Adobe Goes After 27-Year Old 'Pirated' Copy of Acrobat Reader 1.0 for MS-DOS (torrentfreak.com) 58
"Adobe doesn't want third-parties to pirate its software, so the company regularly sends out DMCA notices to remove infringing copies," reports TorrentFreak. In a recent tweet, F-Secure researcher Mikko Hypponen mentioned that the software company removed one of his tweets that linked to an old copy of Acrobat Reader for MS-DOS, which came out more than 27-years ago, shortly after the PDF was invented. From the report: The security researcher posted the tweet five years ago and at the time there were no issues. The message was copied a few weeks ago by his own Twitter bot, which reposts all his original tweets five years later. "They sent a DMCA notice to my bot (@mikko__2016) when it posted that tweet on the tweet's 5th anniversary. The original tweet is fine," Hypponen notes. While the original tweet is still up, the reposted message was swiftly removed by Twitter. Not just that, the bot's account was locked as well, which is standard practice nowadays.
Looking more closely at the takedown notice, we see that it was sent by the "brand protection analyst" at Incopro, which is one of Adobe's anti-piracy partners. It doesn't provide any further details on the reasons for taking it down, other than an alleged copyright infringement. Things get even more curious when we look at the full DMCA notice, posted by the Lumen database. This shows that the tweet was listed among other links, which all point to "infringing' copies of more recent software. Intriguingly, the notice also reveals that Hypponen's original tweet was targeted as well, albeit indirectly. The takedown notice lists t.co/tbAT0CH25o, which still points to the 2016 tweet today, so Twitter decided not to take action there.
We wonder if the DMCA notice is intentional at all. Over the years we have seen many bizarre takedown claims, which are often the result of automated filters. That may be a plausible explanation here as well. In that case, it shows that DMCA takedown process is far from perfect. However, if Adobe seriously has a problem with the fact that a 27-year-old copy of Acrobat Reader is being shared on an external site, it's more effective to target the site where it's hosted. Not the person who links to it in a tweet.
Looking more closely at the takedown notice, we see that it was sent by the "brand protection analyst" at Incopro, which is one of Adobe's anti-piracy partners. It doesn't provide any further details on the reasons for taking it down, other than an alleged copyright infringement. Things get even more curious when we look at the full DMCA notice, posted by the Lumen database. This shows that the tweet was listed among other links, which all point to "infringing' copies of more recent software. Intriguingly, the notice also reveals that Hypponen's original tweet was targeted as well, albeit indirectly. The takedown notice lists t.co/tbAT0CH25o, which still points to the 2016 tweet today, so Twitter decided not to take action there.
We wonder if the DMCA notice is intentional at all. Over the years we have seen many bizarre takedown claims, which are often the result of automated filters. That may be a plausible explanation here as well. In that case, it shows that DMCA takedown process is far from perfect. However, if Adobe seriously has a problem with the fact that a 27-year-old copy of Acrobat Reader is being shared on an external site, it's more effective to target the site where it's hosted. Not the person who links to it in a tweet.
Didn't the IRS pay for reader for all users at one (Score:2)
Didn't the IRS pay for reader for all users at one point?
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this site clams it was $50/user for some time (Score:3)
https://macintoshgarden.org/ap... [macintoshgarden.org]
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this site clams it was $50/user for some time
But the license included with the software that was DMCAed says "You may make unlimited copies of the Software and give copies to other persons or entities"
Perhaps if they sent a DMCA to take down the copy your linked site is talking about, it wouldn't be quite as bad of an issue.
But they sent a DMCA to take down a link to a program with a license included in it that says you have permission to give it to others.
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When did anybody ever have to pay for Reader?
Version 1.0, released in 1994, was not free. At some point after that, Adobe made it a free program.
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When did anybody ever have to pay for Reader?
Version 1.0, released in 1994, was not free. At some point after that, Adobe made it a free program.
Uh, perhaps we could back up here a bit and explain why the hell a PDF reader for MS-DOS, exists, before figuring out why they charged for it.
Nothing like a PDF reader for a CLI to make you go WTF.
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This may come as a shock to you, but DOS had non-CLI applications. Like games and picture viewers or even the entire Windows environment prior to XP; all DOS applications.
Hard to believe that Zork was not the only game we had, I know.
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I know people have forgotten how rich and fun that early period of the PC era was. I still miss my PC-AT, and the the i386 I had after it. There was so much to play with and even though I am sure all sorts of prior art existed in the academic world. Every time "The Software Labs" catalog showed up you saw something you'd never seen someone try to do with the computer before.
Everything was complex enough to be interesting, yet simple enough you could understand if you wanted to. It was fun to because if you
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DOS definitely meets the academic definition of an OS. However it is very different from a modern multiuser-multitasking OS which is why it doesn't seem like it should. If you only define an OS by the modern perspective then it is not. But that is not the definition of an OS.
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I would argue DOS was not an OS because it was not really managing anything while a user program was executing. It had functions that could be called. It had interrupt handlers in place to do things etc - but no ability to prevent the program from changing any of these things and many frequently did. Not only was in capable of doing these things it was not considered unsupported or bad practice to do them at the time.
DOS was boot loader, a pack of filesystem and disk routines, and some keyboard and text mo
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By your definition no single tasking OS is actually an OS. Which is preposterous since there was a point in time where most OS in the home computer space were single tasking yet their status as an OS was never in doubt.
Re:Didn't the IRS pay for reader for all users at (Score:4, Interesting)
Uh, perhaps we could back up here a bit and explain why the hell a PDF reader for MS-DOS, exists, before figuring out why they charged for it.
Nothing like a PDF reader for a CLI to make you go WTF.
I'm guessing you never used Microsoft Word before they created the Windows version?
In case you're wondering, it supported graphics and used a mouse.
well DUH (Score:5, Funny)
the company's name is Incopro, which, loosely translated from Latin, means "in shit". what'd you seriously expect?
Obviously (Score:1)
Well, of course they have a problem with it. That version isn't bundled with any spyware functionality, nor does it shill for any useless software that will slow down your computer and also spy on you.
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But it will take ten minutes to open while scrolling the name of everyone from the CEO to the janitor down your screen.
I guess my question is why anyone would even consider using Acrobat Reader, of any version. There are a lot of better free-er PDF readers out there.
It belongs in a museum (disney owns that now) (Score:2)
It belongs in a museum (disney owns that now)
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No penalty. (Score:5, Insightful)
We wonder if the DMCA notice is intentional at all.
Without a penalty for improper use of the DMCA then they have no incentive to not blast everyone and everything for infringement.
Re:No penalty. (Score:5, Funny)
Without a penalty for improper use of the DMCA then they have no incentive to not blast everyone and everything for infringement.
Don't worry, I just flagged your post for infringement. Can't be too sure in this era, you probably stole that from somebody.
Every tweet is copyrighted (Score:5, Funny)
I found every one of your words in the dictionary. Clearly you've ripped off Oxford or Websters.
Your place in this world is to consume. Corporations are here to produce. You'd be best to not interfere with that.
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You used the trademarks Oxford(TM) and Websters(TM) without attribution, i couldn't tell if you were an official representative of the company or not. You owe them 5 bajillion dollars for trademark infringement.
Note - the trademarks used in this post were used for descriptive purposes only and do not imply endorsement or association in any way with the the trademark owners. Trademarks are property of their respective owners.
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Romulus and Remus Corp here, we trademarked all these letters at 750BC (except for J, U, W, Y, and Z). After each letter you are required to have a (tm) symbol.
Re: No penalty. (Score:2)
Isn't the file from before the DMCA?
But the legal system may ignore that.
In any case thus shows that the net is now full of bots making it harder and harder to enjoy. I'd like to see that every takedown has to be reviewed by a group of humans before instead of automated takedowns.
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The age of file has no importance, only its copyrighted status. DMCA goes in current legal state to protect current rights of the valid copyright owner.
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There was copyright and other IP protections before the DMCA; it just clarified (hah) things for the online world.
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Not sure how automated the Fox News commentators are, but any laws against slander and libel seem to be suspended for those tools.
Is there no penlaty? (Score:2)
Without a penalty for improper use of the DMCA then they have no incentive to not blast everyone and everything for infringement.
If there really is no penalty what stops people from turning the tables on these large corporations and reporting their marketing tweets etc. and getting them banned, blocked and/or deleted? That should get things fixed pretty quickly.
I suspect the problem is that there is a penalty it is just that nobody bothers to enforce it against large corporations which is even worse than there just not being one.
Re:Is there no penlaty? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If there really is no penalty what stops people from turning the tables on these large corporations and reporting their marketing tweets etc. and getting them banned, blocked and/or deleted? That should get things fixed pretty quickly.
That's Ok if you genuinely believe that their tweets for example infringe on your copyright. Adobe can reasonably claim that they believed anything called "Adobe Acrobat Reader" is infringing if it is not an Adobe Acrobat Reader that any current employee remembers but a 27 year old version. Just a mistake. Now you try to explain to a judge why you think a marketing tweet from Adobe would infringe your copyright.
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If there really is no penalty what stops people from turning the tables on these large corporations and reporting their marketing tweets etc. and getting them banned, blocked and/or deleted? That should get things fixed pretty quickly.
Why wouldn't you just ignore or block all the marketing?
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It's almost like they had written the laws themselves.
Oh, wait, they did.
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Without a penalty for improper use of the DMCA then they have no incentive to not blast everyone and everything for infringement.
You have to specify that you believe something infringes on the rights of work A, and you have to say under penalty of perjury that you are or represent the copyright holder of work A. "Work A" would be a current Adobe Reader. If they genuinely believe that this work infringes on the copyright of a current Adobe Reader then they didn't use the DMCA improperly.
Of course this is a rather absurd situation, where the supposedly infringing work is just an old version of the new work, legitimately owned, and i
Uh, Did anyone even read the license agreement? (Score:5, Informative)
Soo... The license agreement specifically states the following:
"You may make unlimited copies of the Software and give copies to other persons or entities as long as the copies contain this Agreement and the same
copyright and other proprietary notices that appear on or in the Software."
Why are they issuing takedown notices for posting this, when they gave the world permission to do this very thing?
Re: Uh, Did anyone even read the license agreement (Score:3)
It's all about bots and bots don't check legal agreements.
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And for issuing a DCMA for 1st amendment rights of press to republish previous news stories!
Death to bots!
Dmitry Sklyarov (Score:2)
Adobe is part of the corrupt plutocracy that will even advocate imprisonment for academics who threaten their profits and the status quo.
Here's a choice comment from back then:
https://features.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
demonstrating "same shit, different decade".
Whatever you do, don't tell them about... (Score:1)
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Wayback and Archive.org are going to be gone one day, soon I suspect.
We're way too willing to cede the Internet to those with the biggest war chest. And maybe I'm too much of a cynic, but I doubt intellectual property tyranny will be solved in my life time.
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Re:Whatever you do, don't tell them about... (Score:5, Informative)
https://archive.org/about/dmca... [archive.org]
Archive.org is exempt from the DMCA to a reasonable degree
You don't get to choose (Score:1)
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Posting anon to not remove positive mods...
You obviously came to comment without reading many of the comments [slashdot.org] already posted [slashdot.org], nor the link [winworldpc.com] in the original Tweet where one can find the LICENSE.TXT explaining that it's freeware and copies are perfectly okay...
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Bots (Score:2)
It looks like bots taking down bots.
The new world will be bots all the way down.
Gotta love the Streisand Effect (Score:2)
To quote Linus Torvalds.... [bit-tech.net]
Won't Surprise Me (Score:2)
Who needs them anyway? (Score:2)
Due process is dead (Score:2)
In case anyone has missed it, the entire notion of due process is dead. Everything from takedowns to cancel-culture means that nobody gets due process rights anymore. Guilty or not is irrelevant. Everyone is assumed to be guilty and good like trying to prove that you're not because you can't prove a negative.
My Review of First PJ Hobbit film also got DMCA'd (Score:1)