The Death of Newzbin and Limewire's dying words.

Early this week, Newzbin, the world's biggest newsgroup index service
closed it's site and put up a pathetic message saying they were out of
business, because of the legal actions against them. But this isn't
just about newzbin, this is about a whole concept, and it's being
outlawed.

For those who don't know, here is the crashcourse. Newsgroups are an
Internet medium where users host files for others to access. While I
can't say I've got a real good understanding of the architecture
behind newsgroups, their closest relative is probably the direct HTTP
Download, but from another user. Newsgroups themselves are a paid
service, but they're still huge. They're organized like forums, with
'posts' organised under categories (and organised by server). Each
'post' is a file host, generally made up of a lot of files. What
newzbin did was to provide *.nzb files. These were an index of a
newsgroup item. When opened, they would provide a list of locational
links for each file in the upload, in a format easily readable by a
specifically designed program. Newsgroups can host any file a user
uploads, meaning that material, coyrighted or otherwise, can be
downloaded by other users.

But here's the crux of the debate at hand. If Newzbin, a paid
subscription service, is not providing, or hosting any copyrighted
material for illegal download, why are they being closed down? On
newzbin, the only files available for download are *.nzb's. These
aren't actual files, so they can't be copyrighted material. Newzbin
didn't host any newsgroups or file groups. They didn't provide
download links to illegal material. They were basically an index of
files available elsewhere. So, on what grounds are they being sued.

Similarly, earlier this week, LimeWire, the popular web-bases P2P file
sharing network was crippled by a guilty decision from the courts.
Again, LimeWire provided no files, they only allowed easy indexing of
freely available information.

Despite the closure of Newzbin, one can still find all the exact same
files for download, from the exact same location, but now you just
have to go looking for it. There is no change in the actual download
of the actual files, it's just a little messier.

And yet, both networks are being pursued as if they were providing
illegal material. Part of this can be explained by the court's general
lack of technological expertise regarding the actual workings of these
networks. But a big part of it is simply a crusade against online
piracy that might've gone too far already. This is not the way to do
it. Piracy can be prevented, but only by removing the actual files or
the medium used to access them (very difficult to do) or remove the
motive (also difficult to do). Closing newzbin will only push users
onto other sites which provide a similar indexing service and not
treat the underlying cause.

However, authorities have decided to personally pursue the owners and
managers of indexing sites, rather than focus on the more pressing
issue of removing/disincentivising the actual files and download
thereof. Fools.