDE WEB". CHECK IT OUT.
Can I have your entire collection of PRINTED BOOKS? After all, you are sitting there claiming that anyone using "outdated technologies" should give them up and move to something newer, say something created in the 1990s.
Printed books are even older than Usenet NEWS, so I'm just assuming you must hate books now.
On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 9:22 AM, Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
Can I have your entire collection of PRINTED BOOKS? After all, you are sitting there claiming that anyone using "outdated technologies" should give them up and move to something newer, say something created in the 1990s.
Printed books are even older than Usenet NEWS, so I'm just assuming you must hate books now.
I can't use my laptop comfortably while sitting on the toilet, so there's still a use for printed works. Nice try, but again this is a logical fallacy (this one is called a "straw man").
Jeffrey.
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Jeffrey Watts -
Jonathan Hutchins -
Leo Mauler