Last October, the High Court in London handed down a judgment to BT, one of the UK’s largest Internet service providers. The injunction – the first of its type in UK history – ordered BT to block subscriber access to Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 on copyright grounds.

Although Newzbin2 anticipated the result and had already prepared circumvention software to enable BT users to carry on using the site, it still has a key vulnerability – its US-seizable .COM domain. According to the site’s operators, that weakness is now being addressed.

“Newzbin is leaving the American Internet. In a couple of weeks we will cease to use the newzbin.com domain and move to newzbin2.es,” says the site’s Mr White.

“We regret the need to do this but, thanks to the retards in the US Government and the MPA, a ‘.com’ address is no longer viable. Really, any domain controlled by the US government proxy Verisign isn’t viable.”

No exact date has been given for the switch but it will be during the next few weeks. For “legal reasons” the old .COM domain, which Newzbin2′s operators say is currently rented from a 3rd party, will not redirect or even provide a link to the new Spanish domain.

During 2012 it’s expected that the site’s unblocking tool will see wider use as other ISPs are also expected to begin blocking Newzbin2. But according to the site, thus far censorship has had the opposite effect.

“I can’t give exact figures but an executive summary would be that, from our Apache logs, traffic grew steadily over 2011 with a big spike about the time we were blocked; down a little since then, but still at higher levels than ever before,” Mr White told TorrentFreak.

“Overall the MPA’s web blocking has had something of a Streisand Effect on our traffic levels. It seems that they are driving users to us. Our best friend is our worst enemy,” he notes.

Nevertheless, Newzbin2′s operators aren’t simply cruising. Mr White told TorrentFreak that they intend to use the trust they’ve built up in the community to launch a secure VPN service which will not only allow anonymous Internet use, but will also defeat site-blocking measures.

But surprisingly, especially given the astonishing MegaUpload-related developments of the last week, they also intend to launch a cyberlocker service.

“Our reaction to Megaupload and the fallout was twofold. On the one level this is a very important case because if New Zealand extradite Dotcom to the US, which is where the smart money is I reckon, it will be a fascinating exhibition of the MPA’s legal strategy against cyberlockers. It may be the feds prosecuting but we all know that the MPA’s hand is up their puppet ass,” says Mr White.

“The shame for Dotcom was only that he didn’t spend his money on politicians & cops rather than godawful pink Cadillacs. And how INTERESTING that the FBI have shown publicly that they really can backdoor Skype,” he added.

Mr White described the ensuing pandemonium in the cyberlocker market as “like a herd of elephants being frightened by bees” and advised site operators who have done nothing wrong to “man up and show some spine.”

Newzbin2 assure us that their forthcoming service will be “legal from the ground up” but predict their service will receive “sniping from the malodorous content dinosaurs.”

In an uncertain world and even more uncertain cyberlocker market, that last prediction is probably the most certain we’ve heard all week.

Source: Newzbin Dumps .COM, Promises VPN & Cyberlocker Services

Popularity: 1% [?]

After BT lost their case earlier this year opposing the blockade of Newzbin2, this month the ISP and the MPA were back in court looking over the final details in the landmark case.

At the last-minute a Newzbin2 and BT user stepped up to intervene in the proceedings but his appeals have fallen on stony ground.

Today, Justice Arnold handed down a written judgment to BT which orders the ISP to completely block subscriber access to Newzbin2 within 14 days.

As previously noted, BT will use its ‘Cleanfeed’ system to censor Newzbin2, a technology normally used to block images and sites connected to child abuse. However, the court took note that Newzbin2 have already released a tool designed to circumvent the system and judged accordingly.

“Since the main judgment was delivered, the operators of Newzbin2 have made available client software which is designed to allow a user to access the Newzbin2 website independently from, for example, an installed web browser, and thereby circumvent any block imposed by BT pursuant to the order,” wrote Justice Arnold.

“For this and other reasons, it is common ground that the order should permit the Studios to notify additional IP addresses and/or URLs to BT in future in order for those to be subject to the same blocking measures as www.newzbin.com.”

According to the Judge, the MPA and BT were in conflict over the extent of this flexibility.

The MPA preferred the block to encompass “any other IP address or URL whose sole or predominant purpose is to enable or facilitate access to the Newzbin [2] website,” but BT wanted “and any other website whose sole purpose is to provide access to the Newzbin [2] website.”

The Judge agreed with the MPA and noted that the studios should not have to “return to court for an order in respect of every single IP address or URL that the operators of Newzbin2 may use.”

Interestingly, BT asked permission to have the blocking order set aside “in the event that the [Studios] fail, within a reasonable time after the date of this order, to apply for and obtain an equivalent injunction against other UK ISPs.”

The Court denied the request but noted that the MPA are already trying to persuade other ISPs to submit to injunctions voluntarily.

BT was told that it will pick up the costs of the blocking case from 16th December 2010 to 28th July 2011. Any costs incurred after this date will be paid by each party.

BT will also have to foot the bill of implementing the blocks which are estimated at an initial £5,000 plus £100 for each amendment.

The Blocking Order

1. In respect of its customers to whose internet service the system known as Cleanfeed is applied whether optionally or otherwise, the Respondent shall within 14 days adopt the following technical means to block or attempt to block access by its customers to the website known as Newzbin2 currently accessible at www. newzbin .com, its domains and sub-domains and including payments. newzbin .com and any other IP address or URL whose sole or predominant purpose is to enable or facilitate access to the Newzbin2 website. The technical means to be adopted are:

(i) IP address re-routing in respect of each and every IP address from which the said website operates and which is notified in writing to the Respondent by the Applicants or their agents; and

(ii) DPI-based URL blocking utilising at least summary analysis in respect of each and every URL available at the said website and its domains and sub-domains and which is notified in writing to the Respondent by the Applicants or their agents.

2. For the avoidance of doubt paragraph 1 is complied with if the Respondent uses the system known as Cleanfeed and does not require the Respondent to adopt DPI-based URL blocking utilising detailed analysis.

3. The Respondent shall not be in breach of paragraph 1 if it temporarily suspends Cleanfeed or the addition of IP addresses or URLs thereto with the consent in writing of the Applicants or their agents.

4. The parties have permission to apply on notice in the event of any material change of circumstances including, for the avoidance of doubt but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, in respect of the costs, consequences for the parties and effectiveness of the aforesaid technical means from time to time.

5. The Applicants shall pay the Respondent’s costs of this application down to 16 December 2010. The Respondent shall pay the Applicants’ costs of this application from 17 December 2010 to 28 July 2011 inclusive. Such costs shall be assessed on the standard basis if not agreed and set off against each other. Each party shall bear its own costs since 28 July 2011.

Source: UK ISP BT Given 14 Days To Block Newzbin2

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In March 2010, the MPA won a significant legal battle against Usenet indexing site Newzbin and in May the site collapsed under a mountain of debt.

The celebrations following the site’s demise were to be short-lived. Newzbin was quickly resurrected under new management as Newzbin2, and the MPA faced the prospect of taking on new legal action against the site’s new owners. Rather than tackle Newzbin2 head on, Hollywood tried a different approach.

During September 2010, TorrentFreak learned that the MPA were developing plans to take leading UK ISP BT to court and by December we had solid proof that was indeed the case. The MPA went to court seeking an injunction against BT in order to force them to block Newzbin2.

“In launching this case, the MPA is aiming to secure an order that will enable BT to block Internet access to the site, thus preventing the site from using the Internet to make money through infringement,” the MPA informed us in a statement.

This week the MPA are back at the High Court again, hoping it can get an injunction to force BT to block the site for its 5.6 million subscribers. According to an MPA spokesperson, BT was selected for two reasons.

“BT was chosen because it’s the largest [ISP] and already has the technology in place, through its Cleanfeed system, to block the site,” she said.

Developed by BT at an estimated cost of £500,000, Cleanfeed is a content blocking system that has been operational since 2004. In conjunction with information supplied by the Internet Watch Foundation, it is used by BT to block child pornography sites.

Traffic destined for a blacklisted URL or IP address is intercepted by Cleanfeed. At this point BT impersonates the destination web server and returns an HTTP 404 status code, causing a subscriber’s web browser to show a site “not found” message.

It is unclear how much development work has been done on the system since its inception, but early versions of Cleanfeed had a number of limitations. The product only worked on the standard port for regular browsing, port 80. It was also unable to block encrypted or proxied web traffic, unless the proxy itself was on the blacklist.

Interestingly, according to comments made in 2004 by Mike Galvin, then Director of Internet Services for BT Retail, the company already had concerns that outsiders would attempt to widen the purpose of Cleanfeed. Another ISP, Wanadoo, was apparently approached by the BPI to use a system similar to Cleanfeed to block music piracy.

In response, Galvin said that if the pressure to “extend the scope” of Cleanfeed became too great, BT would cancel the project. BT has made no recent public comment to that effect in connection with this current action by the MPA.

“The MPA application to engage in censorship of the Internet for their own petty interests would, if granted, set a dangerous precedent in a Western democracy,” Newzbin told TorrentFreak in an earlier statement.

“‘Drive-by’ litigation such as this will cut off access to substantial legitimate content and is entirely unwarranted & disproportionate.”

Newzbin have already taken steps to mitigate any site blocking measures by using the TOR anonymity system.

“The MPA’s lame attempt at censoring us in the UK won’t be permitted to cut Brits off from us if it happens,” concludes Newzbin’s Mr White.

Source: Hollywood Force ISP To Use Child Abuse Filter Against File-Sharing Site

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Three months ago, TorrentFreak discovered that the Motion Picture Association were about to make an unprecedented move against file-sharing in the UK. Their targets were ISP BT and Usenet indexing site Newzbin.com. In discussions the MPA refused to confirm our suspicions. Yesterday, however, the MPA went to court to obtain an injunction to have BT block Newzbin in the UK.

In mid September this year, TorrentFreak received word from a previously reliable source and another anonymous one whose credentials we could not confirm, that the MPA/MPAA had the resurrected Newzbin site in their crosshairs.

The first tip said that the movie industry would try to force UK ISPs to block Newzbin in the UK. The second was more specific – that target would be one of the leading ISPs, BT.

After trying to gather more information, we contacted the MPA with what we knew and asked them if they could confirm our suspicions. At that stage, no information was forthcoming and Newzbin were also in the dark. The trail ran cold but in the last 24 hours the picture clarified somewhat.

Yesterday, the MPA went to court seeking an injunction against BT in order to force them to block Newzbin2, the resurrected version of the original Newzbin which lost a High Court battle earlier in the year.

In a statement sent to TorrentFreak, the MPA explain the process it has undertaken.

“The law which the Court referred to is Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which provides for possible injunctions against internet intermediaries. Article 8.3 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive, of which S97A is the UK implementation, has been used successfully in Denmark to block rogue sites hosting illegal material, with further cases pending in Germany, Holland and Belgium.”

“In launching this case, the MPA is aiming to secure an order that will enable BT to block Internet access to the site, thus preventing the site from using the Internet to make money through infringement,” the MPA adds.

In order for the MPA to obtain an injunction under section 97A it is believed that they must have approached BT already with a request to block Newzbin, but had it denied.

At this stage, BT have confirmed they have received paperwork but refused to comment further.

John McVay, Chief Executive of Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT), a UK trade association representing and promoting the commercial interests of independent films and television, welcomed the news.

“PACT supports today’s announcement. It is a shame that a legal action has to be taken, but illegal websites such as Newzbin2 pose a grave threat to our membership who do not have the resources to combat online copyright infringement.”

In a response to the news, Newzbin state the following:

“This is just an application and not yet a decision of any court. We will be looking to instruct lawyers to fight this on behalf of our UK users. The MPA application to engage in censorship of the Internet for their own petty interests would, if granted, set a dangerous precedent in a Western democracy.

“We don’t want to engage in a polemic but we have fully cooperated with DMCA requests from content owners and we are careful to act lawfully: ‘drive-by’ litigation such as this will cut off access to substantial legitimate content and is entirely unwarranted & disproportionate.”

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Earlier, Dutch movie studio Eyeworks applied for a court injunction to stop Usenet community FTD from “making available to the public” their movie Komt een vrouw bij de dokter (A Woman At The Doctor).

In this case the “making available” wasn’t hosting or storing the movie, nor was it offering torrent or NZB links to it either. FTD allows users to report (or ’spot’) the locations of files which exist on Usenet. It is the publication of this information which Eyeworks was seeking to stop, an activity it believes is tantamount to publishing the movie itself.

In early May the case was heard at a court in The Hague. FTD lost the case and the court issued an ‘ex parte injunction’ (one handed down without any FTD involvement) which banned the site from ’spotting’ the Eyeworks movie.

Through its lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet, FTD filed an objection on the basis that the provisional measure should not have been issued under Dutch law. That objection was heard and the decision was delivered yesterday – FTD lost again.

“I am flabbergasted by the court’s reasoning,” Engelfriet told TorrentFreak. “It is established caselaw that publishing hyperlinks or torrents (Mininova, Pirate Bay) is *not* the same as a publication. FTD does *less* than what Mininova or Pirate Bay does, but according to the court we are more liable than they are?”

In coming to its decision, the court drew heavily on the earlier Newzbin case.

“They say that FTD is doing the same thing, and since the English courts held Newzbin liable for infringement, FTD must be liable too,” Engelfriet explains. “This completely ignores the technical differences between Newzbin and FTD. Newzbin is an NZB search engine through which you find codes to directly download from Usenet. FTD is a forum where people ’spot’ movies using messages in ordinary Dutch.”

FTD had argued that it was not guilty of “making available” because copyrighted files on Usenet are not under its control – it does not control the servers and it has no influence over potential downloaders. The court decided that this is irrelevant. What is important, it said, is “whether the behavior of FTD allows users to download copyrighted files (in an easier manner) and thus makes such files available to the public.” The court ruled that it did.

“This is a collaboration between FTD and its users where they knowingly provide access to unauthorized files,” BREIN director Tim Kuik said in a comment. “It’s clear that this is more than just talking about files like FTD wants people to believe.“

In October this year FTD will face another court case. Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN says that FTD “organizes and promotes” Usenet content, most of which is illegal, and wants the entire site shut down.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Last week a group calling themselves Team R Dogs contacted ex-members of Newzbin with a message claiming that they would soon bring back the site.

That news was quickly followed by the revelation from an ex-director of Newzbin that the site’s domain names had been sold to a Seychelles-based company in order to clear debts. A couple of days ago the company, WCIS Limited, told TorrentFreak they did not wish to tell us about their intentions for the domains.

Run by an ex-Newzbin editor, the DeepSharer blog has now managed to secure an interview with Team R Dogs boss Mr White. Here are the main points, plus those from the later Q & A.

After reiterating that they are nothing to do with the original Newzbin staff, Mr White said that since they already had the Newzbin code, bringing the site back after their legal problems was just the opportune thing to do.

At least to begin, the site will be a “straight clone” of the old site, but a redesign is on the agenda. This process could carried out with the help of users who could be asked to vote on the inclusion of new features. There is even talk of adding non-Usenet search features such as BitTorrent and Rapidshare. And the porn will return on Newzxxx too.

As for retention, the aim is to reach at least 400 days as soon as possible and then move to 600+ days within 9 months from launch.

So will ex-users of Newzbin return to the site? Team R Dogs certainly hope so as they say the whole thing is costing a fortune and quite frankly, they need the money.

“I have personally signed cheques for an $22,000 Sun server and 2 x $9,000 Sun servers to help run this site and I expect to sign more. I have hired a fulltime coder on good salary, I am recruiting another expensive geek to keep the site up,” explains Mr White.

Although the site will probably launch for free for a week or two, the site will revert to a pay venue.

“Let me be clear. We have a profit motive in this. We haven’t tried to ‘steal’ from Newzbin1 guys – they got shutdown by the MPA, not by us. The MPA have given us an opportunity to make money. Thanks MPA,” he continues.

“Does this mean we intend to shit on users & ex-Newzbin1 members? Fuck no. We want to provide a good service and take the same profits the Newzbin1 guys did. Yea sure we are using their works to do so but they have abandoned their works and they have SAID so themselves. There is no moral ambiguity here: they have dropped out of the scene and we are replacing them.”

Part of the support for ex-members will be the continuation of any credit they had on the site, although how far back that will go will remain to be seen. For those adding new credit, a 3rd party payment system will be used.

But let’s not forget about the fate of Newzbin at the hands of the MPA – how will Team R Dogs fend off that inevitable attack?

“We’ll just do a Piratebay on them,” they say. “We can run faster than them and shapeshift.”

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Popularity: 1% [?]

At the beginning of May, Usenet indexing site Newzbin finally collapsed after its copyright infringement battle with several Hollywood studios.

Fans and supporters of the site soon found reason for optimism though, when it was revealed that someone had previously hacked the Newzbin servers and grabbed the source code and several databases.

Adding to the intrigue, a group calling themselves Team R Dogs/Newzbin2 contacted ex-members of Newzbin last week with a message claiming that they would soon bring back the site.

“The crew got most of the original Newzbin source code and the main databases,” said Mr White from the group. “We loved it too much to let it die.”

So it seems that Newzbin could be making a comeback, but the mystery doesn’t stop there. Both the Newzbin.com and Newzxxx.com (Newzbin’s sister adult site) domains have been transferred to Seychelles-based WCIS Limited as can be seen via WHOIS here and here.

As readers will be aware, The Pirate Bay was also transferred to a Seychelles-based company when it had legal troubles.

To shine some light on these developments, the folks over at UsenetShack managed to catch up with an anonymous ex-director of Newzbin to ask a few questions, to which they received some interesting responses.

In respect of the domain name transfer, the unnamed source says that due to money problems and the need to appease company creditors, Newzbin raised funds by selling the site’s domain name but continued to have the use of it “on a leaseback basis”. The ex-directors of Newzbin categorically deny that they are behind the Seychelles company.

As for the liquidation, the source says he finds it “difficult” to imagine who would want to buy the remaining assets of the site with a view to bringing it back “unless they have big clanging balls of steel or they want to transform Newzbin into a legal NZB service”.

So what about Team R Dogs? The source claims that the code they acquired is probably an old version of the site, leading to an assumption they could have been in possession of it for some time. Furthermore, the source speculates that since a number of outside contractors had access to Newzbin’s code, it could be that Team R Dogs are one of those and the hacking claims could be just a cover story.

If all these threads collide and Newzbin eventually comes back under its old (current) domain name, that would be quite a feat and a massive annoyance to the MPA who did a huge amount of work to bring the site to its knees.

At the time of publication, WCIS Limited did not return our request for comments.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Popularity: 3% [?]

After a ruinous battle with Hollywood, Usenet indexing site Newzbin finally folded earlier this month.

Run by an ex-Newzbin editor, the DeepSharer blog quickly reported a rumor that someone had previously hacked the Newzbin servers and grabbed the source code and several databases.

“The Newzbin source code is in the wild,” confirmed Caesium, ex-owner of Newzbin. “Someone has it. I don’t know who, and I don’t know what they’re going to do with it, and I don’t really much care…[...]…whoever obtained it didn’t get it through me – how did they get it? I don’t know.”

Sure enough, in the last couple of days someone called Mr White from Team R Dogs/Newzbin2 has contacted ex-members of Newzbin with an interesting message.

“Good news: we are Newzbin Two, and we have glad tidings: NEWZBIN IS BACK! and we are the new management. The crew got most of the original Newzbin source code and the main databases. We loved it too much to let it die,” says Mr White.

“We are nearly there but it is very complicated. We reckon we’ll up very soon,” he adds.

There can be little doubt, this group have the customer database at the very least since they contacted ex-members of Newzbin using the addresses subscribers used to sign up on the site. Time will tell what other data they have acquired but if the full NZB database is one of them, things could get very interesting indeed.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Newzbin is one of the original Usenet indexing sites and the creator of the immensely-popular .NZB format, which opened up simplified Usenet downloading to the masses.

While the major BitTorrent sites were in Hollywood’s spotlights as the major source of copyright infringement, Usenet sites such as Newzbin remained untouched.

This changed, however, when the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the MPAA’s big brother, sent a threatening letter to the site’s operators in 2008.

This letter was followed by an official announcement of a lawsuit against the Usenet indexer early 2009. The case eventually went to the High Court in February of this year where Newzbin was found liable for copyright infringement.

The court ordered the company that operates the site to stop indexing movies and TV shows to which the Hollywood studios own the copyrights. In addition, Newzbin was told to pay court costs for the MPA, which apparently bankrupted their operation.

“Regrettably the Newzbin website has to close as a result of the legal action against us,” the site’s visitors can now read on Newzbin’s homepage.

The Usenet indexer is linking to a blog post which has additional details on Newzbin’s troubles.

“Apparently Newzbin has been put into administration yesterday because it couldn’t pay its debts. Word is that they owe the MPA £230,000 just in interim costs, and that’s without a full costs ruling or a decision on damages. Apparently they also owe a software development house over £500k,” it reads.

Thus far we haven’t been able to verify the legitimacy of these claims with the Newzbin team, but since the post is linked on the homepage we assume it holds some truth. We will update this article when we find out more.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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