NewzBin
Encyclopedia
Newzbin is a British
Usenet
indexing website, intended to facilitate access to content on Usenet. The site has caused controversy over its stance on copyright
ed material. Access to the Newzbin.com website was blocked by BT
in 2011 following legal action in the UK by Hollywood
film studios.
s that have been posted on Usenet
, and offers the results through a search engine
, and categories including "Movies", Music", "Apps" and "Books". The site creates NZB
files, which allow the files to be downloaded with a suitable newsreader. NZB files are similar to torrent file
s, as they do not contain the file itself, but information about the location of the file to be downloaded. The search results can be browsed free of charge after creating a user account, but access to the NZB files is restricted to premium members who pay a subscription.
, Universal City Studios Productions LLLP
, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation
, Disney Enterprises, Inc.
and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.
took joint legal action against Newzbin in the High Court
in London
, arguing that the site was encouraging widespread copyright infringement
by indexing unofficial copies of films on Usenet.
In March 2010, Mr. Justice Kitchin
ruled that Newzbin was deliberately indexing copyrighted content, observing that Newzbin had a "sophisticated and substantial infrastructure and in the region of 700,000 members, though not all premium", and that "for the year ended 31 December 2009, it had a turnover in excess of £1million, a profit in excess of £360,000 and paid dividends on ordinary shares of £415,000". Chris Elsworth, the main operator of Newzbin, had said repeatedly during the case that he had no knowledge of infringement occurring on the service, and that Newzbin's categories for "CAM
," "screener
," "telesync
," "DVD
,"R5 retail
","Blu-ray," and "HD DVD
" did not suggest any evidence of infringement. Kitchin was critical of Elsworth, stating that his evidence disputing the claim that the site's features did not encourage copyright infringement was "simply not credible".
On 18 May 2010, the Newzbin.com site was temporarily shut down, displaying the message "Regrettably the Newzbin website has to close as a result of the legal action against us."
By 2 June 2010, Newzbin was back online, under the name Newzbin2, but using the same code and database as its predecessor, and hosted in the Seychelles
.
applied for an injunction
to force BT
, the largest Internet service provider
in the United Kingdom
, to cut off customers' access to Newzbin. On 28 July 2011, the High Court ruled that BT must block access to Newzbin, using Cleanfeed
. BT announced that it would not appeal against the ruling. The Open Rights Group
was critical of the decision, saying that it could set a "dangerous" precedent.
In September 2011, Newzbin released client software
which aimed to circumvent the BT blocking.
On 26 October 2011 at the High Court, Mr. Justice Arnold ordered BT to block its estimated six million customers' access to the website Newzbin2 within fourteen days, the first ruling of its kind under UK copyright law
. Attempts to access the site from a BT IP address
are met by the message "Error - site blocked". Newzbin claimed that the block was ineffective, and that 93.5% of its active UK users have downloaded its workaround software. A study suggested that the workaround involved encryption
to hide communication between users and Newzbin2, including the use of the Tor
network.
Sky
, Virgin Media
and TalkTalk
have been asked by the Motion Picture Association to block access to Newzbin, and have indicated that they would do so in response to a court order. The MPA has also asked BT to block access to The Pirate Bay
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
indexing website, intended to facilitate access to content on Usenet. The site has caused controversy over its stance on copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ed material. Access to the Newzbin.com website was blocked by BT
BT Group
BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...
in 2011 following legal action in the UK by Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
film studios.
Features
Newzbin indexes binary fileBinary file
A binary file is a computer file which may contain any type of data, encoded in binary form for computer storage and processing purposes; for example, computer document files containing formatted text...
s that have been posted on Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
, and offers the results through a search engine
Web search engine
A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and FTP servers. The search results are generally presented in a list of results often referred to as SERPS, or "search engine results pages". The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other...
, and categories including "Movies", Music", "Apps" and "Books". The site creates NZB
NZB
NZB is an XML-based file format for retrieving posts from NNTP servers. The format was conceived by the developers of the Newzbin.com Usenet Index. NZB is effective when used with search-capable websites. These websites create NZB files out of what is needed to be downloaded...
files, which allow the files to be downloaded with a suitable newsreader. NZB files are similar to torrent file
Torrent file
A torrent file stores metadata used for BitTorrent. It is defined in the BitTorrent specification.Simply, a torrent is data about a target file, though it contains no information about the content of the file. The only data that the torrent holds is information about the location of different...
s, as they do not contain the file itself, but information about the location of the file to be downloaded. The search results can be browsed free of charge after creating a user account, but access to the NZB files is restricted to premium members who pay a subscription.
2010 legal action from Hollywood studios
In February and March 2010, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, Universal City Studios Productions LLLP
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, Disney Enterprises, Inc.
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
took joint legal action against Newzbin in the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, arguing that the site was encouraging widespread copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
by indexing unofficial copies of films on Usenet.
In March 2010, Mr. Justice Kitchin
David Kitchin
-Career:Having studied Natural Sciences as an undergraduate at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, Kitchin switched to Law in his final year and was called to the Bar in 1977; he has been a Bencher since 2003. During his university days, he also coxed the Cambridge team that won the 1975 Boat Race.He...
ruled that Newzbin was deliberately indexing copyrighted content, observing that Newzbin had a "sophisticated and substantial infrastructure and in the region of 700,000 members, though not all premium", and that "for the year ended 31 December 2009, it had a turnover in excess of £1million, a profit in excess of £360,000 and paid dividends on ordinary shares of £415,000". Chris Elsworth, the main operator of Newzbin, had said repeatedly during the case that he had no knowledge of infringement occurring on the service, and that Newzbin's categories for "CAM
Cam (bootleg)
A cam is a bootleg recording of a film. Unlike the more common DVD rip or screener recording methods which involve the duplication of officially distributed media, cam versions are original clandestine recordings made in movie theaters.Typically, the person filming the movie will smuggle a compact...
," "screener
Screener
A screener is an advance screening of a film sent to critics, awards voters, video stores , and other film industry professionals, including producers and distributors. A screener often has no post-processing....
," "telesync
Telesync
A telesync is a bootleg recording of a film recorded in a movie theater, often with a professional camera on a tripod in the projection booth , with a direct connection to the sound source...
," "DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
,"R5 retail
R5 (bootleg)
R5, in the film business, is a copy of a movie made with a telecine machine from an analog source and is typically of a lower quality than other region releases....
","Blu-ray," and "HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
" did not suggest any evidence of infringement. Kitchin was critical of Elsworth, stating that his evidence disputing the claim that the site's features did not encourage copyright infringement was "simply not credible".
On 18 May 2010, the Newzbin.com site was temporarily shut down, displaying the message "Regrettably the Newzbin website has to close as a result of the legal action against us."
By 2 June 2010, Newzbin was back online, under the name Newzbin2, but using the same code and database as its predecessor, and hosted in the Seychelles
Seychelles
Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
.
2011 legal action and BT site blocking
In June 2011, the Motion Picture AssociationMotion Picture Association
The Motion Picture Association is the international counterpart of the Motion Picture Association of America.-History:The MPA starting out as the Motion Picture Association of America was started in 1922, as a trade organization for American Film industry...
applied for an injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
to force BT
BT Group
BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...
, the largest Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, to cut off customers' access to Newzbin. On 28 July 2011, the High Court ruled that BT must block access to Newzbin, using Cleanfeed
Cleanfeed (content blocking system)
Cleanfeed is the name given to privately administered ISP level content filtering systems operating in the United Kingdom and Canada. It is also the name of a proposed mandatory Australian ISP level content filtering system which is undergoing testing...
. BT announced that it would not appeal against the ruling. The Open Rights Group
Open Rights Group
The Open Rights Group is a UK-based organisation that works to preserve digital rights and freedoms by campaigning on digital rights issues, acting as a media clearinghouse service putting journalists in touch with experts, and by fostering a community of grassroots activists...
was critical of the decision, saying that it could set a "dangerous" precedent.
In September 2011, Newzbin released client software
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
which aimed to circumvent the BT blocking.
On 26 October 2011 at the High Court, Mr. Justice Arnold ordered BT to block its estimated six million customers' access to the website Newzbin2 within fourteen days, the first ruling of its kind under UK copyright law
Copyright law of the United Kingdom
The modern concept of copyright originated in the United Kingdom, in the year 1710, with the Statute of Anne.The current copyright law of the United Kingdom is to be found in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 , as amended...
. Attempts to access the site from a BT IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
are met by the message "Error - site blocked". Newzbin claimed that the block was ineffective, and that 93.5% of its active UK users have downloaded its workaround software. A study suggested that the workaround involved encryption
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
to hide communication between users and Newzbin2, including the use of the Tor
Tor (anonymity network)
Tor is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Tor client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage from someone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis...
network.
Sky
Sky Broadband
Sky Broadband is an internet service provider for Sky customers.As of March 2008 Sky claims to have reached 1.428 million customers, and unbundled 1,179 exchanges, covering 70% of the United Kingdom. In October 2007, Sky reached the 1 million mark in terms of customer numbers, and claim to be...
, Virgin Media
Virgin Media
Virgin Media Inc. is a company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom...
and TalkTalk
TalkTalk
TalkTalk is a pay television, telecommunications and internet service provider company headquartered in London, United Kingdom...
have been asked by the Motion Picture Association to block access to Newzbin, and have indicated that they would do so in response to a court order. The MPA has also asked BT to block access to The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
.
External links
- Full text of 28 July 2011 ruling by Mr. Justice Arnold
- Newzbin 2 site to be blocked by BT after MPA case ruling. Video from BBC News, 28 July 2011.
- European Court of Justice rejects web piracy filter BBC News, 24 November 2011.