For instance, say I search for “The Dark Knight” on my Usenet indexer. It returns to me a list of uploads and where to get them via my Usenet provider. I can then download them, stitch them together, and verify that it is, indeed, The Dark Knight. All of this costs only a few dollars a month for me.
My question is, why can’t copyright holders do this as well? They could follow the same process, and then send takedown requests for each individual article which comprises the movie. We already know they try to catch people torrenting so why don’t they do this as well?
I can think of a few reasons, but they all seem pretty shaky.
- The content is hosted in countries where they don’t have to comply with takedown requests.
It seems unlikely to me that literally all of it is hosted in places like this. Plus, the providers wouldn’t be able to operate at all in countries like the US without facing legal repercussions.
- The copyright holders feel the upfront cost of indexer and provider access is greater than the cost of people pirating their content.
This also seems fishy. It’s cheap enough for me as an individual to do this, and if Usenet weren’t an option, I’d have to pay for 3+ streaming services to be able to watch everything I do currently. They’d literally break even with this scheme if they could only remove access to me.
- They do actually do this, but it’s on a scale small enough for me not to care.
The whole point of doing this would be to make Usenet a non-viable option for piracy. If I don’t care about it because it happens so rarely, then what’s the point of doing it at all?
No expert, but here’s my quick and dirty version:
Find an unlimited Usenet provider that works with your budget and location. Plenty of debate out there on which are best, and if you need a second pay-per-GB provider for filling in missing parts or not.
Spin up SABnzbd+ or a similar Usenet client on a local PC/NAS/etc.
the hard part - find a quality private Usenet indexer site that you can get an invite or has open registration.
Download the nzb files for the Linux ISO that you want from your indexer and open it with your Usenet client. (There are ways to feed the nzb file directly to your client, but that’s for next lesson).
Client looks for all of the parts listed in the nzb file on your Usenet provider, then downloads and unpacks them.
Et Voila - Linux ISO appears in your downloads directory.
A VPN is probably unnecessary, as most Usenet providers don’t log who downloads which files. Also, you can often hit your ISP’s max download rate from your Usenet provider, and there is no “seeding” to worry about.
Good luck!
Appreciate the post, but damn, that’s still cryptic. “Find a quality private usenet indexer”… I don’t even know where to begin to do this.
By searching Google for Usenet indexers.
It’s going to be difficult as many of them require invites.
Please note that, unlike private trackers, indexers are usually a paid service.
Nzbgeek, althub, ninjacentral, drunkenslug just to name a few.
Can recommend Nzbgeek
Honest question. Are there any advantages to usenet if I’m already deep into torrenting and on many private trackers? I’ve never used usenet but have been torrenting for 20+ years so I’m not sure if I’m missing out on anything
It’s likely faster - no waiting for seeds to connect and ramp up. I routinely see 900+Mbps from my provider from start to finish.
You aren’t at risk of exposing your true IP or downloads list to anyone but your Usenet provider.
Zero seeding required.
Older content is more likely to still be available in my experience (and not just with 1 dial-up seeder).
On occasion I have to go to private trackers when something never made it to Usenet, but it’s almost always something niche like an obscure out of print album. It cuts both ways though, and I’ve found some buried gems on Usenet that weren’t on any tracker.
The biggest downsides are the monthly cost of a Usenet provider, and a bit more technical expertise to host the NZB grabber.
Thank you for the answer. It sounds more legit than I had always thought. My current setup is just all private trackers with a VPN so I’m not sure I’d want to pay to set this up. I have PTP and BHD for movies. BHD and MTV for TV shows, RED for music and MAM for books. I generally always find what I’m looking for but I was always curious about usenet
Hey, yes there is. I was 100% torrents up until recently, also using multiple torrent sites including private trackers. The thing I struggled with was getting all the episodes of TV shows. Like if I added a niche or old TV show to Sonarr, it would be a constant struggle to find missing episodes or seasons (for some reason Southpark was a misery). This was pretty much completely eliminated with usenets. So now I have usenets as a primary and torrenting as a fallback if something cant be found. This config gives me almost full coverage. The downside is that usenets typically aren’t free whilst torrenting is (although they are very cheap)
Usenet will download much faster and is generally much more “private” and secure (your ISP can never see what you download).