Can you get busted for posting copyrighted material on usenet?

[weezyFTW]

I'm sure that the possibility is there that you somehow could get busted for posting copyrighted stuff on usenet but is it likely and has anyone ever heard of it happening?

 

[iamlikesocool]

I've heard of people losing their usenet accounts for posting things (ie.. received DMCA complaint to the hosting company like giganews, so Giganews shuts them down). but.. haven't heard of police action

 

[Rick Samuelson]

ya heard the same

 

[Sandro A]

You could get busted, no doubt about that. It is unlikely though, unless you post a lot of content they are unlikely to even notice you. Plus there are a lot of big usenet posters that ain't got into any sort of trouble yet. A few have had their accounts disabled or posting privileges taken away but that is all.

Just so you know, when you post something to usenet it's not anonymous. Pretty much all servers will either add your IP address to the post body or add an X-Trace line. X-Trace is an encrypted line that only the NSP can decrypt, will contain either the account username or IP address that posted the file.