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UseNeXTs legal threat to censor published article on Usenet and Web

Digital Press Release

Date: 10/10/2009 – Release 1

Aldor Nini (aldor.nini[at]web.de)
Jakob Zogalla (webmaster[at]buildblog.de)

Cologne/Germany, 10th October 2009:

The independent Blog site buildblog.de published on 4th Oct. 2009 an article, written by Aldor Nini, with the title “UseNeXT: Legitimate downloading of pirated movies”. (Att. 1)

Web-URL to the article:

http://www.buildblog.de/2009/10/04/usenext-legitimate-downloading-of-pirated-movies/

Message-ID of the article on Usenet:
<23b4274a-fb1d-4db5-8451-177ed2cbbe17@f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>

The article explains the infrastructure behind the international Usenet-Service UseNeXT, its vendors, as well as its functionality related to pirated movie content on Usenet.
Two days later (6th Oct. 2009) the author and the publisher received a legal threat as a pre-litigation letter from the UseNeXT lawyers (Att. 2) to censor the article on Usenet and the Web.
UseNeXT claims, that they’ve received information, that the article has been sent to an employee of Warnerbros. – and they declare that the following statements are WRONG and therefore affect the public-image of their service:

- “It is possible to download illegal content from the UseNeXT service” (translated from lawyers letter)

- “The UseNeXT software has a functiontality which somehow (we don’t know why) owns the passwords of the infringing contents archives and unpacks it automatically. This content won’t be available for other users on the Usenet network not using the UseNeXT software and/or not knowing the password.”

- “Spam and Fakes will be sorted out by the community and/or the UseNeXT software. By fake, we mean an uploaded instance of Harry Potter which does not include the movie but simply fake video material.”

- “The rating system: By taking a deeper look into the way how content is ordered, we’ll find out, that the best rated content will be on top. Naturally the full length Warner Bros. Harry Potter movie will be rated better then the simple trailer, this function does also assist in finding the best pirated instances of a movie within the community.”

- “Whereas the Usenet is a real, peered and open network, UseNeXT is a closed environment. For the Usenet there exists a way to takedown infringing content automatically, but there is no standard way to takedown infringing content automatically at UseNeXT from the point of view of a third party not having access to the UseNeXT database”

- “The Usenet network understands the so-called “cancel” commands, whereby the UseNeXT search index won’t follow such cancel commands to remove infringing content. This means: If the content has been taken down at one of UseNeXT source providers, the UseNeXT index would still show up the file and allow downloading via one of the non-compliant Usenet Providers, such as News-Service.”

- “The UseNeXT software indexes the content being available on Usenet (and on News-Service servers in Netherland), allows its users to upload their “prefered” type of -content- into the global Usenet – anonymously and for free – and allows other users of their platform to download this -content- by paying a fee per downloaded Gigabyte.”

- “More then 90% of the german speaking content is uploaded by UseNeXT users, more then 24% of the international Usenet content is uploaded by the UseNeXT community.”

- “Regensburg, a small city in Bavaria, Germany – a country in Europe: Two guys, which we’re not going to name personally, are developing new products for the Internet. The goal should be to generate money – fast, secure and mostly in a legitimate way. It shouldn’t be such complicated as Facebook, YouTube, or MySpace is – no, it should have a development period of 3 months and an ROI of a maximum of 6 months.”

- “…again limits were reached, hundreds of Gbit/s of network usage peaks were forcing UseNeXT to include a third vendor into the business – Giganews, a Texas / US company, one of the oldest Usenet providers worldwide.”

Authors and publishers general comment on the claim is, that the statements, which have been made in the article are correct and true – in addition they confirm that freedom of speach and the freedom of the press are one of the most important values of our society, which – in fact – is also confirmed by a statement of UseNeXT on their own main page, where UseNeXT explains the freedom of speech on Usenet:

“Everyone has the right to gain knowledge as well as to make public and disseminate, in written and spoken, his word by using the UseNeXT service. Nobody should be afraid to be discriminated due to his religious or political position by using the Usenet.” (translated from http://www.usenext.de)

We think this is a great statement – not only for the Usenet – and we should all stick on that – our claim is to maintain the freedom of speech – therefore the article should remain uncensored on the Usenet and the Web.

You can Download the full press-release here:

Press release PDF – 10/10/09.

© 2009 buildblog.