Re: giganews (usenet)
 

You would be correct and I don't have very much experience with newsgroups but the majority of content is copyright since they will be big files and the legit content will just be text. The legit stuff although dying out is support forms, news articles (as he name suggests) etc. Most isp's used to or still do provide free access to newsgroups but block certain groups, In fact VM used to (or maybe they still do?) provide support newsgroups which is where all of the virgin staff on the forums used to be before they moved to the virgin forums.
And as for paying to download copyright material people always have and continue to pay for copyright material.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

Paying for copyright material is not an infringement and is the open legitimate way.

Paying for a hign speed connection to a newsgroup to download infringing material is not.

@vmfriend most ISP's say it is 5% of customers.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

I dont find it odd, a fair few people download such material due to lack of availability rather than cost.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

Why? - not to condone such practice, but one legitimate DVD can cost more than a months subscription to a newsgroup download service.

Also, specifically for TV programs, it is often possible to download episodes of series being shown in the USA significantly in advance of their screening in the UK. Some people find that worth a relatively small monthly fee.

I wouldn't even try to estimate that - there are over 100,000 newsgroups, a lot (especially the 'text' groups) carry legitimate content, others, such as the 'alt.binary' groups carry a lot of copyright infringing material.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

I meant paying somebody for access to or a copy of the material that has not come from the distributor. Like buying a copy of a dvd or cd from somebody who has ripped it from an original disk or downloaded it then burnt a few copies to sell.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

I know what you meant but it was not what you said, I merely clarified.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

I understand what you mean, I was trying to make the point that from what I have read most people seem to offer cost as a reason to download copyright material, although I am sure that there are some people who could afford to pay choose not to.

It just seems strange that someone would pay a fee of any kind when the reason for not paying for copyright material could be cost.

When you say USA tv series, again i take the point, however someone has still paid to produce the series and likely it will appear on tv in the uk where a subscription is required, so again avoiding paying, again I accept that some people could afford to pay but choose not to because they want to see it as soon as possible.

I don't want to start an argument, i genuinely want to understand why the use of torrents/newsgroups etc is a contentious issue and why some people choice to use them and some not.

In addition i would rather people just admit to downloading films/music illegally and that they are annoyed that they can't download it 24/7.

Of course paying to download copyrighted material is legitimate, but I assume newsgroups is not a legitimate source (ie the original content producer does not get a cut of the action)

---------- Post added at 22:58 ---------- Previous post was at 22:56 ----------

Apologies for typos, I can't edit them for some reason.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

It is currently FAR safer to download stuff from newsgroups rather than torrents and normally you get your full internet speed instantly when STM and traffic shaping aren't in operation, so paying £7 a month for that is well worth it i think.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

It is FAR safer to download from EITHER newsgroups OR a private torrent tracker.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

Private torrents i have never used, been using newsgroups maybe 4yrs or so. :)

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

I agree, it is a question of balancing the payment of about £8.00 a month for several download 'opportunities' compared to £12 for one legitimate DVD. Your last comment is the most apt, in my opinion.

As above, this is relative - someone downloading a DVD a week could see the newsgroup subscription fee as an 'affordable' option compared to the full retail price of the legitimate media.

As I said, it isn't my intention to condone such practice.

Not an argument - a discussion, hopefully :)

In my opinion the 'difference' between newsgroups & torrents is that use of torrents 'automatically' implies sharing your download via the peering system.

Using newsgroups implies a 'personal' download of material that - conceptually - is made available by a 'common carrier' & not shared. The 'excuse' here being that if one downloads a film or TV program, then deletes the file after watching it, then no 'distribution' of illegal content has occured.

Very true - the irony of that is moot.

Newsgroups 'legitimacy' seems to have avoided direct sanctions, so far, but the successful prosecution of a newsgroup indexing service earlier this year was interesting.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

does VM usenet have ssl? getting half speed is no fun
should i change my mtu from 1500?

customers should be the only ones to decide what they use their connection for

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

No they don't allow SSL.

I have now committed to a paid for newsgroups provider with SSL and a separate VPN provider so i can tunnel if needed, It means i still get full speed.

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

May I ask which VPN you have signed up to Sirius

Many Thanks

Re: giganews (usenet)
 

http://vpnuk.net/serverstatus1.php


On a 1 month trial at the moment