[merged] binary newsgroups on NTL

[Web-Junkie]

The thing that makes me laugh is when you ring NTL up to report a fault and they tell there isn't one, HELLO!! that's why i'm ringing you up to TELL you there is a fault, DUH!!!

Imagine telling them it was raining when you made the call and they told you that you must be mistaken as it wasn't raining where they were and therefore you must be wrong

Life would be pretty boring without NTL though, bless em.

[ian@huth]

I often wonder about the legality of ISPs having newsgroups on their servers that contain copyright material. From what I understand the ISP is not responsible for material that is requested by a customer but could be liable for copyright material stored on its servers that nobody has requested.

[jtwn]

I've always wondered about that too, in fact i've always wondered about the whole legality of all newsgroup servers' binaries.

[PAZZA]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

I often wonder about the legality of ISPs having newsgroups on their servers that contain copyright material. From what I understand the ISP is not responsible for material that is requested by a customer but could be liable for copyright material stored on its servers that nobody has requested.

Lets think about newsgroup providers such as giganews etc., they sell access to pirate material, if they could have be prosecuted for supplying such, im sure they already would have been, so I assume they cant be touched, why can they prosecute file sharers, the original napster, but not news providers?

There does seem to be an improvement today, lets hope it continues.

[PAZZA]

ill give it a week or so and then check it out, NTL are the real losers here though, internal bandwith is free, external isnt.

After earlier post it has returned to incomplete and no posts, must have been a temporary lapse into normality on the part of NTL.

[Web-Junkie]

It may be a header problem?

I downloaded some headers with Newsbin yesterday and got mostly complete posts, then I tried Agent today and the same posts are all incomplete, yet I can still download the files using the headers stored in Newsbin from yetsreday (plus a few fills from Astraweb), even though I have deleted/redownload the headers in Agent and see the same files all incomplete again!

Maybe the servers headers/bodies are not fully synchronized yet!

[goblin]

Originally Posted by PAZZA

Lets think about newsgroup providers such as giganews etc., they sell access to pirate material, if they could have be prosecuted for supplying such, im sure they already would have been, so I assume they cant be touched, why can they prosecute file sharers, the original napster, but not news providers?

The answer to this is AIUI from the american perspective as this is where most of the NSP's are: That the NSP's provide a service ie: Usenet access. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that some content takes up large amounts of space is not of interest to them. They are only concerned about keeping the service running and providing the best service they can provide.

As to the reasons why they haven't been prosecuted, well the truth is they have. But unlike p2p or any of the other types of filesharing, there isn't one particular server to chase down. You make a post to usenet asking a question say, in the same way you would on this forum. It is then immediately sent to thousands of other servers. Some private, others public, some open, some closed. From the moment you press that button, its distributed accross the board to all of them. That message is then imediately available to a large number of people millions or billions is anyones guess. If one of the servers falls over, you can use another. Unlike this forum, which is only available on 2 or 3 servers I imagine.

Not only that, but the one thing you don't mess with in the states is BIG business and these companies make serious money. Some will fight, some will not. But if things come to a head. As US citizens they can fall back on the "freedom of speach", "freedom of information" acts. They are allowed to share information of any type that they like, the files on the servers are just data, it isn't untill they are reconstructed that anything can be made out of them, if anything at all.

As far as most providers are concerned, they are just large essays\rants\raves\discussions\digital photos\shareware\freeware and a whole host of other traffic. They act as carriers for raw data. What's more, they have this acknowledged under one of their laws, so they aren't liable for anything, provided that should something come to their attention that shouldn't be on one of their servers, they remove it. Which they do. So for the most part they are left alone. That is unless you were to post\download anything that relates to adult behaviour towards children. In which case the gloves are off and even the largest of the nsp's will aid the authorities in tracking those that make\use such material available.

As for how the UK deals with usenet. You will need to look up Godfrey vs Demon Internet through google. AFAICT UK isp's are deemed to be carriers as well and act in much the way as the US nsp's do when advised of questionable content by a copyright holder.

[rick47]

Well after watching all this for news on the newsgroup fiasco.I had to join and throw my 1/2 pence in...........it's up, it's not, it is, it's not.....today it was, (1630 GMT), now it's not (1900 GMT), just old posts that are not available. If I wanted 'ping pong' I would get a table tennis table, if I wanted a 'yo yo' I would buy one, I got an ISP, that frankly has it's head up a donky

[PAZZA]

Originally Posted by goblin

The answer to this is AIUI from the american perspective as this is where most of the NSP's are: That the NSP's provide a service ie: Usenet access. Nothing more, nothing less.... etc.

Great answer, very informative, thanx

A friend once posted a divx movie onto the binaries via a NTL newsserver, and within a day was threateded with disconnection etc. You have to have a pay newsserver to get away with it.

[Keytops]

Not wanting to put the cat amongst the pigeon's again, as things were gradually getting back to normal. But, today I notice not only some of the binary groups aren't updated, but also some of the text groups too.



Lets hope its just a glitch.

[BackToMine]

NTL should drop the binary newsgroups and keep the text ones.

You can deny it til the cows come home, they are full of nothing but illegal material and kiddy porn.

[astra_lestat]

Originally Posted by BackToMine

kiddy porn.

How would you know that? Have you visited these porno kiddy groups and looked at pics?


I for sure, have never ever done that, I even didn't know about it. You should not as well.

[Web-Junkie]

Originally Posted by BackToMine

NTL should drop the binary newsgroups and keep the text ones.

You can deny it til the cows come home, they are full of nothing but illegal material and kiddy porn.

So is the INTERNET itself , so nothing new there! NTL should drop internet access too then by your reckoning!