negative1 said:

just to be clear, you're still paying your ISP, and by the way,
depending on who that is, a lot of them give free newsgroup
access (*or give you a limit to download)....

Well, yeah, I figured people would realize they're paying for their regular Internet service... they'll also be paying electricity bills for the energy their computers are consuming, as well as any lights they have on in the room while sitting at said computer, but I didn't think it was necessary to go into that much detail...

As for some Internet Service Providers providing free newsgroup access, you're absolutely right; thanks for mentioning it (since I totally forgot to). People would be well-advised to confirm whether their ISP has this first before unecessarily paying for newsgroup access (unfortunately, I wasn't one of those so lucky to get free access).

i know it only took you 1 day to download from the newsgroups,
but you must have a very fast connection, as it took me all of
several days......so it wasn't any advantage to me at all...

As I said, I have a cable connection... I averaged 4 Mb/s... so yeah, if you're connection's slower than that, it'll take longer. However, if someone's connection is slow, wouldn't it just take that much longer for a torrent too?

i'm NOT trying to discourage people from using newsgroups,

but the LEARNING CURVE is WAY WAY harder than torrents,
(from my own experience of just learning how to use them)..

Agreed... I still love torrents for their simplicity and, to be honest, because they're free, and will continue to go that route in the future (barring any other free newsgroup access I discover). Like I said at the outset of my post, I only offered this info for those anxious to get a copy of the DVD9 and who don't mind a bit of a rigamaroll to do it.