Newzbin: ex-owner Caesium’s comments May 21, 2010
Posted by deepsharer in NZB, usenet.Tags: newzbin
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Just got this press release from the old owner of Newzbin:
## OFFICIAL PERSONAL STATEMENT OF ‘Caesium’ Chris Elsworth
## Ex-owner/director of Newzbin Ltd / http://www.newzbin.com
##
## THIS STATEMENT IN NO WAY REFLECTS ANY OPINIONS OR VIEWS OF NEWZBIN LTD,
## ONLY MY OWN PERSONAL SITUATION.
##
## 21st May 2010
There’s a lot of questions being asked of me in the last few days, many of
which I simply can’t answer either through legal responsibilities or because
I plain out just don’t know.
So here I will set out what I do know and what I’m allowed to say.
The Newzbin site is not coming back under my control. I have no further
interest in Usenet indexing sites. The legal proceedings over the last two
years, which I will admit the Newzbin team fucked up pretty badly with, has
drained all my remaining motivation for either resurrecting Newzbin now it’s
gone, or starting a new site at all.
The final reason Newzbin actually closed its doors because it went into
liquidation in order to pay the MPA costs. Companies are not allowed to
carry on trading while in liquidation proceedings.
The Newzbin source code *is* in the wild. Someone has it. I don’t know who,
and I don’t know what they’re going to do with it, and I don’t really much
care. Best of luck to them, it won’t be competing with anything I choose to
do in future.
Don’t ask me to share the Newzbin source with you, it is not mine to share.
Control of Newzbin Ltd was transferred away from me (because I sold it. not
by force) in January 2010 and with it, all my rights to the source code and
servers etc etc. Whoever obtained it didn’t get it through me – how did they
get it? I don’t know.
The NZB specification was on Newzbin servers which are now unavailable and
that’s unfortunate. I will ask the new owners of Newzbin’s assets, whoever
they might end up being after the liquidation, if it’s possible to re-host
the NZB specification and DTD for further development to take place.
Coincidentally, today I was made aware of an attempt to re-engineer the NZB
specification by adding optional metadata – that’s already been in the
official NZB specification for months! Clearly someone doesn’t keep up to
date.
Did I get rich from Newzbin? Not really. I made a comfortable living but at
the same time I had no job while I was working on Newzbin, so I pretty much
think I was entitled to take a decent wage, thanks. Newzbin ate my life for
more or less a decade, being one of only three people working fulltime on
it, caring for servers, making regular datacentre trips to replace dead
disks, lugging heavy servers around, being woken up at all hours by the
pager telling me a server was dying, maintaining the accounts, paying VAT
returns, playing nicely with the UK taxman, as well as actually writing the
site on a near continual basis. Anyone who thought it was easy money is
sadly mistaken. Try running a busy site sometime.
If you want a Newzbin refund, you will have to talk to the liquidators,
Bennett Verby. Newzbin Ltd is no longer in my control, in fact it’s not even
in the control of who I sold it to, so I’m twice removed.
I will remain on irc.freenode.net #newzbin for the forseeable future, not
because I have any part in Newzbin anymore, but because I have plenty of
friends there I want to stay in touch with. If you want to come throw abuse
that’s where you can find me.
As for real life, chances are I’ll go find myself a nice simple sysadmin or
coding job where I don’t have to worry about VAT returns or legal
challenges. Anyone hiring? 😉
To all previous competitors of Newzbin – best of luck.
See you round.
Chris
Caesium has volunteered to answer (polite!) questions in the comments.
Revoltingfilesharers Blog 
You’re a class act, Caesium. Thanks for a really kickass few years, and best of luck in the future.
Best of luck in your future endeavors Caesium. You and the newzbin team provided the usenet community a service that was worth far and away more than you asked for. Thank you to you and the newzbin team for years of service and dedication
Best of luck in finding a new job out there.
As a person who gets those calls about servers dying in the middle of the night, I feel your pain.
I always enjoyed using your site and while it’s unfortunate that things went the way that they did, I’m sure you’ll end up on your feet in the long run.
Thanks again for your work and efforts. Newzbin will be missed.
Good luck for the future Chris, hope things are brighter on the other side
[…] […]
Anyone who wants a refund should be kicked in the head. Every single person who subscribed to Newzbin knew exactly why they were subscribing. I mean come on, it was pennies FFS! There are a lot of free alternatives out there, but Newzbin was class 🙂
I for one will miss the site and I wish Caesium all the best in any future projects
Ok, so how did the new owners get my email address?
yes just got an email too…just how much information do the new “owners”/source code hackers have?
seriously, is it time to start monitoring my credit report?
Thanks for the hard work you gave over the years.
RIP Newzbin. It will be sadly missed.
Hi ex-Newzbin user.
Lamenting the departed site? Dreading doing Usenet the old skool
way? Think the clone NZB sites suck?
Good news: we are Newzbin Two, and we have glad tidings:
NEWZBIN IS BACK! and we are the new management. The crew got most
of the original Newzbin source code and the main databases.
We loved it too much to let it die.
The catch? We wont be up for a very short while cos things need
to be done. For starters we need a cool domain name; also we
need to hack on the code some more to make it run. We are nearly
there but it is very complicated. We reckon we’ll up very soon.
So don’t drift off to those lame-ass wannabe NZB sites. Hang on
for a little longer and the Big Dog will be back.
For news keep an eye on these news sites:
https://deepsharer.wordpress.com/
http://www.usenetshack.com/
http://torrentfreak.com/
I have been getting reports of this trickling in through the afternoon. I am investigating and will ask Caesium his view and do a bit of digging.
I got that email too…Did Caesium sell everything, including all our email addresses?
Same here. Won’t be joining them.
1: Mailing people who’s address you got by hacking is not done
2: Language in mail already shows the childish attitude this person (group?) has.
3: Having (stolen) Newzbin’s code does not make you Newzbin, don’t name it Newzbin2
Relevant SMTP headers from the email I received:
Received: from pr0 ([85.112.165.69]) by bay0-mc3-f20.Bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675);
Fri, 21 May 2010 11:21:40 -0700
Received: from root by pr0 with local (Exim 4.71)
(envelope-from )
id 1OFWqp-0001Lo-1K
for ; Fri, 21 May 2010 20:21:39 +0200
Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 20:21:39 +0200
Message-Id:
From: Team R Dogs/Newzbin2
>>yes just got an email too…just how much information do the new “owners”/source code hackers have?
How much did you give them?
Good luck Chris. Thanks for all your work. Let’s hope these new boys aren’t clowns.
only as muchadams everyone else would have…
I just get spam from a wannabe site thats going to rip me off like newzbin. Must have been a nice earning a million in one year, think people should reflect on that some more, i am glad i found a home long ago on a large well established other free site with as many members and files as newsbin every had, you guys need to wake up and smell the coffee.
I agree people really need to look at the millions they made and the dodgey site re opening under another guise for what? to make another few million, i suggest like many have done and is pointed out go find somewhere else as there is one or two sites as large as newsbin and better run in my opinion.
opinions are like ass holes. everyone has one…
It will be back in some way shape or form its how the internet exists it started out like compuserve and telnet networks , BBS’s dialup , the future will bring a NZB , what it will look like is another matter , decide on what new ways people can use it , nothing is never gone just turns into something different , sometimes for the good , sometimes for the worse , but im guessing its gonna be a good day afterall….
I had about 300 days left of credit but I’m not fussed, it’s £10 max ffs! In the years I’ve been with the site the money I paid was for a top quality site. They were providing a service and we was paying so glad if that made a buck or two! If I wanted a free newsgroups site I could of found it but continued paying as it was BETTER than the others! Newzbinz will be missed and newzxxx lol it’s been great why it lasted and good lick in the future with work! Hope it all goes to plan, take care matey!
Hi Caesium
I just got an e-mail from “Team R Dogs/Newzbin2” saying that Newzbin2 will be up soon. So obviously someone got ahold of the Newzbin user database. Does this mean that they have my credit card information as well? Did Newzbin store this information post-transaction? Just wondering if I should be notifying my credit card company and having my number changed.
Thanks, and best of luck to you!
Newzbin didnt store credit card info
I too got an email from the same people. Not worried or anything just chiming in to add myself to the others.
Who has my credit card details now? Hmmm!!
The hackers have, probably gonna clean us all out @ Magicuk your sad if you think they were the best, once they were but looks like in recent years they were blinded by there millions as the place sucked. Crazy how no one is saying what they feel.Lets all suck some brown ring bloody crazy
I’m interested in the new site if it’s setup with the same functionality as Newzbin but if we have to pay subs as before then I think I’d only consider doing it via Paypal until they’ve been around for some time and earned some credibility.
Isn’t it funny the way people react towards those who have earned money.
Placebo is right however, I wouldn’t give my money to these new guys until they have proven themselves to be intelligent enough to run a site like NB
This was discussed briefly in #newzbin with many variations on the concept, but with the core belief that the new system must use some type of distributed component.
The variation I like:
Posters/editors run their own autonomous indexing sites posting reports with NZBs. They will publish the content in such a way to make it understandable for external aggregators. Not the same, but a similar concept is found with price comparison search engines.
Anyways this is an early brainstorm and not fully thought out, but the concept is malleable. It would be nice to try something new rather than central single point of failure systems.
Distributed systems will also have farther reach to usenet users than closed membership sites. However there are negative effects of closed communities which we see using torrent search engines, where some sites will require membership before you can download the torrents.
Anyways, just a thought.
I noticed this project PUnz: http://www.unzbin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=466
It’s hard to tell what the authors are intentions are bar asking them directly. But it could be something to provide the necessary base of tools to get reporters up and running to publish their respective content.
Then we’ll just need to aggregate the data in some form or fashion.
There is also that whole google wave API thing. It’s not just limited to google, and might be a nice modern way to share information and NZBs.
Like I said, just a thought.
I would assume that if a person was going to max out the credit card that they would not be in contact to say they have the code.
Anyway, I think I do know how hard the job is that the team did (real hard work) but can only only imagine the stress of the court proceedings etc. Good luck with the job search
Re. the people moaning about their money. We have no idea of the circumstances they find themselves. Maybe they only recently joined. I had 2/3rds of a year left and it never entered my mind to fret about the subscription. I am happy to donate it in lieu of the times I used the site. The site was brilliant at helping me find the ‘legal’ stuff that I wanted.
The court case was interesting to. There are plenty of places to download what we want. So it seems that making it easy to find stuff is a crime. Sad day really.
fair play to Caesium for producing such a great site.
Those complaining about whatever money was made from it, if you had the chance to earn more money or less which would you take? If you say less please feel free to donate any unwanted money to me.
If the NB staff earnt hundreds or millions a year it is of no concern to anyone but them (and the taxman). It doesn’t change what NB was, how good it was (or bad if you prefer?), what we now have, what happened, nothing!
I wish Caesium and the rest of the NB team all the best for whatever they choose to do in the future.
Class act barely described the admiration I have for the job you did in creating and maintaining Newzbin. I was a member for not quite a decade, but for much of your history. You deserved any wages you got and much more — I am so sorry it didn’t maintain you for the rest of your life. So, thanks man. You’re the best. Good luck and peace.
Hello I have some questions.
Is the full user database in the hands of another person or site now?
I know they have our email addresses. I received the spam and there should have been an unsubscribe link at the minimum. They should have also said something like “sorry to bother you” or “Hope you don’t mind this spam”. Not a great start if you’re trying to get people to support you.
The user databases will have usernames, email addresses, last IP, personal bookmarks and settings, maybe details of NZB uploads. Will some or all of this information be wiped?
I trusted Newzbin with my data and I’m very disappointed that it’s in the hands of some unknown entity(ies) now.
From the sounds of it they dont have functional code yet let alone a site, so what would you unsubscribe from? If the site comes back I assume it will restart with a clean user database or maybe an option to delete your details then? Not sure. I’ve emailed them for an interview but not had a reply yet, ditto Caesium.
Chris,
I can’t believe I got so much work out of you for only 50p/week. For this, I will always be grateful.
Should we cross paths, you will not buy beer that night.
Firstly I would just like to say thankou for a great site and a great service i wish you the beat in whatever you turn to next
I do have a concern though with regards credit card details …… Do the “new owners of the code” have any of these details and are we at risk in any way other than spam mails like what we have already received
Thanks again chris – a true Internet legend
I will admit I have not used newzbin really for a few years but when I did I was an editor for a short time but just didn’t have the time to continue but always paid my sub and know I got my monies worth from it.
Personally Caesium I cannot see you having any trouble finding a new job as a coder or systems admin I would have loved to build a site like NewzBin but just don’t have the time to develop one.
I own and run a small private bittorrent tracker (5000 users) and coding for this takes alot of my free time so I can imagine how much time it took to run a large site like newzbin.
Well done.
Caesium,
Thanks for offering to answer some of our questions.
I am actually pretty surprised at hearing you sold the company back in January. Why did you keep this a secret up until this point and kept acting like you were still the owner of Newzbin? Why did you sell the company 2 months prior to the verdict in the lawsuit? Did you privately know Newzbin was going to lose? I recall you posting that no matter the conclusion of the case, Newzbin would survive in some form in the future. Were you so optimistic for someone else’s benefit (new owners/users)?
Do you keep in touch with the person(s) you sold Newzbin to? Can you tell us about their plans? Are they getting out of the Usenet business as well? Can you offer any insight why the new owner did not release the source code of the (now dead) company? What was the purpose of doing so, unless they are planning to reincarnate Newzbin in some form in the future?
Thanks.
Bert,
Yes, I sold Newzbin because I wasn’t confident of winning and found someone who was happy to take on the possibility of losing. It was kept a secret at first at their request, but after February when it was discussed in court that it had been sold, it wasn’t a secret really.
Until quite recently I was still contracting for Newzbin as part of the handover – just not in charge.
I was optimistic because it was my job, really, I suppose. I can’t work for a company that I’m publically saying is going to go down the pan. I did think it would survive as files-only or something like that, but wasn’t really thinking as far ahead as liquidation..
I am in touch with the new owner of the domain but that’s about as much as I can tell you. They now have control of the newzbin.com domain and hence the email enquiries@newzbin.com will reach them. If they want to tell you, thats how to reach them 🙂
a beautifully wrote web app led to the greatest editor generated index the net will ever see! you should be proud m8!
Caesium,
Dittos to those who say “Thank You” for a service that delivered value for the small fee you received. Would that you got rich from it!! Profit is the fuel that keeps the world turning.
Was our credit card information stored persistently?
Was our history stored persistently?
Thanks Chris for all your hard work over the years! I wish you the best of luck and I am sure you will easily find a job with your talent. Thanks again my friend.
Yeah 2$ 8 weeks was awesome. I could care less if he made millions or not. If he did that is awesome…YOU make a million at 2$ increments 🙂 lol
Anyway thanks chris I too will always be grateful.
I do think about the spam we got and how they have that info, not too worried about it, just wonder what else they have. A comment on this (even if its bad) would be nice, so we at least know what they do have.
Good luck chris
Firstly, what a twat. trying to make us feel sorry for him with some retarded “Look at me, I’m the victim” statement.
Secondly it’s pretty obvious he gave the source code and database (yeah thanks for the spam new newzbintards) to someone so that his “legacy” could live on.
Thanks Caesium.
Although for me it was short lived I appreciate your work and wish you the best of luck!
Also, if by chance they lurk here too: Thanks to the rest of the ex-Newzbin guys too and best of luck in you future endeavors!
The ignorance that some people can display when able to post anonymously on the Internet still astounds me to this day. Anyone who insults Caesium or anyone else needs their head testing. This is a man who gave all his free time and put a lot of effort into creating a site that brought happiness to many. Yes, he made money from it, of course he did. I hardly think that earning money from creating and maintaining something that lots of people appreciated is a thing to be ashamed of.
I appreciate all the work you and others put into the site, Caesium, and it won’t be forgotten in a hurry. If anything ever comes of the Newzbin two project then maybe the hacking was a blessing in disguise. Hell, even if it was an inside job I wouldn’t blame you. Anything that makes an effort to defeat the bully boys and their lawyers at the MPA is all fine with me.
Wish u all the best dude.. Ur are one awesome fella.. U have done a great service to us usenet users… Anyone asking for a refund should be shot.. Newzbin was a fantastic site where most of us got our daily dose of everything.. If u know what I mean. Good luck for the future and I’m sure with ur talent ull be up and about in no time. Adios amergo
Thank you chris I have been a member for quite a long time. I appreciated it, basically because it was just a one click thing and off we go, all the VOLUNTEERS thank you also!
I learned the (hard way) and hated it… but your site simply made it easier and it was VERY reasonably priced.
2-3$(us) for 2 months is NOTHING. I did not even know how you did it at that price. Not to mention if you had charged more maybe then you may have been able to get a fair chance in the courts because the ruling was ridiculous and more than likely because there is now premise, will more than likely happen to other sites as well.
Hope you have a good life and forget the whiners as you probably have,
For all of you bitching about a refund… why were you STUPID enough to purchase, what YEARS of service in advance when there could have been MANY other things that could have happened and you would not have got a refund then either.
1 year was 18$ even if that was lost why would you bitch? You are wasting more than 18$ in time just be dumb asses.
The ones complaining more than likely are just mad they do not know where to go or how to get what they want without newzbin and nzb files. lol
Anyway thanks chris and all that helped make the site what it was.
First. Thank you for your hard work and for changing the way many of us think about usenet for binary transfers. It was long overdue and you did it in an elegant way and with future extensibility in mind. While it has been abused for copyright infringement, there is considerable potential in many legitimate applications, and hopefully this will evolve at some point when more people outgrow basic web browsing and trying to do everythin in a browser (which will probably take a while). The fundamentals are there for new distribution models (w/o having to reinvent the wheel).
The 1.1 spec dtd (with the meta section) was still accessible from the newzbin site as of yesterday (just using the url in the xml header). Presumably, while the source code belongs to the company, the nzb spec up to 1.1 is open and in the wild and can’t be claimed as intellectual property, so third parties could begin working with it (and it could be hosted somewhere to allow for further revisions). IMO, there is still a lot of work to be done in agreeing in taxonomies -early adopters will probably have to support multiple taxonomies based on the originator- and avoiding spurious attacks -have some kind of signature system, or rely on some kind of usenet moderation, but the basis for a distributed highly automated system are there, and it will be up to indexing sites to distinguish themselves in their UI, API, taxonomies, etc.
Many complains about newzbin are about the UI, which is a rather subjective (and visceral) topic. For my part, I liked it: it was clean and to the point and you could drill down easily, but that is secundary. Newzbin’s true legacy is the nzb format, which gives the community a starting point, and about one possible UI implementation, which sets the bar for new (and old) players. In the end, this could turn into an opportunity for a community that has proven resilient and innovating many times in the past…
any and every fuckwit here with negative shit to say should get back on their dads dick and STFU… instead of bitchin about the 0.02 a day u spent go out there and buy every fucking movie, song, app and anything else you downloaded… get the fuck off your fat ass and make your own filesharing system and let me and all my friends who got ‘ripped off’ by Newzbin join for free, and you go and manage the site with all your own money! Time is money fucker and everyone who contributed time to making Newzbin has every right in this world to make money from it.
Sorry for all the expletives, but i hate every single whinger on the WWW, none of them have got the balls to stand up and say it to your face or even try to do something like Newzbin… they are the first ones to run scared cos the MPAA might have there details and they might get sued. Every one of us knew what we were buying into and every one of us should have the balls to take a hit for it!
Caesium good on you and good luck – you’re a genius
Thanks for the index. (39) Z said the rest best.
Good luck in what you do next.
There’s a lot of thankless Pricks posting messages in here.
I am grateful for all that Newzbin and Chris did for us.
Had they charged twice the subscription fee, I would have happily paid it.
how didnt you get rich by making 300k a year. you gotta be kidding.
how much did you get for selling newzbin?
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the site. it was fantastic accessing old songs vids etc and at the same time saving hundreds if not thousands of pounds in not having to pay MPAA. Fuck them! The very best of lick for the future. someone will hire you Just a glance at your CV should do it.
All the best
Liverpool Lad.
Chris it would be nice if you could take upon your responsibility and pay us back our money.
man up and give us our money back. dont be wuzz.
How about you man up and don’t be a wuzz and pay back to the studio’s for all the content you have taken first.
NewzBin was a awesome site and I wish Chris every bit of luck with whatever life throws his way.
A very sad day indeed! There are plenty of both free and commercial indexing sites out there but i paid Newzbin because of its ease of use in comparison to the others and to pay 25pence a week that inturn has saved me £thousands was the least i could do!
As for these idiots complaining about Chris making money from the site….i would like to know whether YOU would put your time and money into substaining a business that costs a lot of money for the dedicated servers every month, let alone anything else and do all this for free? I VERY MUCH DOUBT IT!!! We all need to make money to survive and the whole point of setting up a business to provide a service is to make money. NEED I REMIND ALL YOU WHINGERS THAT YOU HAVE RIPPED OFF ALL THE MUSIC ARTISTS, MOVIE MAKERS AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO TIGHT TO PAY THE FULL PRICE FOR YOUR CD’S, MOVIES AND SOFTWARE!!!!!!
I’VE NEVER READ ANYTHING SO UTTERLY PATHETIC AS SOME OF THE COMMENTS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With regards to the questions about credit card info…..Chris really needs to comment on this to put people’s minds at rest but if i remember rightly then Newzbin used something like CCBill which ‘i believe’ is a third party provider similar to Nochex and PayPal so they wouldn’t have held any credit card info but i know we would all appreciate it if Chris would confirm this please?!
Good luck to you Chris, you provided an excellent service which was second to none! I’ve been using Newzbin for around 8 years and i too had a good six months of credit remaining and if anything im sorry that you don’t get to pocket that rather than the liquidators.
R.I.P Newzbin…Gone but never forgotten.
I fully echo And’s comments – an excellent service which I was prepared to pay for. Far too many whingers leaving comments.
Good luck Chris!
A big thanks to Chris for all his hard work, it’s a real shame it has to close.
I would agree with others there is some clarification needed about credit card details. Also I’m a bit ignorant about this, so perhaps someone could tell me if the person who stole the source code will have any of our other details (passwords, email addresses etc)?. Thanks.
[…] C’est cette attention et ce nouveau regard qui est à l’origine de la fermeture de newzbin. En effet depuis deux ans les ayants droits (Twentieth Century For, Universal, Warner Bros, Paramount, Disney et Columbia Pictures) poursuivent ce site d’ indexation des newsgroups et de référencements des fichiers binaires présents sur le réseau usenet. Fin mars, la Haute cour de justice de Londres a jugé le site coupable d’infraction au droit d’auteur, même sans l’hébergement des fichiers en question. Devant tant de procès encore à venir et les coûts financiers le créateur du site a préféré abandonné la partie. Chris Elsworth (aussi connu sous le pseudonyme « Caesium ») explique très bien sa position à ce sujet sur Deepsharer: » […]
Come Chris,
Do thay have card details??
Come on Chris,
Do they have card details??
Newzbin never stored card details so I don’t see how anyone could have your card details, no.
Chris,
Who did you sell the source to in JAN10?
Chris,
Who did you sell the source code to in JAN10?
At the request of the buyer, this is confidential. Frankly you could go find out for yourself if you cared enough.
chris you are greedier than some of this bankers everyone hates.
if were possible you would sell your soul to some dicks too.
How do you work that one out? Frankly if there’s much more of this vitriol I’m just gonna piss off and stop replying, I don’t really need to put up with this crap anymore – a big reason for selling up and getting out.
I wouldn’t be too bothered about these comments Chris. I think they stem from mostly from jealousy and frustrations of not having newzbin around any more.
I frankly admire your entrepreneurial spirit, starting a fantastic business and working on what was once (imho) an intregal part of the usnet community online.
Well done mate, I hope you can carry on with that spirit and do another project that has less lawyers breathing down your neck! 😉
That i way out of line. Chris dedicated 10 years of his life to this project and for much of that time, from the accounts at Companies House, Newzbin made little money. Yea he made a decent income recently but he earnt it. What have you ever done of any use?
Ditto Deepsharer’s comments! Most people would have sold up and just dissapeared but Chris has been kind enough to be here to respond to any questions or concerns.
@Chris – I’ve already had my say mate so im not gonna thank you any more for the great service you provided but remember mate there is only very few biggoted wankers here…The rest of us appreciate everything you’ve given us over the last 10 years and for hanging around to answer genuine questions so try not to let them get to you mate :o)
To those dogging on those asking for a refund:
Caesuim no longer owns the company! You are not being benevolent by not asking for a refund!
NONE of the people who made Newzbin great will not lose a dime if our money is returned. It will come from the pockets of the CURRENT site owners, or the liquidation administrators (or however that legal crap works).
Does that mean I’m asking for a refund? No. But not because I’m trying to be a good person, but because it would be a waste of time. Though it is a legal possibility, I don’t foresee anybody getting their money back.
In all actuality, the only thing asking for you money back would do is further complicate the liquidation proceedings.
Now THAT might actually be a good thing to do.
I can’t help but stick my 0.02 worth in…
I believe imho that those with any negative feelings to offer towards Chris or any of the Newzbin guys should keep thier peace and stfu
He can’t comment on the state of credit card details and history etc – It’s not his entity to be spokesperson for any longer and to offer any such comment could just cause more trouble. It’s a hassle they can do without.
In all honesty, what difference would it make?
It’s a credit card – You are reasonably well protected from fraud. And if the worst were to happen, consider it a consequence – a karmic reaction for all the damages perceived by the MPAA
If you are worried about your email/IP being known – grow a pair and know how to maintain a secure network config
As has been said before – “You knew what you were signing up to”
Actually, really, consider the idea – would an organisiation run by such intelligent people store your credit card details?
No.
I had a fair bit of credit left – I really cannot fathom anyone who would feel like they should get it back – You would have more chance of plaiting fog
Morons
The service offered by Newzbin was worth every unit of currency ever spent on it. It’s a massive shame that it has come to this but in todays world… inevitable?
We should be directing our disquiet at the state of the world and the industries naivity in thinking that this could possibly bring even the slightest victory to thier cause.
I wonder how much money they spent forming and fighting this case?
Certainly more than Newzbin ever turned over.
And I relish with glee the prospects of the can of worms they just pulled the cap on.
Newzbin2 – or whatever they will call it.
If it’s a clone and I could be certain that I was safe enough with them (i don’t know how) I wouldn’t hesitate to use the service.
But it’s not going to be a clone is it… It’s going to be something a lot harder to kill and to the perceptions of the industry it will present a threat far greater than that of Newzbin…. lol
One point I do need to make
The NZB DTD, while i know very little about such things as taxonimies, I have had cause to use such technology standards and I understand general principles.
As I understand it is a genuine innovation of technology – This I therefore consider to be a brick in the wall of our civilisation – We only stand on the shoulders of our forebears and only upon prior foundations can progress be made and measured.
In my life I use NZB for both legitimate and the slighly ill purposes – Toward all the people involved in the creation of Newzbin – I have no words to praise highly enough.
Chris, you can come work with us anytime you want – track us down, drop in for a brew with some fellow unfortunates – We could really use your skills.
Caesium thanks for the wonderful service over these long years, it was a great service. Best of luck.
http://wiki.sabnzbd.org/nzb-specs
Wow, the abuse over losing a site which basically helped you pirate is unreal!
If Chris made £1 or £1million it does not matter. We all willingly paid the sub. If it was an issue why pay it? Want a refund? Go to the liquidators and take it up with them. NB was a company, not an individual.
I feel like apologising to Chris for these negative, immature remarks towards him. Seriously guys, you are an embarassment. If you are the kind of people Chris had to deal with I am not surprised he wants out!
Pathetic, childish comments are uncalled for so please, leave it out. They only make you look retarded.
Dear me, is that Chris Elsworth of Tadcaster who I used to be mates with, went to my Uni, almost killed me on the way to DABS in his fiat Tipo?! How are you man? Message me back, we’re long overdue a beer 🙂
The irony of some of these fucking morons asking for a refund because they feel ripped off, but were quite happy ripping off software/music/film/tv companies.
To those people I say FUCK YOU!
To the Newzbin guys, thanks for all your hard work and devotion, good luck with the future.
And yes, I still had a lot of credit left, so what??
Newzbin was cheap and stable in it’s best days…
Thanks Chris. Best wishes for your future from Denmark!
Chris “Caesium”
Just a quicky, not sure if you still look at this due to the many replys of tripe and idiots..
but thanks for the many years of Newzbin, was a god send when i first found it like 8-9 years back now (cant really remember) but will be missed and be kinda weird as it was allways “just there” but such is the world turning into a freak show of taking anyone and everyone to court….
I wish you all the best sir, and if I could would get you a job in our IT dept but sadly not my place.
So enjoy and good luck in any endevours you take up (or the nice sysadmin role you been dreaming off hehe)
Paul
Chris… A hardy “Well Done” for you my friend. After years of enjoying Newzbin, I am sad to see it go, but I hope that you prosper in your future endeavors and that they are not as trying as this one was. I truly appreciate you supporting the community… You are a class guy! Don’t let the people whining get to you… you did quality work and gave us a great product for a great price… I am unsure how these people can be upset.
As for the hackers/Newzbin 2 guys… They have my EMAIL address but only sent me one EMAIL informing me that the product I really like may be back soon. I think that is great! More power to them! I am in.
I think the editors and admins of Newzbin have shown that there are quality people in this community that live in the gray area. These guys could have spammed me like crazy, but they didn’t… it was a nice EMAIL that had a “blog” feel to it. It seems to me that they are doing this for the good of the community too, but we will see.
With a new newzbin, I’d be more likely to stay on Usenet. However, going with another subscription with another site is kind of stretching it especially for a site that we’ll have no idea on how secure our data and information will be handled.
NZBMatrix may be inferior, it has a better standing than this team r dog release.
I’ve also been looking at alternatives for a provider as I’m tired of Astraweb. The best deals I found so far was:http://www.newsgroupservers.com/blog/
they got a couple of deals that I think will work for people like me on a budget.
So, anyone can suggest me a new Usenet search engine?
Mr Caesium
you had a great site going
best of luck for the future
Just a quick note to say thank you for the years of hard work and for everything you did for the community, Caesium. Best of luck with all your future endeavors.
Let me know if you’re willing to relocate to Denmark for the job, you deserve the best!
I too had over 300 days of credit left , BUT I aint gonna moan for about £10 !!! , Caesium you and the rest provided a great service and I am one person who’s happy for funding development of a great site that WAS Newzbin , Good luck in your future endevours m8 , you’ll be missed 🙂
Clones? Why searching for new ones… Enough alternatives!
Such as: http://www.nzbuddy.nl/
Well done for what you did over the last few years. Theres not a whole load of people changed the way things work like you did.
Best of luck and you will be missed.
@On3: that seems an interesting program, but I can’t find anyway to change language, is it dutch only?
@weezee: It’s not a nzb search. Basically it’s about the following:
There is a usenet-community, which developed their own application, called FTD. A dutch community. Expect most of their stuff dutch, and movies badly dutch subtitled.
Because of pressure from a dutch copyright organisation, they removed a button from their application, which would led you to a nzb-search enginge, with the filename of the nzb file. This way it’s a bit easier to download nzb files. Nothing like Newzbin, which provided the nzb files themselves.
NZBbuddy is just an addon for FTD, which puts the button back in place. That’s all.
It’s not at all an alternative for newzbin.
If you are really interested in it, go to http://www.ftd.nu. There you can download the application, but it’s dutch only. NZBmatrix is a lot better than FTD.
Ok, thank you very much Henk, I’ll stick to nzbmatrix for now 🙂
Thanks Caesium i think we all are greatful of all your work over the years and i will defo miss using Newzbin 😦
cheers chris, I hope you walked away with something. Giganews etc owe you a huge debt of gratitude.
well this is late, so I don’t know if you’ll read this chris, but you rock! I was using your service since 2004 and never had a complaint. If I paid 10 times your going amount every year it would still be a steal (literally).
It’s amazing how the creator of bit-torrent has received world-wide attention, when in fact I hate bit-torrent and so do many other people. I wonder if you’ll get interviewed by some glossy PC mag in the future. I’d be much more interested to read what you have to say than brahm cohen.
Good luck in your future endeavors, and don’t lose touch with all your nzb fans on the net
Hey Chris, just wanted to say Newzbin was a fab. program.. Thanks, it was great whilst it lasted.
Good luck!
Newzbin is a UK company, and as such, has to follow UK laws. All company information, including accounts, Directors etc is available from the UK Government website,
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk
There you will see the new Directors are David Bahan, and David Harris (who was defending Newzbin in court at the start).
Chris did some good work, and I wish him all the best in the future.
The site was great but Chris, didn’t mind pulling the wool over people’s eyes.
Newzbin, always created an atmosphere of deception when it came to their turnover. I saw several examples of this ( some in the same year they made over 350k profit ) on the old and new forums where Newzbin staff claimed the subs covered running costs only and nobody makes anything from running the site. I suppose this was done because of the following reason.
No matter how amazing the coding was the site needed a human touch, the editors. The editors are the most vital part of the operation and for them to work long term for free you had to make out you were part of a team doing it for the usenet community. I’m sure a lot felt used and scammed by you!
Thakns
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