RIAA Targets Usenet

The Recording Industry Association of America RIAA filed a copyright infringement suit against Usenet.com in New York on October 12, 2007. The suit claims that the newsgroups they service contain millions of copyrighted songs.

This suit goes well beyond Usenet.com. They are the target because of some loosely worded marketing. The RIAA knows if they are successful in the suit the implications are wide ranging. Other providers of newsgroup services include several universities including Stanford as well as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Giganews, and many more big names.

It appears part of the RIAA argument will be that Usenet.com promotes its service as the best way to get free music now that file sharing sites are dropping off. Specifically Usenet.com sells their services and chooses to carry newsgroups listing copyrighted songs by artist and title. The suit claims that the RIAA notified Usenet.com several times asking that they remove the music files from their servers without a resolution.

What are the ramifications of RIAA winning this case? Usenet could be greatly impacted. Newsgroups have flown under the radar for many years now. While there are many positive and legal uses for newsgroups, pirated content could overshadow and ultimately kill Usenet as it has many P2P networks.

With all the negative Usenet coverage that will come in the following months we want to point out a couple Usenet providers that are offering far more than just newsgroup services. Specifically Easynews is the top contributor to the World Community Grid which makes use of unused CPU time to conduct important scientific research. Newsguy is another provider out there helping the community. They give back 10% of every subscription fee to a number of charities including the American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, and Doctors Without Borders.

For more information on Usenet.com, Easynews, Newsguy and other Usenet providers visit our newsgroup reviews page.