What do yo know about GUBA?

[JoesHO]

Anyone here have any experience with them?

do you think newsgroups are or should be allowed to SELL other peoples content ?

[Raven]

I wish someone would explain it to me. I'm not sure I 'get' them at all.

They say what they're doing is legal....

[sarettah]

Guba rhymes with Cuba, so by association they are bad. :yowsa:

Newgroups do not sell peoples content, Joe. Newsgroups just provide a way for people who want to post content to do so. lolol.. Back in 94-95 or so I spent quite a lot of time figuring ways to strip newsgroups of their content.

Guba claims legality because they are only charging access to their interface, not the content. The content is free of charge on usenet and they are just providing a better way to get at it, sort of like google making it easier to get to web pages. (Not agreeing with them, just spelling out what their argument is, much the same argument Napster used and look at where that got them)

I am not sure which way to go on Guba. The newsgroups have been there and will always be there. People will continue to post copyrighted material on usenet because it is virtually impossible to stop them from doing so because it is for the most part unmonitored cyberspace. That copyrighted material gets into usenet has never bothered me because it is usually really a pain in the ass to get at the content with all the usenet spam.

Guba is making it extremely easy to get at the content, that is the issue. I think they are taking a big risk because they are (apparently) bringing the content into their own server and manipulating it there. That is what nailed napster I believe, because their servers were in the middle of the whole mess.

[Raven]

Isn't it also true that many deliberately post their content on newsgroups to get surfers and to brand?

This seems to be a hard ethical line to draw....because if they are legal.....then, I guess it becomes a choice whether or not to deal with them....and they do claim to be legal.

[Jace]

um...guba takes newsgroup content, downloads it, reformats it to what the users want and resells access to that

unfortunately, i think they are in some soret of legal loophole, and until someone steps up and sues the pants off them and wins, they will stay around

[Raven]

um...guba takes newsgroup content, downloads it, reformats it to what the users want and resells access to that

unfortunately, i think they are in some soret of legal loophole, and until someone steps up and sues the pants off them and wins, they will stay around

I don't see how that can be legal. I know about usegroups....anyone around longer than a half second knows about them. Hell, we used them for our paysites back in the day, with watermarked images for the surfers....

[Jace]

I don't see how that can be legal. I know about usegroups....anyone around longer than a half second knows about them. Hell, we used them for our paysites back in the day, with watermarked images for the surfers....

My guess is they are operating in some grey area that hasn't been challenged yet

Last time I checked you could find the entire lightspeed catalog up there, resized and shit....and the videos that they grab they also reformat them for ipods now

[slavdogg]

i know more about GHB than i do about GuBa

[icedemon]

Guba is making it extremely easy to get at the content, that is the issue. I think they are taking a big risk because they are (apparently) bringing the content into their own server and manipulating it there. That is what nailed napster I believe, because their servers were in the middle of the whole mess.

It doesn't matter if it's on their server or not. The same stuff is stored on all the other newsgroup servers in the world. The main difference is that they have decoded the binaries while most normal newsgroup servers leave the binaries encoded.

GUBA is getting away with what they are doing because they say they are just selling the service of a system that decodes the binaries. No different then the programs out there that decode the binaries from newsgroups. To stop GUBA, you need to make it illegal for all the usenet servers to carry binaries and go back to text newsgroups only.

There are many GUBA type of sites on the internet. It's just that GUBA is the most well known.

[gonzo]

It doesn't matter if it's on their server or not. The same stuff is stored on all the other newsgroup servers in the world. The main difference is that they have decoded the binaries while most normal newsgroup servers leave the binaries encoded.

GUBA is getting away with what they are doing because they say they are just selling the service of a system that decodes the binaries. No different then the programs out there that decode the binaries from newsgroups. To stop GUBA, you need to make it illegal for all the usenet servers to carry binaries and go back to text newsgroups only.

There are many GUBA type of sites on the internet. It's just that GUBA is the most well known.


Material is copyrighted....decoded...encoded it doesnt mean jack shit.
Unethical to say the least.
This aint 1996 anymore and a lot of people need to start acting like it.

[JoesHO]

Material is copyrighted....decoded...encoded it doesnt mean jack shit.
Unethical to say the least.
This aint 1996 anymore and a lot of people need to start acting like it.


Yes, that sounds noble, but until there is proper legislation to insure this activity stops ( just like the spam laws have slowed down the spammers)

ethics realy doesnt matter here to most as we already know .

I mean it is not like they get disbarred for ethics violation, or lose their ability to practice medicine .

all that happens here is some disgruntled pornographers start shouting at them about ethics LOL

If the government actually cared about all the porn on the internet as they say, then they would stop this type of system that allows such rampant veiwing and has NO age verification in it whatsoever. ( not Guba per se, but usenet and newsgroups is what I mean)

[icedemon]

Material is copyrighted....decoded...encoded it doesnt mean jack shit.
Unethical to say the least.
This aint 1996 anymore and a lot of people need to start acting like it.

If you think they are breaking a copyright law, then go after them. AOL, MSN and every other Usenet server has the same content. Go after the big guys like AOL if you think you have a case. Get a bunch of people togather, get a copyright lawyer and get some publicity to go along with it.

I'm not standing up for them. It's just they are not breaking any US laws (that I know of).

If there are no laws in place to stop this kind of thing, then get one made (and get some publicity out of it).

[gonzo]

If you think they are breaking a copyright law, then go after them. AOL, MSN and every other Usenet server has the same content. Go after the big guys like AOL if you think you have a case. Get a bunch of people togather, get a copyright lawyer and get some publicity to go along with it.

I'm not standing up for them. It's just they are not breaking any US laws (that I know of).

If there are no laws in place to stop this kind of thing, then get one made (and get some publicity out of it).

Thats the stupidest thing Ive heard.
How the fuck are they not breaking a law?
They are redistributing copyrighted content that they have no rights to. Its that damn simple.

Im no lawyer but it seems to me its the same thing Napster got popped for as well as Google. Once they unencoded that binary and put it on their server they crossed out of the grey.

If someone like Playboy that rigorously enforces their copyrights goes after them they are done.

[Raven]

Well, Perfect10 just won a judgement against Google. I wonder what the fallout will be for GUBA and others.

[TheEnforcer]

My guess is they are operating in some grey area that hasn't been challenged yet

Last time I checked you could find the entire lightspeed catalog up there, resized and shit....and the videos that they grab they also reformat them for ipods now

Ahhh.. the lovely legalities of law and the area all lawyers love their clients to exploit because it makes them money. That ever present grey area of the law....

[JoesHO]

Well, Perfect10 just won a judgement against Google. I wonder what the fallout will be for GUBA and others.

do you know where I can find out any information regarding this , Raven?

[Raven]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/13928636.htm

And, it's all over the boards now. :)

[Jace]

do you know where I can find out any information regarding this , Raven?

it is also all over google news

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&safe=off&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-05,GGLG:en&q=perfect%2010%20google&spell=1&sa=N&tab=wn

[Raven]

it is also all over google news

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&safe=off&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-05,GGLG:en&q=perfect%2010%20google&spell=1&sa=N&tab=wn

Yeah, there, too....:)

[Carrie]

I thought they were only providing a GUI to the newsgroups and if that were the case, they *would* be perfectly legal. To sue them you'd have to sue every email program producer out there (Microsoft included) for also providing a GUI to newsgroups.

But if they're taking the content, putting it on their own servers and having the users download it from there, then that's sue-able. They are, at that point, distributing the material rather than just providing access to a source. Reformatting it as well? That just nails them even further; they can't claim innocence when they're actively taking the content and manipulating it to suit their own needs before distributing it.

A paysite could look at it as a form of advertising, but when they've got your entire catalog up there and they're providing services with it that you don't (like putting it into ipod chunks), then they're in direct competition with you and you need to do something about it.

[Jace]

I know for a fact they are taking the content and reformatting for ipods, so that would mean they for sure grabbing it and hostng it