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From mid-1996 up until about 2007, RNS, or Rabid Neurosis, depending on how long you have been online in the right circles to know of them, was the group to go to if you wanted music.
Fed crackdown on ‘RNS’ signals death to oldest 0Day group online.
While it has been a few years since the group has released anything online, they were the grandfathers to many of the groups online today. Their death is certain however, as a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia charged four of the RNS team with conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.
If you downloaded a copy of Jay-Z’s Blueprint CD, RNS released it. The same can be said for Encore by Eminem, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2, and thousands of full CDs each year from 1996 until 2007. In 2007, RNS left the music scene with the release of Fall Out Boy’s album Infinity on High.
[For those who keep track, in May 2009 there was a release that used RNS as the release group. However, it should be understood that RNS as a name has always existed after the main people left the scene in 2007.]
As mentioned, RNS is the grandfather to the groups online today, such as XXL, and H3X. They are the reason many albums are online long before they hit the stores. H3X, for example, just released the new Megadeath CD titled Endgame on September 9, and Jay-Z’s album The Blueprint 3 on September 1. The street date for the Jay-Z CD was today, September 11. Endgame is due in stores on September 15. In the past, it was nothing to see a CD online months before it was out in stores.
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Dana J. Boente, four high ranking members of RNS are listed in the indictment. Adil R. Cassim, Bennie Glover, Matthew D. Chow, and Edward L. Mohan, were charged with being high-level members of RNS. According to court documents, led by Cassim for a period of time, the defendants allegedly conspired to illegally upload thousands of copyright protected music files, which were often subsequently reproduced and distributed hundreds of thousands of times.
To be fair, the courts are likely understating the power RNS had on IRC in the late 90’s and early 2001-2004, when they hit their peak. RNS is one of the groups that formed some of the scene rules, still in use today, such as a minimum bitrate of 192kbps, and uniformed naming conventions. However, as mentioned in the indictment, rippers were the key to the scene.
Bennie Glover is named as one of the people who got access to pre-release albums from a CD manufacturing plant in North Carolina. Mohan and Chow are said to have purchased CDs from retail stores shortly after their commercial release and posted online before other scene groups could slap their tag on them.
Rippers are the ones who can get the CDs before anyone else and rip them for their group. Rippers were record store employees, Radio DJs, people who worked in the music business, or even people who worked for shipping companies. Aanyone who had confirmed access to music could be a ripper.
Once the CD was ripped, it was uploaded to a dump, where other group members would access it, and eventually the release would filter out to bots on IRC or other places online, where the leechers would download it. From there the release would just spread on its own.
The goal, back when RNS was alive and kicking, and to this day, is to be the first to release something, and to release more material than any other group. Before they disbanded in 2007, RNS was the pack leader online when it came to music releases.
Now, with the music scene still kicking strong, the RNS crew is looking at serious time and fines. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 USD fine, and three years of supervised release.
In addition to the four named in this recent indictment, two other RNS members were previously charged. Patrick L. Saunders was charged on August 14, 2009 and James A. Dockery was charged September 8, 2009 with conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. Saunders pleaded guilty, and is to be sentenced on December 4.
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