Newzbin is an indexing site, kinda like Google, where you can download so-called “NZB” files that contains information about which files your newsreader client must download from the binary usenet groups, in order to magically make data appear understandable, be it a movie, tv show, a linux distribution – whatever it might be, legal or illegal, it’s often available on usenet servers such as those offered by Usenetserver and EasyNews.
Back in March 2010, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) managed to get Newzbin shut down for copyright infringement.
The shut-down in 2010 didn’t hold up for long though. A few months later, Newzbin 2 arrived with new owners – which is still alive and kicking to this day.
Which is why, MPAA now wants to have another go at Newzbin. This time, however, they’re even more nuts than last time (Newzbin doesn’t host anything illegal, they just index – Google also indexes illegal torrent files, for example). Now, they want to block access to Newzbin 2 using the Cleanfeed filter by British Telecom which is a content blocking system mainly used to block access to child abuse/pornography.
In 2004 when Cleanfeed was put in place, British Telecom was worried that it could be misused for other things than its intended purpose and their position on the matter was supposedly that they’d rather turn off Cleanfeed if it were to be used more and more for blocking other content than what it was intended to block. At this time, British Telecom has not made a statement whether or not they will follow MPA’s attempt to block Newzbin 2 access via Cleanfeed.
Obviously Newzbin has nothing to do with child abuse/pornography. Not even adult entertainment (pornography) is indexed there.
Hollywood needs to focus more on how they can make money on allowing people to buy and download their movies and tv shows online, easy and legal, and not only on Netflix etc. for Americans (there is, after all, also people living outside USA).