back to article Newzbin goes titsup

Usenet indexer Newzbin has gone titsup thanks to legal action from the Motion Picture Association. A message on the homepage says: "Regrettably the Newzbin website has to close as a result of the legal action against us." The page also links to a blog post, although its author makes clear he has no relationship to the site …

COMMENTS

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  1. Andy 97
    Grenade

    pointless title

    Shame, I used to work with one of the guys that set this up....

    Seems they made good while the sun was out and now it's only a matter of time before its resurrected on a server cluster in Somalia.

  2. Neur0mancer
    Unhappy

    A Sad Day

    Newzbin will be sorely sorely missed. However, they always had it coming.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Freetards?

    You usually have to pay for newsgroup access.

    1. Law
      Pirate

      new name then?

      Cheaptards? Since the £15 a month normally more than covers the X number of films, games and applications you can pull off usenet in any given month.

      Personally, I will miss newzbin, they made a really decent site and moderated posts/comments really well.... and fairly cheap per year... I'd been a member for well over 5 years.

      Using nzbmatrix now - comments are written by 5 year olds, posters are fairly slow, site is slow, and very cluttered... but it's dirt cheap, and the best of a bad bunch...

      I realise the hypocrisy of it all, but I'm not sure I would trust a clone of newzbin, knowing they got the code via hacking their servers? lol... they should have just open sourced it the second they got sued and called it quits.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Willingtopayforthebestservicetards?

        Double the price, triple and quadruple it. I enjoy watching movies and i'll pay £60 a month for the pleasure of having it convenient and accessible. I'm sure as hell not paying that a month in rentals/purchases when i don't have the internet so THE MAN will be making more especially when they don't have the costs of pushing plastic half way round the world to collect it.

        They can stand on the shore trying to turn back the waves but the market always supplies a demand.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Wait

        How is that better than Torrentz.com ?

        I don't pay anything and I get it as fast as the pipe can deliver.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well done ...?

    Nice one MPA, one down, 999,999 indexing websites to go

  5. Thomas 18
    Unhappy

    Farewell

    You served me well for so long.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "a clone site is still a very likely outcome"

    haha, I notice that "newnewzbin.com" was registered yesterday...

  7. Drefsab

    shame

    its a shame because it was a nice site but in the long run what does it achieve? nothing much there are other nzb sites out there still running, for each taken down more pop up and as the newzbin case is not finished its not been proven that they were doing anything illegal.

    Long story short even if the shut down all NZB server's great people get the files manually from newsgroups, so you shut down the groups, ok people goto torrents, shut down the torrents people goto tor based p2p, somehow shut down this and all the other methods and then it just goes back to private FTP server, or copying the files onto a disc and sharing them with your friends etc.

    Files will be shared no matter what.

    1. PirateSlayer
      Terminator

      Indeed

      It's true that files will be shared no matter what. Just as murder will happen no matter how many criminals are caught. The difference is in the ease at which the offence is perpatrated. Copying stuff onto disks and sharing it with your chums is pre-internet style piracy and would massively reduce the offences carried out.

      Just because something is difficult to stop/control doesn't mean that the towel should be thrown in.

      Glad these parasites have been erradicated. No doubt their successors will hold their memory dear. I'll enjoy hearing of them being crushed like bugs at some point in the future too.

      1. Steen Hive
        Thumb Up

        But

        "Copying stuff onto disks and sharing it with your chums is pre-internet style piracy and would massively reduce the offences carried out"

        I thought "Home taping killed music" 3 decades ago? Nice to see the music came back to life miraculously after being dead all these years.

        "Piracy" happens to ships in the Gulf Of Aden, not to computer files.

        1. PirateSlayer
          Flame

          Very glib.

          Are you pretending that the volume of piracy which occured with copying stuff onto any physical media and digital downloads are in the same ballpark/order of magnitude. Your ignorance knowns no boundaries Hive.

          Oh...thanks for the clatification re: piracy. I'll just avoid the Pirate Party, the Pirate Bay and all of those other freetards who proudly call themselves 'pirates' because it fits with your feeble point.

          1. Steen Hive
            Flame

            Pretence

            I'm pretending nothing - the point is the absolute or relative volume of infringement is entirely irrelevant - the costs, if any, to the industry are. Now proto-Stalinists like you who undoubtedly have scant regard for individuals' hard-won rights to privacy, due process and freedom from arbitrary punishment should make a case for abrogating those rights in favour of your right to unlimited profit. Proving that one instance of infringement has led to one lost sale would be a start - over to you, Spock.

            The "pirate" parties and friends can call themselves what they like - YOU calling it "piracy" gives you as much credence as calling it "murder".

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A shame.

    Newzbin was a great site. So very short sighted of the media companies to not see that good newsgroup access, newzbin site subscription was all money they could be getting if they only gave people what they wanted. A decent service for a decent price.

    People usually pay for usenet access, its not so much those folks are "freetards" as they are willing to pay, but not the stupid amounts the media companies imagine its worth for their product. Hell, they could set up a "legal" (i use the term loosely as I fail to see how an nzb file itself is not legal) nzb indexer as good as newzbin and profit from 0 distribution costs even having the "community" do the work indexing.. I'd pay for that, and still buy dvd's that were worth it.

    1. PirateSlayer
      FAIL

      Willing to pay?

      That's some kind of joke right?

      Remind me how much a blockbuster costs these days. Do you forgive those who worked hard to produce it for wanting at least the cost back (and some profit so, heaven forbid, investments can follow and MORE films!).

      Just because you'd pay your thirty pieces of silver for some wanky newsgroup sub doesn't make you a patron of the arts, it makes you a lazy freetard who wants their piracy served up to them without effort or fuss. Don't kid yourself.

      1. bolccg
        Stop

        Not what he said

        No, he wants the media he consumes to be served up to him without effort or fuss. FFS, how hard is that to understand? If there was a similar legal model for movies and TV shows I'd use it like a shot (just as I now use Steam for my pc games - I can fire up any pc capable of playing said games and pull a copy off the server quickly and without fuss. Some games even now retain the settings.)

        It being difficuly for your customers to access your products is one thing. Intentionally overlooking technology that you could leverage to make it easier is just bad business.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Your point is?

        Ok so, I would like to easily access media from home, via this new fangled internet pipe... Sorry, but how many hoops should I/we have to jump through to make it worthwhile, does the effort in getting it make any difference, you sound awfully like you might be a member of BPI/*AA... "Oh NOES, it cannot be too EASY to get our product!".

        Regarding: "it makes you a lazy freetard who wants their piracy served up to them without effort or fuss."

        I'm paying for a service so freetard is a little inaccurate, and as a carer for a disabled, housebound wife living several miles from the nearest small town without a video rental store and 30+miles from a larger one with, I sure would like media served up by these new internets "without effort or fuss" as they clearly can be.

        The internet should make getting the media companies products easier, thats basically the problem isn't it. People are eager for it, even paying for it via means that gains said companies no income or profit, not because most of us want to "stick it to the man" but because its the only service available. The companies want to charge silly amounts for a download product, often more than purchasing it via play.com or similar for a physical thing.

        Coincidently, I never claimed to be a "patron of the arts", and the whole point is that my "30 pieces of silver" *could* be generating income for media companies, but they seemingly just do not want it.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        No joking

        Do blockbusters even still exist? I've not seen a rental store in years and I live in one of the biggest cities in the uk. I'm paying more than the cost of an unlimited lovefilm subscription so your freetard jibes are missing the point. I'd love my money to be going to the people who made the movies i enjoyed but i'm not going to accept an overpriced poor product, the market will always find it's price. You can argue the toss on the philosophical points all you want but the cold hard fact of the matter is that THE MAN needs to change his game plan or be rendered irrelevant, don't kid yourself otherwise.

        I can't claim that my moral position is greater than a freetard (free as in not paying anything) but i'm willing to pay money for the best service. It's almost as if there might be some sort of business plan or model type thing that could maybe fill that gap.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Greed & Control

        Thats what this comes down to.

        In the interent age the price for accessing film / music should be an order or magnitude lower than the ask for traditional media and could feasibly be something like a small monthly subscription.

        By moving to a downloading you no longer incurr costs of -

        + hundreds of thousands of worldwide video rental or retailers

        + a global distribution and media storage network

        + physical media production costs

        + losses incurred through unsold media

        + all the support staff to facilitate this

        Your overhead is website setup, maintainence and hosting / bandwidth ie not much at all.

        So the idea of paying current CD / DVD rates minus a small discount for film / music downloads (a la Itunes / 7music etc) is not sustainable or fair.

        The way forward is to acknowledge this reality and charge a low monthly all you can eat subscription and generate supplementary revenue by offering exclusive / timely access to new material / live shows.

        The problem is the fat greedy offshore tax exiles who run the media racket don't want to acknowledge this reality and so the masses will continue to ignore them in favour of free illegitimate services.

      5. I didn't do IT.
        Boffin

        Payment Pool?

        DISCLAIMER: This is long and there may be hidden assumptions. Where possible, real data was used, and discrepancies in year have been converted to percentages and applied to other year data.

        Let's assume that the MPAA establishes a "payment pool" from subscriptions of peoples of the US. With a est. pop. of 309 mil (http://www.census.gov/), with an average household size of 2.59 (http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts), leaving there are about 120 mil est. possible purchasing "nodes" (individuals, family units, etc), that make up the domestic "media market". Assuming that those under the poverty line could/would not afford to contribute (14%, ibid.), that leaves 103.2 mil "consuming units" for a mass subscription plan.

        If these 103.2 mil units each subscribed to a service that allowed download/viewing of media online, conveniently, how much would the subscription have to be to (currently) support Hollywood?

        $10.00/mo (10 bil/yr)? $20.00/mo (20 bil/yr)? According to the MPAA (http://www.mpaa.org/policy), they are used to raking in $180 bil/yr domestically. That means the 103.2 mil unique consumer units must be currently paying $1744.19/yr ($145.35/mo) each.

        Surely some of this is gained from overseas exports? According to the MPAA's "2010 Report on Economic Contribution", only $13.6 bil is gained from audiovisual exports. That lowers our yearly contribution to a more manageable 166.4 bil/yr or $1612.41/yr each that we are currently paying.

        So, if the US went completely like its going with health care, and decided that media entertainment is another "utility", then every contributing consumer unit would be paying roughly $135/mo. to have access to every new movie and TV show made. Supposedly, that's what those in the US are paying already, but it is not clear in MPAA's figures if this is for current production, or also includes sales of back catalog material.

        Wait, what's that? RIAA? Oh, that's right - that's only for movies and TV. Well, apparently the RIAA is only used to pulling down $7.7 bil/yr (http://76.74.24.142/A200B8A7-6BBF-EF15-3038-582014919F78.pdf), so that brings us back up to $1687.02/yr or $140.59/mo for each consumer unit.

        So, a combined "media" service for everything we see and hear would be $141/mo. And don't forget, that is not subsidized by any advertising. With advertisements at $74 bil/yr (no solid figures, but found this number bandied about - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/micro-markets/google-ceo-wants-74-billion-tv-ad-market/357), this could reduce our currently paid price to $969.97/yr or $80.84/mo per unit.

        Oh, but wait again, there's piracy! The 2002 FBI (from the MPAA) estimates have been so thoroughly debunked (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-government-finally-admits-most-piracy-estimates-are-bogus.ars) that they are no longer listed on MPAA's site. There is another document (http://www.mpaa.org/resources/e76b578d-d581-487f-9cad-a98360724507.pdf) that claims "economy wide" losses of 20.5 bil in 2006 and 12.5 bil in 2007 (August). The further 50.8 bil/yr loss estimate includes "software", but ironically comes from the same report. Setting aside the same report can't agree with itself, let's move on.

        So, squashing (GLOBAL!) "piracy" figures by all of us paying for them (which we do anyway now - stop yelling! - regardless that most domestic piracy would be wiped out by this scheme in the first place) would add another (generous?) 20 bil/yr, taking us to $194.1 bil/yr total, $1880.82/yr (each), or about $157/mo (each unit); with advertising, $120.1 bil/yr total, $1163.76/yr (each), or about $97/mo (each unit).

        Of course, though this would completely cover Hollywood's current entire cost, there will be whiners that this doesn't account for any growth. And, of course, once you solve the problem of them getting "their" money, there is the inevitable complaint that inflation, cost of living, etc. means that this would have to increase yearly, or else "stifle innovation".

      6. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        @PirateSlayer

        Not too many ways to say this..... you are a prick and obviously either work for one of these organisations or lawyers or possibly a struggling artist who purveys crap and believes piracy is why your not getting sales.

        There is one simple truth. To attack piracy properly you have to stop being a profiteering old fashioned out dated behemoth of an industry that beleives the world owes it a living.

        Give the public a digital content delviery system both film and music that is cheap, efficient and does not use DRM. Very many so called freetards would sign up and pay for that service. Also many wouldn't as evidenced by the humble bundle but you can't do anything about those.

        As the music/film industry resolutely refuses to do that, no wonder p2p is still growing despite the threats both legal and otherwise.

        1. PirateSlayer
          FAIL

          Eh?

          I am neither a 'strugling artist' or a corporate shill (I'd be far too busy making money rather than arguing with commie commentards here at the Reg if I was worth anything).

          I am just one of these people who buys stuff if it seems like a fair price...and doesn't buy it if it doesn't. I don't feel entitled to receive the content of artists/film producers and software vendors, just as they shouldn't expect my custom without quality. You 'people' are playing outside of the system and pretending to justify it with your facile bullshit. Just accept the fact that some people are law abiding, conciencious individuals...and you're not. You are freetarding vermin and should just accept it. No excuses. No "they made me do it", just say " I steal what I want because I won't pay the price that the market has set" .... go on. Maybe you'll feel cleaner.

          The reason piracy is growing is really simple. Greed. You call them greedy...therefore two wrongs make a right. You pretend to be changing the system by...er...circumventing it. You are parasites...nothing more. Get over yourselves and realise what you are doing to the industries you steal from.

          1. Steve Roper
            Grenade

            PirateSlayer

            No, you, sir, are what is commonly known as a do-gooder, a member of the PC brigade. So you obey the letter of the law, you never commit any illegal acts, do you? Good on you, you're a fucking legend. But I hope you have never ever once recorded a show from TV on a VCR, I hope you have never ever copied a CD to a tape to listen to in the car, never even lent a friend a book to read, because all of these things are against the copyright law you so devoutedly worship. So if you have (and I'll bet you have at some point), then when you sit there on your moral high horse pronouncing the rest of us to be vermin, just consider why almost every post you make gets massively downvoted; it's because many here recognise you for what you are: the world's worst kind of fucking hypocrite.

            And it is people like you that I, and many others like myself, consider to be the real vermin and scum of this world, because it is bloody self-righteous do-gooders like yourself that are pushing governments to erode our civil liberties and turning our once-open democracies into nanny states.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            pfft..

            "just say " I steal what I want because I won't pay the price that the market has set" .... go on. Maybe you'll feel cleaner."

            Funny, did you not notice that the "market" is trying to say "You charge to much." by the amount of copying that goes on?

            However the "greed" part comes from the media companies because they don't want to pay attention to what "the market" is telling them, instead they are trying to make laws to enforce thier pricing, despite "the market" not being there so much. They are trying to create/retain their vision of a market though by laws.

            As for feeling cleaner, I have no need. I also buy what I like. Nearly 300 dvd's on the shelves, but all except one were bought in sales at a greatly reduced price. I also buy what I like. But the thing is, I bought perhaps 25%-50% I would never have looked at in a shop, because I saw ithemfirst after downloading.

          3. MonkeyBot
            FAIL

            Playing outside the system

            "You 'people' are playing outside of the system and pretending to justify it with your facile bullshit."

            The 'system' is bollocks and relies on everyone believing the kind of bullshit that you're peddling here.

            "You pretend to be changing the system by...er...circumventing it."

            I'm not claiming to change the system, I'm just ignoring it because it's bollocks.

            "Get over yourselves and realise what you are doing to the industries you steal from."

            What have I stolen? Who has been deprived access to their possessions? That's right, nothing & no-one. Even if I was damaging these 'industries', so what? They've done their damnedest to turn art into a consumer product and put artists under work-for-hire contracts. The record industry collapsing is not going to mean the music stops, it just means less crappy mass-market stuff.

            You can rant as much as you like about freetards and parasites, but your game is still bollocks and I'm not playing.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Index files

    meh...

    just searching on google with the correct terms and you can find nzb files easily.

    Oh Noes!!!! shut down google

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

      "Oh Noes!!!! shut down google"

      Oh please, can we? Pretty please?

      You won't find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, the sooner they and their evil ways are got rid of, the better!

  11. Nigel Brown
    Pirate

    No title needed, dammit get rid of this box please.

    Just another head of the hydra. I will miss Newzbin, they made it really easy to get what I wanted from usenet. It was like having a huge and varied a la carte menu to chose from. All that's happened now is I have to shop for the ingredients and cook them myself.

    Thanks guys, it was a blast.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    why newzbin?

    so why did they go after just an indexer? why not those the host the usenet files?

    (concerned, because my prefered source of usenet material are hosts. but then, i've never bothered with nzb files, i prefer just getting the rar parts and decoding them myself)

  13. Stone Fox
    Happy

    Godwin, I choose you.

    silly nazis! :)

    You can't kill newzbin. If you strike it down it will only become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

    Just look at piratebay eh? Thought they'd killed that AGES ago, didn't they? So, anyone know where the servers are now? Thought not. Anyone care to guess how popular the site is now? MASSIVE.

  14. Paul 18
    Big Brother

    cock

    s'funny, there are more than 100 similar sites ranked over at http://nzbsites.com/sites.php?

  15. b166er

    PirateSlayer

    Are you a masochist?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Not really

      Unless you count being employed by the MPAA/RIAA as a psychological condition.

      On second thought . . .

  16. LAGMonkey
    Pint

    i bid you adue.

    As said, newzbin will be missed. Convenient and a hell of a lot better than the competition which obviously raised their heads above the parapit.

    nzbmatrix it is for the time being, but they arnt as intrigrated as newzbin was.

    One for the road me thinks.

  17. Ben Rosenthal

    good run guys

    and you kept up a damn good service while it lasted.

    not much point getting upset about something which was only a matter of time coming, onto the next big thing.

  18. Arnie
    Stop

    Lets see the MAFIAA Offer Something Better

    £13 a month for usenet and the bins. Well I for one would happily pay 5 times that for an "Access all areas" pass for my media. Of course for that £50-60 a month, I'd wanna be able to move that data between devices with no time restrictions.

    Let's face it, that ain't going to happen anytime soon. So instead of being ripped off everytime my favourite movie comes out on a new fangled format. Rather than installing useless software to play useless music. No more. I bought the VHS, DVD and blu-ray. oh now you want me to buy the re-mastered 3D version? fuck off

    Its the fucking MAFIAA that are gonna ruin a perfectly good internet. Its the only one we've got and if they keep greasing the palms of government lobbyists. It'll be nothing more than supermarkets, gov information, corp music and film.

    Jimmy carr said it right when he was talking about politicians. It easily applies to the MAFIAA

    "It's like a pig fucking another pig whilst stuffing his piggy little face with stolen pig food..."

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Newzbin could live on...

    They should now release Newzbin the Application

    Since the web cannot be used it could download a daily database where other than... The Newsgroups!

    All somebody with a server would have to do is compile the previous days data, package it up or whatever, and release to a Newsgroup. Users then download the latest "updates" and searches are conducted "locally" within the app and downloaded database(s)

    The App could simply provide results and generate the NZB required for Grabit etc

    Simples. And the server can be kept HUSH HUSH, to compile the database id send it to somebody the other side of the globe to be uploaded. The person "behind the scenes" could therefore stay completely anonymous.

    Anyone wanna help ????

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