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Piracy The Internet Youtube

GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned (torrentfreak.com) 111

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: On October 23, 2020, the RIAA decided on action to stunt the growth and potentially the entire future of popular YouTube-ripping tool YouTube-DL. The music industry group filed a copyright complaint with code repository Github, demanding that the project be taken down for breaching the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. While this was never likely to be well received by the hoards of people who support the software, the response was unprecedented. [...] One of the responses was to repost the content to Github itself, where hundreds of YouTube-DL forks kept the flame alight. A copy even appeared in Github's DMCA notice repository where surprisingly it remains to this day. Now, however, Github is warning of consequences for those who continue to use the platform for deliberate breaches of the DMCA.

As previously reported, Github is being unusually sympathetic to the plight of the YouTube-DL developers. Most platforms are very happy to simply follow the rules by removing content in response to a DMCA complaint and standing back while declaring "Nothing to do with us folks." Github, on the other hand, has actively become involved to try and get the project reinstated. Unfortunately, however, there is only so far Github can go, something the company made clear in a statement posted to its DMCA repository this weekend.

"If you are looking to file or dispute a takedown notice by posting to this repository, please STOP because we do not accept Pull Requests or other contributions to this repository," wrote Jesse Geraci, Github's Corporate Counsel. "Please note that re-posting the exact same content that was the subject of a takedown notice without following the proper process is a violation of GitHub's DMCA Policy and Terms of Service. If you commit or post content to this repository that violates our Terms of Service, we will delete that content and may suspend access to your account as well," Geraci wrote. This statement caused an update to Github's earlier DMCA notice advice.

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GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

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  • by thePsychologist ( 1062886 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:07PM (#60678052) Journal

    Having the world's open source development dependent on a huge American company with corporate interests sounds like a recipe for disaster.

    • by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:32PM (#60678142)

      Sad to say, this is a perfect demonstration of why everybody needs to move their projects away from Github. Microsoft pretty much business as usual, who woulda thunkit?

    • by ShakaUVM ( 157947 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:35PM (#60678152) Homepage Journal

      Everyone knew this would happen when they were bought by Microsoft, despite obvious platitudes otherwise.

      • by Kristoph ( 242780 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @11:42PM (#60678540)

        American company required to follow American laws!!! Who would have imagined it!

        • by ShakaUVM ( 157947 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @04:51AM (#60678960) Homepage Journal

          >American company required to follow American laws!!! Who would have imagined it!

          With the law, too.

          We also knew this exact scenario when the DMCA was passed that allowed copyright holders to spam invalid takedown notices without consequence.

          If Slashdot's archive goes back that far, you'll see this discussed back then as well.

        • American company required to follow American laws!!! Who would have imagined it!

          If they were following the law, they would have restored youtube-dl already. The takedown was bogus.

        • by Pimpy ( 143938 )

          They could also use their heads to determine the validity of the request before blindly taking action, and if they don't like the law, they're more than capable of lobbying to have it changed or repealed. It's not like Microsoft is some small helpless organization.

      • Everyone knew this would happen when they were bought by Microsoft, despite obvious platitudes otherwise.

        That they'd follow the law? You do realise that Github had a DMCA process in place *before* Microsoft bought them right? Of course not. This is Slashdot so fuck logic, MS bad.

    • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:28AM (#60678696)

      Dependent? Keep in mind how git works. When you clone a project, you're grabbing a complete duplicate, and store it locally. There's nothing special about GitHub that another service couldn't provide, because their business model is based on open source tools and data formats. That's literally the opposite of the typical "lockin" we fear with cloud services.

      Github is just convenient because it has reasonably decent tools / interface, and many people already have an account there, or at least know how to use it. There's no way they can hold the code hostage, as though there were some secret sauce underneath it all that everyone relied on. I could move all my projects to another host in a day, no problem.

      Sure, you might lose some ancillary stuff, like your bug lists, etc, but not the most important part - the code and the git repository.

      • by Mordaximus ( 566304 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @05:48AM (#60679040)

        It's already been cloned on GitLab [gitlab.com]

        • We'll see how long that lasts: Gitlab's DMCA Policy [gitlab.com]

          This has nothing to do with Microsoft. Every public repo service has a policy to take down repos on receipt of DMCA requests. Including Github for many years before MS even considered buying them.

          • Sure, it likely will get taken down on GitLab, once they receive a takedown notice. The point is though, it's pretty trivial to move around, to really anywhere that doesn't care one iota about DMCA.

      • There's nothing special about GitHub that another service couldn't provide

        Indeed. Any service could provide this. But 100% of them would also comply with the DMCA the same way, including ... Github which has done so publicly and transparently since 2011, a good 7 years before Microsoft was even in the picture.

        You mad to think that an open online publishing service that is completely under user control would just ignore DMCA requests (You realise Github received 170 takedown notices just last month?)

        Fork away, build another service, but before doing so consider if it was worth the

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:12PM (#60678072)

    The ironic thing was that as soon as I saw it was kicked off of GitHub, I checked some sites on countries that are less WIPO/DMCA-happy... and their Git servers are doing quite well with daily development done on the YouTube-DL fork.

    • by dotancohen ( 1015143 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @06:16AM (#60679080) Homepage

      These reposts of the code (they're not forks) should add each other as remote URLs. Git has that feature built in. Thus, they could all push all pull to each server.

      That is why Git is called _distributed_ version control software. There is no concept of a "server" as in SVN. All machines, including your local dev box, are equal.

    • I checked some sites on countries that are less WIPO/DMCA-happy...

      Got a list of them? So far every posted link in the comments here has been to a service which complies with DMCA takedowns.

  • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:28PM (#60678128)

      Maybe its time for someone to set up a data haven ala Cryptonomicon. Something located in a country where the government of that country will just tell the big media corps (or the US government) to "get stuffed" if they come knocking and demand stuff be taken down or removed.

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        A data haven has been an interesting idea for a while. However, most companies are vassals of Big Media, and would stomp anything like that out of existence. The few that don't, have their own things they want to censor, so they wouldn't want data havens in their own soil. You could do peer to peer, sort of like a persistant TOR network, but an attacker will just throw garbage to be stored on the network until all the nodes' drives are full.

        Perhaps if you combined it with a cryptocurrency so storing "x"

      • by pacinpm ( 631330 )

        China? But then you will have to obide with China laws. I heard Elon Musk want's to Mars have it's own laws and government. Maybe "this is the way".

      • Good luck. If the rightsholders can't take you down then they cut you off. Hell The Pirate Bay even tried setting up on the Principality of Seeland at one point. My ISP now specifically blocks TPB.

        I don't particularly feel like having to setup a VPN just to get software updates.

    • by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:50PM (#60678192)

      I keep my code in a local NAS (QNAP, Synology, and Asustor NAS models can do a lot more than just be a SMB or NFS server), which gets backed up encrypted to some place like Backblaze B2. GitHub, GitLab, SourceForge, etc... are great for putting up public repos for me to show what I know, as well as collaborating on F/OSS projects, but you never know when a cloud provider may not like the cut of your jib and cut your accounts off.

      It is even worse now, because Atlassian has stopped selling non-cloud products to anyone but large enterprises, so the days of running a home Bitbucket server is no dice. However, there are projects like Gitea and Gogs which are starting to make up for that.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Find an overseas repository to publish the content. I ran into this decades ago with cryptogrpaphic support for IMAP with SSL, when the Washiingon University public release of IMAP deliberately excluded the SSL libraries they used on campus due to encryption export regulations. I would only post links to the SSL content from my US website, but got accused of pirating the original imapd author Mark Crispin's internal source code from Washington University.

    The software warfare got strange: imapd was designed

    • The software warfare got strange: imapd was designed to *never* have a local IMAP repository from a mail client, and every time I kept patching pine and imapd to allow the "pine" emial client to run on the same host as the IMAP server. Mark kept deliberately refactoring the relevant library to break my patches, including pointless whitespace ahanges and variable renaming. This went on for *years*, until Gmail finally got popular and and people discarded the Pine emaill client.

      I still use Alpine to this day, after using Pine for over a decade. That explains a few things.

  • just host it elsewhere its not the end of the world hear.
  • by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:19PM (#60678100) Journal

    This is the DeCSS of the current generation, albeit too big to print on a T-shirt.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by CHduckie ( 7347722 )

      albeit too big to print on a T-shirt.

      Or is it...? [twitter.com]

      • LOL, I guess I underestimated what could be done. I don't think it would survive too many washings though, unless there's some redundancy in there.

    • You're thinking of PGP.

    • by drwiii ( 434 )

      I'd like to note that years of computers, Linux, and eating pizza has made me fat and more healthy than I would have been eating salty popcorn and watching what's been coming out of the entertainment industry for the past twenty years.

      Challenge is to consult http://decss.zoy.org/ [zoy.org] to see what today's response would be to the DVD accessibility lawsuit.

      Yes, I did get sued for distributing DeCSS (pronounced for legal reasons as the letters: D.E.C.S.S.).

  • by Arnonyrnous Covvard ( 7286638 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:23PM (#60678114)
    Microsoft is taking the RIAA's accusations at face value, perhaps because Microsoft is a RIAA member? GitHub was a dead man walking the second it was bought by Microsoft. It just takes some time for everyone to see it.
    • by msauve ( 701917 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @09:23PM (#60678274)
      >Microsoft is taking the RIAA's accusations at face value, perhaps because Microsoft is a RIAA member?

      No, because that's what's required by the DMCA. Github gets a notice, they take it down. Without choice, without judgement, because that's the law. After that, the targeted account can file a counter-notice - and then the parties (not Github) duke it out in the courts.

      Github (after counter-notice):

      If the copyright owner does not give GitHub notice within 10-14 days, by sending a copy of a valid legal complaint filed in a court of competent jurisdiction, GitHub will reenable the disabled content.

      For background, a DMCA explanation from www.copyright.gov:

      Section 1201 proscribes devices or services that fall within any one of the following three categories:
      - they are primarily designed or produced to circumvent;
      - they have only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent; or
      - they are marketed for use in circumventing.

      • >No, because that's what's required by the DMCA. False. A platform retains the option to waive their safe harbor rights.
        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          No, because that's what's required by the DMCA.

          False. A platform retains the option to waive their safe harbor rights.

          Yes, and then expose themselves to tons of lawsuits over everything. Think of all those "master slave" comments in source code or all those comments someone might have made that denigrate women. All sorts of groups would love to have a field day suing Microsoft because someone wrote "F*CK" all over the source code.

          Things actually might end up worse if Microsoft starts forcing all projects t

      • It wasn't a DMCA notice.
        • by msauve ( 701917 )
          Since when is a DMCA notice [github.com] not a DMCA notice?
          • by uufnord ( 999299 )

            Only the original repo had a DMCA strike. None of the newly-uploaded repos have been sent one. Github claims that it will remove these secondary repos without a DMCA notice against them. AFAICT, Github is not required to do that. This action helps the accuser, as now the accuser doesn't have to search for and find the secondary repo, and the accuser no longer has to spend the money to produce that new DMCA notice or manage the fallout.

            This is to attempt to prevent "Spartacus". If there were enough co

      • Note that the takedown of forks and the banning of their uploaders is due to Github's "DMCA policy", not the DMCA. The RIAA's takedown notice named a list of repositories. Microsoft is legally obligated to suspend exactly those repositories, but not to delete them or ban their uploaders or do those things to other repositories. The RIAA's takedown notice is bullshit, but Microsoft does need to act on it to maintain its safe harbor status. That's not what Microsoft is doing. It's going far beyond that, becau
        • by msauve ( 701917 )
          >Microsoft is legally obligated to suspend exactly those repositories... It's going far beyond that

          Nope. The takedown notice specified:
          "we ask that you immediately take down and disable access to the youtube-dl source code at all of its locations where it is hosted on GitHub"

          >it's a good dog who knows its master.

          Spinning only works if you don't fall down in the process. Github's DMCA policy was in place before MSFT bought them.
          • The takedown notice can't just specify anything they want and have it hold legal weight. It's not surprising that Microsoft is exceeding its legal obligations to take down youtube-dl, but the lack of surprise isn't why I scold them. Microsoft is in charge of Github and I hold them accountable for what they do. There is no way of knowing how this would have played out had Microsoft not bought Github.
            • by msauve ( 701917 )
              >The takedown notice can't just specify anything they want and have it hold legal weight.

              Actually, it can, although making false claims opens one up to liability. It's almost as if you've never read the law, and are making unsupported claims based on what you think it should say.
            • The takedown notice can't just specify anything they want and have it hold legal weight.

              Yes it can. It literally holds legal weight regardless of how absurd it is. Legal weight in that the recipient has to take it down, and legal weight that the initiator of the takedown request can get in legal hot water but *ONLY* if contested in court and only after a DCMA counterclaim is filed. The whole point of the DMCA is that the platform hosting the content is a complete 3rd party to the process and that they take everything completely at face value.

              Microsoft is in charge of Github and I hold them accountable for what they do. There is no way of knowing how this would have played out had Microsoft not bought Github.

              Github has always complied with the DMCA. All public

              • If the takedown notice specifies that the admin has to hop on one leg while he suspends the listed repositories, that does not mean the admin actually has to do that. The takedown notice has to be specific and limited to the alleged infringement. You copyright shills are never content with the damage the actual DMCA does. You want MOAR!
              • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

                If you're going to comment on the law, please read the damn law first.

                Tech people are as ignorant of the law as the general public is of technology.

                You can try to train people how to use technology, but it remains just as difficult as telling tech people to understand the law.

                There are plenty of real lawyers who are tech people, just as there are members of the public that are tech savvy. But in general asking tech people to understand law is like asking the public to understand tech. (Yes, it's a form of h

      • The safe-harbor/takedown notice system applies to section 512. This was a threat of action under section 1201. A threat of legal action places no obligation to the recipient merely by being sent.

    • by nyet ( 19118 )

      What they could do is cease being a member of the RIAA.

  • So lets all get banned and move on to better things.
  • Microsoft + MAFIAA (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Tough Love ( 215404 )

    Microsoft comes out firmly on the side of MAFIAA

    • by khchung ( 462899 )

      Microsoft comes out firmly on the side of MAFIAA

      Of course. MS is part of the IP protection racket, what else would you expect?

      As other posters have already mentioned, this was one of the worry (or even expected) when MS bought GitHub. Anyone really thought it was a sign of MS embracing free and open sharing of software?

    • Microsoft comes out firmly on the side of MAFIAA

      Realistic headline: Microsoft comes out firmly on the side they were legally forced to adopt. As an alternative here's a an all inclusive list of American companies who risk getting legally screwed all to support a user who hasn't even bothered filing a DMCA counter notice:

      That's it. That's all of them in the list.

      • by nagora ( 177841 )

        Microsoft comes out firmly on the side of MAFIAA

        Realistic headline: Microsoft comes out firmly on the side they were legally forced to adopt.

        Were they forced to? I thought they only had to do so in order to keep a "safe haven" status.

        • Were they forced to? I thought they only had to do so in order to keep a "safe haven" status.

          If you think that is optional for *any* online platform that hosts other people's content then you are severely deluded. Github receives about 170 takedown requests every month and has taken down said content since the DMCA was first past, their documented history of publication of takedowns goes back to 2011, a good 7 years before Microsoft bought it.

          Yes they a public online publishing platform is "forced" to comply with the DMCA takedown notices if they want to actually continue to exist.

          • by nagora ( 177841 )

            Were they forced to? I thought they only had to do so in order to keep a "safe haven" status.

            If you think that is optional for *any* online platform that hosts other people's content then you are severely deluded. Github receives about 170 takedown requests every month and has taken down said content since the DMCA was first past, their documented history of publication of takedowns goes back to 2011, a good 7 years before Microsoft bought it.

            Yes they a public online publishing platform is "forced" to comply with the DMCA takedown notices if they want to actually continue to exist.

            OK. So, it's part of their business model, then. I mean, no one was forcing them to go into business, were they? And I imagine that no one was forcing them to do so in the US either.

            • OK. So, it's part of their business model, then. I mean, no one was forcing them to go into business, were they? And I imagine that no one was forcing them to do so in the US either.

              That has got to be the single dumbest comment on this story.

              Github: We host people's code and have been doing it for years!
              USA: We're introducing a copyright act.
              Github: Pack it up folks, rather than dealing with a minor inconvenience we're giving up our long running business and to never deal with other people again! It was fun while it lasted, but putting up a DMCA compliance statement and simply following the law and taking down something when legally requested to is too hard. Wows me!

              • by nagora ( 177841 )

                OK. So, it's part of their business model, then. I mean, no one was forcing them to go into business, were they? And I imagine that no one was forcing them to do so in the US either.

                That has got to be the single dumbest comment on this story.

                Github: We host people's code and have been doing it for years!
                USA: We're introducing a copyright act.
                Github: Pack it up folks, rather than dealing with a minor inconvenience we're giving up our long running business and to never deal with other people again! It was fun while it lasted, but putting up a DMCA compliance statement and simply following the law and taking down something when legally requested to is too hard. Wows me!

                They chose to take advantage of a loophole which allows them to pretend not to be a publisher, when they clearly are. They chose to have servers under the DMCA's jurisdiction. They chose to accept the RIAA's claims. They chose to sell out to a corporation with no interest in defending freedom.

                It's their choice to be in this mess and I hope it spells the end of GitHub.

                • Absolutely horseshit. This isn't a loophole. It's the law directly as written which every online service automatically falls into by doing precisely nothing. And no they didn't chose to be American in the DMCA jurisdiction. Github predates the DMCA. No they didn't chose to accept the RIAA's claim, they chose to simply follow the law, just like they would need to follow the law an re-instate the repo if a counter notice is filed, which it hasn't been.

                  youtube-dl's owner chose to accept the RIAA's claim throug

                  • by nagora ( 177841 )

                    Absolutely horseshit. This isn't a loophole. It's the law directly as written

                    It's a loophole provided by the law; maybe "exception" would be better but since it works by everyone pretending that something is real when it's not "loophole" seems more fitting.

                    which every online service automatically falls into by doing precisely nothing.

                    Every American online service.

                    And no they didn't chose to be American in the DMCA jurisdiction. Github predates the DMCA.

                    And could have moved to a different jurisdiction or have been sold to someone outside of that jurisdiction, or simply closed down if they can't find a way to square the law with morality.

                    No they didn't chose to accept the RIAA's claim, they chose to simply follow the law, just like they would need to follow the law an re-instate the repo if a counter notice is filed, which it hasn't been.

                    youtube-dl's owner chose to accept the RIAA's claim through their inaction. Github is just doing what the law says.

                    Your claims and opinions are not at all based in reality in fact they seem to point to a fundamental lack of understanding of the DMCA, the law, history, and the way that *every* company be it Microsoft owned, or some open source company operates.

                    I'm just saying that when the law says "if you want to do this, you must follow these rules" then it is an act of v

                    • It's a loophole provided by the law;

                      Saying someone is not responsible for the actions of another is not a loophole. It is the entire fundamental purpose of the DMCA.

                      And could have moved to a different jurisdiction or have been sold to someone outside of that jurisdiction, or simply closed down if they can't find a way to square the law with morality.

                      So you criticise someone for using a "loophole" which isn't a loophole but at the same time criticise them for not attempting to flout the law by trying to put yourself out of its jurisdiction altogether? The cognitive dissonance is amazing. Who did you vote for in the election? Donald Biden? Joe Trump?

                      I'm just saying that when the law says "if you want to do this, you must follow these rules" then it is an act of volition to continue working under that set of rules.

                      Yes, and since this is a western nation covered by laws we should support peopl

  • Like always! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:33PM (#60678146)
    true colors appear.
    • true colors appear.

      Yeah Microsoft obeying the law. That IS novel and new.

      I'm curious, what do you propose they do? Ignore DMCA takedowns getting them legally screwed? Attempt to claim ownership of the Github repo away from the developer so they could file their own DMCA counterclaim? What do you expect?

      • It's not a copyright claim, so they're not required to take it down.

        It's a bogus claim, so it should have been restored by now, assuming youtube-dl developers made a request.

        But Microsoft is part of the RIAA, so they essentially MADE the request...

        • It's not a copyright claim, so they're not required to take it down.

          False. It's not up to the platform to police. That's precisely what makes the DMCA the clusterfuck it is. It doesn't have to be copyright, it just needs to be a DMCA claim.

          It's a bogus claim, so it should have been restored by now, assuming youtube-dl developers made a request.

          Why assume when you can check [github.com]? The youtube-dl owners have filed no counterclaim, so it absolutely should not be reinstated in the slightest. There's legal requirements for not reinstating it until a counterclaim by the owner is filed.

          But Microsoft is part of the RIAA, so they essentially MADE the request...

          They are also humans, so I personally blame you because you're also a human. What a dumb argument. Of cour

  • will they stand to the next sco linux take down??

  • gittorrent
    radicle
    forgefed

    Anyone know of others?

  • by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @08:54PM (#60678200)
    Most sites follow their legally required duties. Github, as I understand it, has taken it a step further in honoring a request it is not obligated to. As YouTube-DL is accused of being an anti-circumvention tool, but not a work they own the copyright to, they have no legal obligation to remove the content at this stage. And did the authors not file a counter notice, meaning it should be restored? So like most large companies, they're going above and beyond to placate the RIAA, lest they have to defend against frivolous litigation and other extortion like Google did until they gave in with YouTube.
    • I am pretty sure that the authors did *not* file a counter-notice for it to be restored. If they had, there's no reason to believe that Github wouldn't have restored it unless you have a conspiracy in desperate search for a theory. There are probably hundreds of "authors" (We could get an exact count from commit history) Whoever files a counter-notice will have to deal with the legal costs of a defense and not just for their contributions but possibly the whole repository. This is a small open-source pr
    • Github, as I understand it, has taken it a step further in honoring a request it is not obligated to.

      Nope. It's not up to the recipient of the DMCA to determine if it's valid. It's entirely up to the courts. That is precisely what makes the DMCA so stupid to begin with. Here's how it works:
      1. Evil party a files a DMCA takedown request that isn't valid.
      2. Host removes "infringing" content and informs the poster of the content.
      3. Poster of the content files a counterclaim (no this hasn't happened, you can check on the github DMCA repo that no counterclaim has been received).
      4. Host informs Evil party of a co

      • They did not claim ownership of a work. Therefore the notice was defective as it did not meet the legally required criteria. You're not obligated to follow a defective notice. A legal DMCA notice must identify the work being infringed; they claimed no such infringement. Like if I sent Slashdot a notice saying take down your logo because it's ugly, there's no legal obligation to comply, because I have not asserted ownership of it, and 'it's ugly' is not a claim of copyright infringement.
  • by redelm ( 54142 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @09:24PM (#60678276) Homepage

    youtube-dl -U didn't work yesterday, yet just now updates to version 2020.11.01.1 .

  • Microsoft has a huge repository of software in one place that they can just take.

  • by RockDoctor ( 15477 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @09:33PM (#60678302) Journal
    That's the Obfuscated-C Competition for the under-35s out there.

    Possibly without knowing it, Github have launched a new contest to duplicate the functionality of the YouTube-DL code, but in the most obscure possible way. Over the decades, this contest (triggered by ONE or both of the K&R of the ink-on-dead tree C reference) has produced some startlingly beautiful code, and M$ want the game to continue.

    Plausible deniability is hereby granted, and it may be a cold day in he'll, because I'm saying nice things about M$.

  • by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Monday November 02, 2020 @10:08PM (#60678378)

    Github needs to step into the Way-Back machine and take a trip back to 2007.

    They tried this heavy-handedness bullshit with AACS back then. Hell, they even tried to make the hexadecimal string an " illegal number ".

    The harder they tried to white-wash it, the worse it got. Folks were putting that number on anything and everything and, eventually, sites couldn't keep up with it and they threw in the towel. Eventually, the key spread across most of the internet like a wild fire.

    It didn't work back then and it sure as hell isn't going to work now.

    Word of advice to the RIAA, don't waste your time, effort or money on this because you will not come out on top. You would do well to learn from the mistakes made in the past so you don't keep repeating them.

    • Addendum:

      Forgot to mention this is like round three of this silliness. DeCSS kicked it off back in 2000, then AACS, now this.
      Folks just refuse to learn from the past . . . . . :|

    • Github needs to step into the Way-Back machine and take a trip back to 2007.

      Github doesn't need to do anything. The RIAA needs to do that. The success of spreading the "illegal number" wasn't due to one platform ignoring the DMCA, it was due to that number spreading so far and wide across so many platforms that it became impossible to enforce it.

      Github is doing precisely what is legally required of it, nothing more, nothing less. It's up to us to spread the content to every corner of the internet in protest.

      • If I hadn't posted, I would have modded you up. Why would GitHub want to "take sides" in a battle where there is already a clear winner and GitHub has way better things to do.
        • Why would GitHub want to "take sides"

          Worse than that. GitHub legally is obliged not to take sides. That's what the DMCA was all about, the platform becomes a "common carrier" so to say. E.g. Github would be obliged to reinstate the repo 14 days after receiving a counternotice, just like they were obliged to take it down immediately.

          • I believe they are *allowed* to waive safe harbor and leave the content up but then they become legally liable for it which is pretty much something that nobody in their right mind would do except perhaps in very rare cases where the platform thought the notice was part of a harassment campaign or something. But in this case, even if they have the option to do something else, taking down the content in lieu of counter-notice is at least the only sane thing to do.
    • Why do you think GitHub is "trying heavy handedness" or even cares about the outcome. They are a platform provider. They aren't in the business of "picking sides" and, in this case, why would anybody want it any other way. They get a DMCA notice and they comply. The authors don't file counter-notice and GitHub can now move on to things that make money. Suddenly the repository keeps getting replicated. Well they don't want to deal with a thousand DMCA takedown notices so they implement controls to keep
  • In WO2 people also said that it hadn't to do anything with them.
    That they were just following orders.
    That they didn't know what impact their action had.
    Github is standing hand in hand with Microsoft on the wrong side of history.

    • How the heck did this get modded up? Unless its an attempt at a +5 Funny. Of all the issues in this world, you want GitHub to open itself up to liability so that it can "virtue signal" by hosting code that's available in a thousand places on the internet. And that would achieve what exactly? The end would be GitHub writing a check to the very RIAA that sent the notice! You can't fight every battle and this is one that GitHub would expend a lot of resources only to have no effect on the outcome.
    • Github is standing hand in hand with Microsoft on the wrong side of history.

      Github is hand in hand with Microsoft for obeying their legal obligations as they have for the past 10 years, long before Microsoft was even in the picture.

      I don't know what you were smoking when you wrote that post.

  • it proves any "hub" is a single point of vulnerability and single target for enemies.
    What might robust, decentralized, perhaps distributed alternatives look like?
    How practical would automated mirroring be to protect against content loss from shutdown of a single provider?
    Some mirrors should be outside nations which respect US law as the US is pwned by evil corps and that will never be different except in isolated instances. Neither Demublican nor Repocrat will change this. FOSS is an asset to humanity to b

  • we should have stopped adding code to Github in 2018 in the free software movement. [ycombinator.com]

    Thankfully all is not yet lost [ycombinator.com] - there's things like sr.ht [sr.ht] that exist yet.
    • I closed my github repo when Microsoft bought them.

      Anyone who didn't is a tool.

      This was an obvious outcome.

      • Yeah lets cripple open source projects by not using the best, free hosting platform. Because if a DMCA notice comes they will move your code to a new repository (where it can still be downloaded). This way we can hinder development of open source? Your argument defies all logic. As far as I can see, GitHub is handling this exactly right. It's a reason to move code to GitHub not away
        • Yeah lets cripple open source projects by not using the best, free hosting platform.

          It's not the best if it's owned by Microsoft, because they are still sleazebags.

          As far as I can see, GitHub is handling this exactly right.

          Then you're blind. They didn't have to take it down because it wasn't a copyright claim. Microsoft is a member of the RIAA, despite not producing music or representing any recording artists, and as a member Microsoft actually participated in the takedown request.

          • The actual problem with youtube-dl is that it is an anti-circumvention tool or at least RIAA is claiming that it is. Sure GitHub could hire lawyers to write back and then RIAA would send them a cease-and-desist letter which they would ignore at their own peril. Then GitHub has to make a decision on its own. And they have no interest in defending a suit that claims they are trafficking in anti-circumvention tools. And then they take the rep down permanently. Instead what they did was move it to their DM
          • They have a valid anti-circumvention claim that a reasonable jury could find is in violation, which means this could easily turn into a very nasty (and expensive) legal fight. Github would probably win, but that doesn't change the fact that it would be very expensive. It would be better if it was reworked (basically rewritten) and then emphasized non-infringing use in its examples.

  • Looks like a classic example...

  • What the fuck is so difficult about setting up your own git hosting service nowadays?

    If you're a developer, you should be able to start an application on a linux raspberry behind a dyndns name, for crying out loud...

    • by dyfet ( 154716 )

      Indeed, I actually do use gitea. It is easier to get ci and other kinds of tools setup on a gitlab (or github, or gitee), and you can offload who makes backups, get access to hosted code analysis easier, etc, sure. But the real answer is you can be on multiple remotes in git, and hence push your work multiple places, including a local gitea. If your public facing repos are shut down at least your core team can continue working together undisrupted on a private gitea site, perhaps minus a few things, and you

  • if Google just made all YT videos downloadable and this tool weren't a requirement.

  • Good thing it's so damn easy to use I was able to clone this repo in like 5 seconds. Fuck off, RIAA.

  • You knew this would happen. So they own Github, Linkedin and who knows what else. ""Embrace, extend, and extinguish" (EEE),[1] also known as "embrace, extend, and exterminate",[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[3] was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences in order to strongly disadvantage its competitors. https:/ [wikipedia.org]

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