Brein forces Usenetbase offline

Usenetbase has, after a second warning, given in to Brein’s demand to take the site down immediately. Brein’s first appeal to the site, then called Use-next, was less successful. The site’s administratorsmade a few adjustments and renamed the site Usenetbase. This was not to Brein’s satisfaction, after which it started a lawsuit. The demand: for every day that Usenetbase remains on line, that site is fined 10.000 Euro. The site’s administrators, who calls maintaining the site a hobby, have indicated not to want to let it come to that. They are seeking advice formulating a proper response. Until that time, the site is taken offline as a precaution.

Brein’s actions against Usenet are very similar to their response to torrentsites. Usenet is a service for posting and spreading messages and dates to the early days of the internet. The last few years, Usenet’s servers are increasingly used to post content like movies, music and games. Sites like Usenetbase, like torrentsites do not offer content themselves. Rather, they provide liks to it. Ans, again like torrentsites, inttelctual property is not taken into account. The difference between Usenet and torrents is that usenet isis not a p2p service. Rather, content is downloaded direcly from central servers, yielding much higher download speeds.